Are off-topic questions asked on Stack Exchange sites because they are more active/popular than other sites?

Question

Do people ask off-topic questions on sites in Stack Exchange network because some site is more popular, or more active, than other, more appropriate, sites?

Are there any statistics or has any research been done?

Answer 1

Do people ask off-topic questions on sites in Stack Exchange network because some site is more popular, or more active, than other, more appropriate, sites?

Yes, people can and do ask questions on a less appropriate site because:

• They don't know the scope of the sites
• They don't know about the other site
• They want a wider audience for their question
• Possibly other reasons

Are there any statistics or has any research been done?

10k+ users have some per-site statistics of merged questions (at least of the last 90 days). I'm not sure that this information is available to other users, or that there is more detailed statistics anywhere.

But the problem is that we don't actually know why the question was asked on a less appropriate site in the first place. It could be any of the above reasons. So, because of this, having this information is unlikely to be particularly useful.

The number of migrations to and from Stack Overflow (the most popular site of all, as far as I know) are very roughly the same, so this does actually (possibly) point to most users not being sure where to ask the question as opposed to consciously choosing the more popular site.

Also keep in mind that a question not being closed and/or migrated doesn't mean all that much - there are plenty of questions that still need to be closed and migration often requires moderator intervention, while closing and deleting a question doesn't.

Answer 2

I guess active makes it more popular. Active means a fast response and that's what people search for it. I don't know if there is research about that, but I think it is logical that active equal more popular.