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It has happened on occasion, due to the high amount of 10K moderators on SO that questions are migrated to the wrong site, and needs to be reversed. Although currently it is possible to re-open the question on the original site and delete the one on the destination site, it still leave the migrated too banner behind.

It would be useful if diamond moderators could reverse a migration, removing it from the destination site completely and re-activating it on the original site and at the same time removing the banners.

Previously it has been discussed educating the users around when to move questions, however this doesn't stop the problem.

As per Shog9

I have to admit I do like Shog9's suggestion regarding the post being closed as not programming related rather then re-opened, however, reasons for closing it on other sites should also be kept in mind, as this also applies to stuff being sent back forth between the sites.

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  • 8
    Is this your way of saying: don't give us all your SO crap! ;-)
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 13:17
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    You could say that. However it also happens with question from SF and I am sure it happens the other way around as well, although it is not often that questions are migrated on SU without a diamond mod being involved.
    – BinaryMisfit
    Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 13:20

3 Answers 3

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... sort of.

It's now possible to reject a migration, but rather than making this some special mod-only thing or yet another privilege/task you have to familiarize yourself with, it's instead a function of closing/deleting.

If a migrated question is closed on the destination (migration target) site as anything other than "exact duplicate" or "belongs on another site" (but not generic "off topic") it will result in the migration being rejected. If a migrated question is deleted, it will also be rejected.

When a question is rejected:

  • it's unlocked (but not reopened) on the source site
  • any answers that were deleted as part of the migration are undeleted on the source site
  • all migrated answers are deleted and locked on the destination site
  • the migrated questions are locked on the destination site
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    would "bounced-back" question get any indication that there was an attempt to migrate at all? I ask because if not, this seem to put "destination" site at risk of getting it migrated again, due to same mistake as at prior attempt
    – gnat
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 21:35
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    @gnat - it's in the revision history, and the post is still closed so there's no way to re-migrate it without first re-opening it.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 21:37
  • I see, thanks. Ie, only if post is later re-opened, and gets close-votes again, and close-voters don't look into revision history, only then repeated migration is possible right?
    – gnat
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 21:39
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    Could we get a 10k tools page that lists these bounce backs?
    – user7116
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 21:51
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    @gnat - yes, and by that point some flags are getting auto-raised about the close/reopen war (which is existing behavior).
    – Kevin Montrose
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 21:52
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    Does the post get bumped on the source site at time of bounceback?
    – Zelda
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 21:53
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    @BenBrocka - no, it doesn't.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 21:57
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    But if the question is locked on the destination site, doesn't that mean it will stick around forever (on the would-be destination)? Locked means it won't be auto-deleted, and I don't think people could vote to delete it either.
    – a cat
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 22:44
  • Praise be! I've been hoping for this for a long time.
    – ale
    Commented Mar 27, 2012 at 12:52
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    The thing I'd change is is the undeletion of all answers. Moderators/10K'ers delete certain answers before migrating. If that migration is rejected, then the answers the moderator deleted before moving the question over should stay deleted as they weren't answers to begin with. Why duplicate the work?
    – casperOne Mod
    Commented Mar 27, 2012 at 13:16
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    I suggest bounceback not work where the two sites in question are (in either order) a site and its meta. (Except SO and MSO.) This, because the two sites in question have the same community (in theory) and the same mods (even in practice).
    – msh210
    Commented Mar 27, 2012 at 18:07
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    @Ben - gonna need a link to investigate, what'd you close?
    – Kevin Montrose
    Commented Apr 1, 2012 at 4:52
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    @Ben looks correct to me, the answers were deleted and locked, the question was closed and locked, the source question has been unlocked, it's answers undeleted. History was recorded properly too, on the source site. Am I missing something, it is pretty late (for me).
    – Kevin Montrose
    Commented Apr 1, 2012 at 5:03
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    @Ben - ah no, there's still listed (unless actually deleted naturally). They probably shouldn't be (will have to talk to the team about edge cases), sort of historical interest-style... I'll look into getting that figured out next week.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Commented Apr 1, 2012 at 5:06
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    @ShaDowWizArd in this case there was no link to the revisions on the question (it wasn't edited). I'll remember to check the /revisions next time though
    – Zelda
    Commented Apr 4, 2012 at 13:17
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If the SO community says it doesn't belong on SO, then it would be a bit rude for you to override that: you're not a SO moderator.

However, I would be in favor of a feature that let you delete the question from your site and simultaneously change the close reason to "off-topic" on SO (in the process unlocking the original but leaving it closed). That would accomplish three helpful things:

  1. It would get the question off of your site.
  2. It would allow the question to be re-opened on SO, if the people so desired.
  3. It would allow the question to be deleted on SO, if the people so desired.
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    Yeah, I don't like the fact that migrated questions get locked. Besides what you said, it often keeps normal users from destroying belongs-on-* tags.
    – mmyers
    Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 17:29
  • I like your idea. The reason I posted this on meta was to get a better solution then just sending it back. I don't agree completely with your answer but I really like the idea.
    – BinaryMisfit
    Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 17:48
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    What are @Jeff's ideas on this one?
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Apr 13, 2010 at 8:00
  • +1 - I'd go one step further and let any user with enough rep to vote to close have the option to vote something as a bad migration / "should have been closed", but this seems like a viable option.
    – voretaq7
    Commented Jun 1, 2011 at 19:05
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    You know what else it should do? It should automatically notify everybody who voted for the migration and tell them to read the FAQ on the target site, and not to do it again. And if they vote for 3 bad migrations to a particular site, they aren't allowed to vote for migrations to that site in the future. EVER. AGAIN.
    – nhinkle
    Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 1:03
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I disagree. If it's migrated from SO, it didn't really belong there. While it might be irrelevant to SU or SF too, you have the option to close or delete it. There's just no point in sending it back! Just kill it there.

Clarification

I agree with the removing the migration banner part. I'm just not fond of migrating things back.

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    Correction, it most likely doesn't below there, the community (maybe as few as 2 members) isn't always right, we have question skimmers and people with no expertise in the topic (and so don't understand the question) voting to close because at a glance it looks like it doesn't belong. Most of the time you're correct, but it's not 100%.
    – Nick Craver
    Commented Aug 18, 2010 at 15:01
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    Sending it back to SO gives the SO mods a learning experience, so they're more careful in future migrations.
    – TRiG
    Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 18:01

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