Off-topic questions being moved to Super User [closed]

Question

Recently, I have noticed several topics being moved from Stack Overflow to Super User that are off-topic.

According to the FAQ:

and it is not about …

• videogames or consoles
• websites or web services like Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress
• electronic devices, media players, cell phones or smart phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer

However, questions related to websites and services as well as mobile devices are occasionally being moved from Stack Overflow to Super User, only to be closed by moderators several minutes to several hours later.

One recent example of such a question being moved is this question. The question is off-topic because the question concerns changing the settings on a smart phone. Even if one were to argue that this falls under the "insofar as they interface with your computer" clause, the phone is interfacing with a web service, not software on the user's computer.

Is there anything that can be done about these off-topic questions being moved to Super User?

This Meta Stack Overflow question addresses a similar issue with high-reputation users failing to recognize off-topic posting. Could such an approach be taken to help stop Stack Overflow's moderators from moving off-topic questions?

Answer 1

I don't know why this question suddenly showed up on page 1 for me, but I'll attempt an answer.

There was a recent change in the way the "Close" menu was structured. Previously the "Belongs on" categories were at the top level, encouraging you to pick one, and SuperUser was the least specialized of them. Now the top level simply includes "Off Topic", and a submenu appears to select another site to redirect the question to. There's a default in the sub menu so you don't even have to select anything.

I'd be curious to see statistics on how many off-topic questions have been directed to SuperUser both before and after the change. My guess is that this has substantially reduced the problem.

Answer 2

Here's the description for superuser given when you're closing a question as off-topic:

Q&A for computer enthusiasts and power users

Here's the longer description of superuser from its faq:

If you have a question about …

* computer hardware
* computer software

and it is not about …

* videogames or consoles
* websites or web services like Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress
* electronic devices, media players, cell phones or smart phones,

except insofar as they interface with your computer * a shopping or buying recommendation

Its easy for someone to get confused if their only exposure ever to super user is "Q&A for computer enthusiasts and power users." Computer entusiast === person who can fix anything whatsoever about computers right? Facebook, websites, and media players are all computer related, so why isn't the site for that?

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The problem comes from 3K+ users on SO not knowing what's on or off-topic for superuser. I can see a few ways of helping to better educate them:

• put some helpful info in privileges section for 3k users designed exact for this purpose.
• link to a description of what belongs on superuser in the close as off-topic superuser migration choice so users easily make a more informed decision about whether to migrate or not.
• require X rep on superuser before you can migrate questions there.

I think the first 2 would be fairly easy to implement and fair effective. The last would have a bigger impact but maybe be a little restrictive. The next question would probably be, "do we require rep on meta and SF before you can migrate questions there too?" It is possible to have a good understanding of a site without having rep there, so it might be frustrating to users who know what they're doing. You don't have to have answered a ton of questions on meta to know its for talking about stackoverflow and other stackexchange sites.

Answer 3

I still vow for creating some kind of "off topic" / "everything else" kind of stack website... So I've just made a proposal on Area 51 with a different approach for this!

The idea is to be that dumping place for all other stack sites. It'd also be the first place for newbies to go. A place for questions that belong to two or more stack sites. And lastly a place for every other off topic message, as long as it's not purely spam. Just let the community filter out anything that's purely propaganda / money / malicious.

After all, if all we need is a community big enough to commit to it, I think we already have that (in 5 minutes I've found two proposals on Area 51 with many people who are willing to commit to it, and they were both closed rather fast before it could grow more due to lack of having some context)!

I hope that this idea at least can evolve into something, even if something else, probably another name than gate, but with the "same open for any question" main concept. :)

edit: I think quora and reddit are obvious proof that this could work, but, now I think about it, although I think StackExchange rocks, the community in here in general is against "opinion based" questions so yeah, this would probably never work out! :(