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I just read this question on superuser.com: "How do I disable beeping in the Windows console?"

The first answerer pointed out that the question has been well-answered on stackoverflow.com.

Except ... that it's not a programming question. Superuser is clearly the best place for it. The SO question was asked nine months ago, before SU existed.

Should I go vote to close-migrate on the SO question?

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  • It should be noted that the question in question actually has been migrated to SuperUser.
    – MC Emperor
    Nov 25, 2021 at 9:51

3 Answers 3

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Current (mid-2012) consensus is that old questions should NOT be migrated.

See this answer for an excellent argument against migrating old questions because of the disruptive effect on the receiving community.

See also this official SE blog post which covers this issue:

Finally, be extremely reluctant to migrate old, answered questions. The votes and answers on these reflect the opinions and work of the community where they originated, and in most cases they’ll be somewhat out of place elsewhere – you want your greatest hits to reflect the best that your community has to offer, not someone else’s. And, again, the migration can come across as rude: if someone has invested serious effort into an answer and has linked to it on their blog or from their résumé, then snatching it from them without due consideration won’t endear them to you. Only migrate these questions when the alternative is deletion.

DO NOT MIGRATE OLD, ANSWERED QUESTIONS

LaTeX, I'm looking at you here.

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    Stack Overflow in particular has had some pretty big exceptions to this, since early in its history a lot of things were allowed that weren't really at all on-topic - hence the creation of sites like Super User. If an old question is blatantly off-topic, there's still a case to be made for migration - but if it can fit, leave it sit.
    – Shog9
    Jul 26, 2012 at 0:07
  • @Shog9 IMO Stack Overflow's one of the worst to migrate from. If it is one of those really old, totally off topic ones, odds are it has 50 votes and is totally mediocre. Ends up totally out of place on the target site (and the owner has totally out of place rep to boot)
    – Ben Brocka
    Jul 26, 2012 at 1:27
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    @BenBrocka: There are lots of old questions that have only a few votes but would be perfectly god on a target site.
    – Mechanical snail
    Jul 26, 2012 at 2:33
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I say yes. In fact, to use this particular question as an example, the reason why Greg duplicated an existing question is because it was on the "wrong" site.

I've personally requested a question or two moved from StackOverflow as they fit better on Meta, but in general I think this is a good idea. Just flag it for moderator review and request that it be moved.

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    agreed [15 char]
    – ahsteele
    Jul 22, 2009 at 4:58
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    Agreed. Should migrate.
    – Sauron
    Jul 22, 2009 at 5:34
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In general, I think yes, we should do it. Being old doesn't make a difference.

By the way, this specific question is programming related IMO.

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