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Something I was doing the other day - working with .htaccess files - made me wonder where it would belong if I needed help - Stack Overflow or Server Fault. There might be some topics that fall in the middle, where they are of interest to programmers/developers, but it tends to be more on the IT side of the fence (database configurations are another good example).

So how should I go about deciding where to post a question? Should it be possible for me to use one site and cross-post (and gaining the rep on each side for that side's account, or for one to be forced into community wiki)?

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4 Answers 4

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No, I would not do that.

Post your question to the site you deem most appropriate, and the community will decide if it stays, or if it's migrated.

I sure hope the OpenID syncing between the sites will get better, so the questions aren't automatically changed to community wiki, but migrated to your user account on the other site.

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  • 2
    +1 for better OpenID syncing.
    – Thomas Owens
    Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 17:41
  • Is there an easy-for-the-user way to link or search between sites? If the OP is a member of SO, but not of SF, and submits a question on SO because there is no suitable answer there already, how does he get a link back to the correct answer, which is already answered on SF? Is there a way to set up a linking system in the search so that related sites can be targeted even if the person does not have an account on the other sites?
    – oosterwal
    Commented Mar 7, 2011 at 22:34
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    Questions that are merged are no longer made CWs... so... yay?
    – Catija
    Commented Aug 2, 2017 at 16:43
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Well, I would rather we had the ability to float a question across multiple communities, but automatic cross-posting might be the first step towards that.

It looks like previous answers are from over a year ago; I think it's worth re-considering this idea given that the proliferation of StackExchange sites is making it increasingly difficult for expert users, much less a casual user, to know where a question is best answered. (I struggle with questions posted in SO [geolocation] and the new gis.stackexchange, for example.)

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Take a look at the not-programming-related tag on StackOverflow and you'll see that 90% of those questions aren't really borderline. Most of them belong on superuser.com and the community has a bit of a derision toward those types of questions (Help me with my computer!) so they get closed rather quickly.

My inclination is unless you are talking about computer HARDWARE, you likely won't be closed if you post on stackoverflow or serverfault.

Then again, as fretje says, the community will decide!

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Absolutely you should do this! Topics discussed on Stack are often quite nuanced, and you'll get different perspectives from contributors with different focuses.

For instance, I often come across humanities questions that require questions on Mythology, Latin, Lit, and Philosophy to be fully addressed. (Some of these questions are related to Physics and Math as well, but it's trickier crossing over into the hard sciences.)

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