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Original title: Migration weirdness (SO->SU, SO->SF->SU)

A duplicate migration happened. A question was posted to SO 22hrs ago; it was soon migrated to SU; it was migrated again to SF, either around the same time or 20hrs later; SF migrated it to SU around 2hrs ago.

Here's the apparent timeline:

Is the double-migration from SO due to a known bug, something new, or accidental double-migration?

Edit: OK, the revisions links show the UTC times so we can trace the timeline correctly. SO migrated the question to SF first, then an SO mod reopened and migrated the question to SU. Finally SF migrated their copy to SU. I'm fairly confident this is a reasonable interpretation and thus not a bug.

Question:
Is there anything we mods can/should do to avoid this sort of thing in the future? For this example, should the SO mod have flagged the SF version for the SF mods to delete?

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  • I was about to flag the two SU questions for merge - then I saw who was askin' ;-p
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 13:27
  • @marc - that's cool, i was debating whether to go flag the originating SO post for nuke-from-orbit to make sure it doesn't happen again :) ... i didn't want to merge them immediately in case folks wanted to examine them separately.
    – quack quixote
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 13:36
  • 2
    Doesn't even show the SF move: stackoverflow.com/posts/2546144/revisions
    – random
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 13:51
  • @random yeah, the timeline link shows the same thing. oooo, the revisions link shows UTC tooltips where the timelines don't. thanks for making me look twice.
    – quack quixote
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 13:59
  • @arjan: didja notice the comment on the original SU version that suggested moving it to SF? now that woulda been fun for hours ... SO->SF->SU->... and SO->SU->SF->...
    – quack quixote
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 16:45
  • Quite condensed migration/closed information on SF ;-) img.skitch.com/20100331-kixhd8inwqacmhwyx47uwqyk81.png (full image for those who don't recognise the colours)
    – Arjan
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 16:49
  • If I see a migrated question that doesn't belong on SU, I would rather opt to close it. As it is likely to be of poor quality as well and likely to be closed or migrated from it's new destination. Rather than moving the problem, solve it!
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 17:21

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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If a question lands on a site and it's been torched back at the sender, then it should have its migration history cleared on the destination. That way you don't have that dead link stub pointing back to a now deleted question.

Similarly, when you find one that's been multi-posted and you're ready for the magic merge process, check back first with where it came from so that if you're merging away the migrated question, you can flag the mods back at the other site to delete that copy since it will now also lead to a dead end.

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  • There was a link in a comment somewhere about the difference between cross and multi-posting. Can't remember where or who. The shame of memory.
    – random
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 16:40
  • i vaguely remember some issue (back in january, maybe) where a multiple migration caused some problem, and it was deemed necessary to flag a mod to have the migration info cleared before the second migration. i don't remember why tho or if that's been fixed already.
    – quack quixote
    Commented Mar 31, 2010 at 16:47
-2 
10 STOP MIGRATING QUESTIONS
20 GOTO 10

Seriously, migrated questions are usually of poor quality and are often migrated to the wrong site. Just close the question and let the user re-ask on another site if they feel like it.

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