6

There are a number of questions here on Meta asking about the list of migration sites when you vote to close a question as off-topic. The list given is quite short and people have asked repeatedly if it could be made longer.

Example here: When voting to migrate an off-topic question, why is the list of sites limited?

There have been various answers given on these other questions as to why this isn't going to happen, mainly to avoid inexperienced users migrating stuff that shouldn't be migrated.

However, I have an alternative suggestion:

Can the list of migration sites be tailored to show sites that I am active in, rather than just being a fixed list.

So for example, I'm active on security.se, programmers.se, and a few others. I would like to see those sites listed, rather than tex.se and sharepoint.se, neither of which I know anything about.

I propose that the list should be adjusted to include sites where I am active. The list of default sites should only come into play if I'm not active on any other relevant SE sites.

While I agree that listing all the sites is a bad idea as discussed in other questions, I think that listing sites that I know something about should increase the effectiveness of the migration option.

It's probably best limited to sites that are likely to be relevant; ie just the tech sites for Stackoverflow -- don't bother listing the photography and cookery sites, even if I do have rep there. But other than that, I think this will significantly increase the usefulness and effectiveness of the off topic migration dialog.

Note: this question was raised as a result of a discussion in the comments on the previous question linked above. Please also see those comments.

Improve this question
5
  • Can you define "active"? Only showing sites where you have 3k rep already (i.e. close vote privileges) has also been suggested many times before..., for example: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/164774/…
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:23
  • @benisuǝqbackwards - I guess the definition of "active" is open for discussion. For me, even a few hundred rep should be sufficient, but if 3k is a better figure, that's fine. The point isn't that it changes anything about what I can do; it just changes where I can do it. (it's not like I've got 3k on tex.se or sharepoint.se, so by the same token, why are they listed?)
    – Spudley
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:42
  • @Spudley: A few hundred rep is way too little (I have seen a lot of the bad migrations to Programmers.SE. You need something >2k)
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:47
  • @Spudley: Because, by the stats, apparently the community is good at judging what goes to TeX.SE and Sharepoint.SE, and is bad at judging what goes to ProgSE and SF.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:48
  • that's because tex is an extremely narrow topic; only experts in it would likely even see those questions much less take the time to moderate them, so of course the quality is good. for the rest of us, having it in the list at all is a waste of time; I may as well just have a shorter list, because I will never vote to migrate to tex. Stuff I am expert in I don't have the option, so I guess there's a bias in favour of tex experts? (I know that's untrue but the perception could be there). Agreed that prog.se is way open to bad migrate votes because it's broad, but others could be worth it.
    – Spudley
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 19:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

While I agree with the sentiment (for a sufficiently high rep threshhold on the destination site, of course), I don't think this would be of much practical use. Why? Because you will need to find four other people who:

  • Have 3k rep on SO
  • Come across the question
  • Have enough rep on the destination site?

I think you'd be hard pressed to have two such close votes come in, let alone four.

The current system of flagging works well, why complicate it?

Improve this answer
6
  • To have some community moderation instead of just moderator moderation? Isn't that supposed to be one of the major features of SE?
    – blahdiblah
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:37
  • 1. Why would all close votes need to point to the same destination? (does that even apply now?). Those with insufficient rep elsewhere could just vote as off topic, as the do currently. 2. People with relevant expertise are more likely to read any given question than those without. 3) The amount of rep required on the dest site is open for discussion. Also, given the size of the close vote review queue, I think there's room for debate about how well the flagging system works.
    – Spudley
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:39
  • 1
    @blahdiblah: Because community moderation when it comes to migration is a disaster. This may help mitigate that, but still, migration is an icky business. And this form of implementing it is unfeasible, as listed above.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:42
  • 1
    @Spudley: In regards to #1: Well, because your whole feature revolves around being able to migrate. In order for a migration to occur automatically, it has to have a super-majority of four off-topic close votes pointing to that site. So if that can't happen, why implement this feature at all? Why can't you just vote to close as off-topic in that case?
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:44
  • @Spudley: (1) OK, so how many people should it take to migrate? 1 migrate vote and 4 off topics? Nope, that's unilateral. 2 is still small. 3 would be OK, but IMO it would be hard to find people with the relevant expertise in the time interval after you close vote and before it gets closed by the rest of the community (there are many more 3ks without rep on that site who will see the question than those with).
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:46
  • (3) What does flag-to-migrate have anything to do with the review queues? And the review queues are only that size because of a huge backlog of posts that would have been otherwise ignored being imported into them when the feature was implemented.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 18:49

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .