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After the stackoverflow question clean-up exercise, i found the old interview questions threads that were popular and highly regarded back in the days to be deleted as well (can no longer find them - dead links). Naturally, my answers and others' went down with them. Which means, I no longer have a "permanent" page to revisit for reference nor tell other folks to read through.

Perhaps those threads could have beeen moved to the programmers site?

UPDATE

Example question in discussion: Identifying passionate programmers (see if anybody else can actually see that anymore?)

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    Why would Programmers.SE take them? Are they good Programmers.SE questions, or do you just want to use Prog.SE as a dump site for stuff that won't pass muster on SO?
    – Nicol Bolas
    Apr 16, 2012 at 3:40
  • Because judging from the content people put into those threads and the popularity votes, I felt the programmer community could continue to benefit from their presence. Since Stackoverflow is no longer the place to house them, I thought Programmers would be the next suitable "container".
    – icelava
    Apr 16, 2012 at 6:33
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    Also see: Please stop using Programmers.SE as your toilet bowl
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Apr 16, 2012 at 6:37
  • thanks Establishment. I think there's a perception i was proposing for all deleted questions to move over to Programmers, which was not my suggestion. I have adjusted the subject title.
    – icelava
    Apr 16, 2012 at 6:46
  • on the other hand, if Programmers is not a suitable destination, do we have another alternative?
    – icelava
    Apr 16, 2012 at 6:47
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    If you think that a specific question is a good candidate for migration to Programmers, you should use the "flag" link that appears under the question, click the "other" radio button, and explain to a moderator why, specifically, you think that question deserves to be migrated.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Apr 16, 2012 at 6:59
  • But the questions have been deleted and I cannot find them anymore. =(
    – icelava
    Apr 16, 2012 at 10:48
  • @icelava: Then you'll need to get a 10K rep user to do it. And you'll still need to get a link to it.
    – Nicol Bolas
    Apr 16, 2012 at 11:09

3 Answers 3

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During the lifespan of many SE sites, the scope and focus will often change. Often this is in the "narrowing" direction. In order to maintain usefulness and focus in the face of growing popularity, the tolerance level for off topic material must go down. It is possible that some content simply won't have a home inside the scope of any SE site.

I'm sorry you've been negatively affected by this, but please try to understand how cleanup is good for the overall community. In particular, historic popularity is can often be a NEGATIVE indicator of current applicability to the goals of SE's QnA methodology.

If you have written content that you are attached to and think is worth archiving for future reference, you may want to post a copy of it on your personal site. As the author, you release your content under a CC licence by posting here, but you still have to right to post it elsewhere as well.

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  • I would never have considered to "preserve" the content (all questions and answers) elsewhere since I thought it would just remain there perpetually. sad that useful material that i'd refer to every now and then is gone.
    – icelava
    Apr 16, 2012 at 16:50
  • @icelava You should be aware that things don't just get deleted overnight. Closure comes first, and questions usually sit closed for a long time before they get deleted. If you find yourself referring back to closed posts, that should be the time to think about future homes for that content.
    – Caleb
    Apr 16, 2012 at 17:15
  • I wouldn't have realised when threads got marked and eventually deleted; I don't keep track of everything. I only got wind of it when the new reputation calculation system was announced.
    – icelava
    Apr 18, 2012 at 10:13
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Thanks, but no thanks.

Programmers is not a site where questions that were deleted on Stack Overflow would fare any better. I'm sorry your answers went down with the questions, but migrating delete worthy questions to another site doesn't make much sense, for any reason.

We have a lot of unanswered questions where your answers would be more than welcome.

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  • I am not asking for every deleted question to migrate to Programmers. Just the ones about interview questions to candidates and companies; which is not just about my own answers but the good answers from many others lost too.
    – icelava
    Apr 16, 2012 at 6:37
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    @icelava: Questions should be taken on a case-by-case basis, not just grabbing a bunch of questions under one tag and flinging them around. Some of them may qualify for a historical lock, but you need to provide some evidence that those specific questions deserve it. I'm not much on deleting content, but when the words "worthwhile content" come to mind, I don't think "interview questions."
    – Nicol Bolas
    Apr 16, 2012 at 6:49
  • @NicolBolas yea you are right I should have been more specific about my definition instead of using a broad category. thanks.
    – icelava
    Apr 16, 2012 at 10:50
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Most emphatically:

NO.

Even if they were on topic - which I seriously doubt - migrating old questions doesn't help anyone.

  1. It doesn't help the OP - they've either already got the answer they want or have abandoned the question.
  2. It doesn't help the target site as it skews the reputation of those that participated in the question making it look like they are trusted more on the target site than they actually are.
  3. It doesn't really help the source site. If the question is off topic then just close and eventually delete.
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