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The question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6006916/unable-to-install-imagemagick-unmet-dependencies was closed as "Off topic" without being migrated.

As the closer in question was Jeff Atwood, I'm guessing that the close was the correct action, and I'm just learning the logic behind it.

If "How do I install this programming library?" is off-topic for Stack Overflow, then presumably it should be treated as a "How do I install X?" question. I assume that "How do I install X?" would be within the scope of at least Super User (if not Server Fault or Ask Ubuntu).

It's possible that the question was a bad question, and Jeff opposes migrating bad questions. But if that's the case, shouldn't it have been closed as "Not A Real Question"?

Where's my reasoning going wrong?

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  • It probably could have been migrated, but I suspect this is the reason that Jeff didn't.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 1:30
  • @Cody Gray: I tried to address this possibility in the second last paragraph.
    – Andrew Grimm
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 2:33
  • Ah, yes. I was on my iPhone earlier, so I didn't read as carefully as I normally would have... To answer your question, I (and I think he, but I can't really speak for others) tend to close questions that are off-topic but not worthy as migration as plain "off-topic". I reserve NARQ for things that would be on-topic, but are simply poor, invalid, or unanswerable questions. In the end, it's probably irrelevant which you choose--the point is to get the bad questions closed before they start attracting too many answers.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 5:05

3 Answers 3

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Generally when a question is closed without a migration, it's because it's highly likely it would be closed on the appropriate destination site, and propagating bad questions is not the goal of site-to-site migrations.

In this case, it looks like the question is too basic/broad and the user doesn't appear to have put any thought into asking it. The error describes what's wrong and how to resolve it, yet there's no indication the user did anything other than stop and create a question once he encountered an error.

It might be a style thing, but when I close as NARQ on Programmers, I do it when a question's content is on-topic, but the question is bad. But if it's off-topic and NARQ, I generally don't want to give the impression that the content of the question is on-topic (and with some editing or a re-ask it'll fly) so off-topic takes precedence.

Of course, I also leave a comment explaining the asker's recourse, but that's really untenable on Stack Overflow.

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  • And such questions are closed as off-topic rather than NARQ?
    – Andrew Grimm
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 0:41
  • 7
    @Andrew It might be a style thing, but when I close as NARQ on Programmers, I do it when a question's topic is on-topic, but the question is bad. But if it's off-topic and NARQ, I generally don't want to give the impression that the content of the question is on-topic, and with some editing or a re-ask it'll fly, so off-topic takes precedence. Of course, I also leave a comment explaining the asker's recourse, but that's really untenable on Stack Overflow.
    – user149432
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 0:43
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What's the golden rule of question migrations?

Don't. Migrate. Crap.

Guess what I thought that question was? Go on, guess!

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It's a real question about installing a program. Such a real question is not on topic at StackOverflow.

Could the question have been migrated? Maybe. Would it have been too broad? Perhaps a duplicate? Migrating a question is a courtesy in my opinion, but closing outright is justified.

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  • 4
    Describing migration as a courtesy, not the default whose non-use needs to be justified, helps me understand things.
    – Andrew Grimm
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 1:22
  • Seems like a valid question on superuser.com
    – Pacerier
    Commented Dec 19, 2014 at 18:23

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