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I suggest that when a post is migrated from one site to another, that the question vote score get reset to zero (or perhaps only a negative vote score is reset to zero). Often people will downvote a question when the only thing that's "wrong" with it is that it's posted on the incorrect site. After migration, those downvotes hang around as a negative score and may unfairly bias the treatment of the question.

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    I'd like it if the upvotes were zeroed too.
    – womble
    Commented Nov 26, 2009 at 19:45

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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As Jon has suggested, a migrated question with a negative score will now be reset to 0.

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I think just resetting negatives to 0 would be better than wiping it out completely.

If people have upvoted a question despite it being in the wrong place, that's an indication that it's a really good question - or possibly just an old question which had nowhere better to go at the time of posting (i.e. before Meta/SU/SF came about).

I don't see any reason to remove the community's approval of such posts - being moved to the right place is unlikely to make anyone approve of it less, but wiping out negative scores is reasonable as it may well make people disapprove of it less.

The only downside to this is the possibility that a user could vote on it twice, once on each site - I don't know if the vote "owners" are transferred via account associations.

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    People in the wrong place don't necessarily have the capability to judge what is a good question.
    – womble
    Commented Nov 26, 2009 at 20:23
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    I suspect that's true in a minority of cases... I would suggest that as the sites are at least in the same ballpark it wouldn't be the case very often. Note that it's much easier to judge a question as well-written etc than an answer.
    – Jon Skeet
    Commented Nov 26, 2009 at 20:36
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First off, I don't think people should downvote a question that belongs elsewhere, especially if it is from a new user. However, I think resetting the vote counts is a very good idea.

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  • I agree but some people are left with no other choice. It even happens that people will flag it as spam to avoid losing their own rep while registering their opinion on the appropriateness of the question.
    – tvanfosson
    Commented Jul 17, 2009 at 16:52
  • I strongly disagree. The votes should be copied over. Some people have put hard work into posts that may end up getting moved (FAQ, third party tools, etc) and they deserve to keep the points earned.
    – Kyle Cronin
    Commented Jul 17, 2009 at 16:56
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    I only suggested resetting negative votes, not positive votes. You would still be able to keep any points earned but the question would not be penalized for originating in the wrong forum.
    – tvanfosson
    Commented Jul 17, 2009 at 16:59
  • +1 for only resetting positive votes.
    – jamuraa
    Commented Jul 24, 2009 at 20:17
  • +1 Agree, people are less likley to look at a question with a negative score after migration
    – Nifle
    Commented Jul 27, 2009 at 20:20

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