Transfer of Questions to Other Sites

Question

From time to time questions come up that clearly would better fit to other sites. As of now, the procedure of

-> CLOSE
   -> COMMUNITY REASON
      -> OTHER SITE

only allows the selection of Meta, as standard for beta sties. AFAIK graduating enables moderators to add other targets.

• Is that true?
• Can it already be done?

If yes to both, I think it would be a good idea to collect a list of targets (*1). Personally I think

• Main SO - for generic Programming questions
• Electrical Engineering - for basic Hardware related questions
• Arqade - for Arcade related questions

should be added to that list. Meta may need to stay (as last option) for cases needing moderation.

Looking at The Stats (Thanks for the reminder to Stephen) show a few several migrations

Questions were migrated to

• 6 to Unix & Linux
• 5 to Electrical Engineering
• 4 to Super User
• 2 to Computer Science
• 2 to Arqade

an one to each of Video Production, the main SO, Law and Raspberry Pi (*1). So at least Unix, SU and CS would further make wortwhile candidates.

• Any other to be added?

---

*1 - I understand this list as a helper to users suggesting migration, so moderators doing this get an suggestion where to it should go.

*2 - Not many, which makes me wonder if our readers are that well verses in making only on topic questions or if we're hesitating too much to move border on topic ones.

Answer 1

Yes it is true, we can add (and/or edit) both site-specific close reasons and migration targets as we become a graduated site.

Close reason changes require two moderators to agree on the action and click the appropriate buttons. Migration target changes, as far as I know, have to be made by SE staff upon request.

The answer by user3840170 makes a very good point - do we need them? Assuming that we do, the targets should be chosen very carefully. Migration is not something that is done lightly. Before migrating anything under the current system, moderators go through a checklist before clicking the button. It can be too easy to migrate on a whim. Look at the arguments on ELU and ELL metas regarding migration between those two sites. The last thing we want is something similar between us and - for example - Arqade.

I'm not against it, just against haste.

Answer 2

I don’t think we need more automatic migration paths. According to our listing (as of January 2022), since June 2016 we have only had 37 questions migrated away; that’s barely more than one migrated question per two months. Of those, 14 (nearly half) were to our own Meta. The current unofficial system in which community members suggest migration paths to moderators in comments seems just enough to handle a volume this low.

I fear automatic migration paths would mostly serve as a new favourite hammer of knee-jerk close voters to whom everything looks like a nail, e.g. voting off questions to Arqade at the first mention of video games anywhere. (It’s not like we aren’t ourselves victims of overzealous migration from Super User…) Because I do think we have something of a problem with overzealous closing (see Question mischaracterized as off-topic, Why is the question about running Windows 95 in DOSBox supposedly off-topic?, What was unclear about this question?). I think requiring a moderator intervention in this process could do well to temper this tendency.