3

When flagging a question for migration, only a very short list (dare I say even a tiny list seeing all the wasted white space around it) of other StackExchange sites is proposed (namely Meta, StackOverflow, SuperUser and ServerFault).

Why is it so?

When searching Meta, I've found older posts dealing with the creation of this list during the Beta era, but nothing explaining the reason behind this limitation.

This caused me a problem since I was not able to flag this question to be migrated to ProWebmasters where website content copyright issue seems to be well covered.

Personally, from an accessibility point of view I would understand to put most frequent sites as they are now, and below having a drop down list to select another less frequent site among all the other StackExchange sites.

However, current interface seems to willingly put a strong limitation on questions migration requiring the user to close the question here to recreate it from scratch on the other site... It does not seem practical for me, and I do not understand the reason behind such a rule.

4
  • In addition to my answer, the specific question you linked to isn't asking about website content copyright. It is asking whether or not he can sue - which is legal advice, and not answerable on any SE site. – Rory Alsop♦ Apr 20 '15 at 11:47
  • 1
    OK, however if I were him I would still go on this site since similar question seems to have been already posted and answered there, with apparently useful advices like contact the offending people first, then contact the hosting companies, keep all exchanges and at last only if nothing helps then one can think about suing... These are not legal advices, these are webmaster advices as we can find security advices here without involving a full-fledged security audit :). – WhiteWinterWolf Apr 20 '15 at 14:15
  • Agreed. That makes a lot of sense – Rory Alsop♦ Apr 20 '15 at 14:20
  • This is EXACTLY the question I was coming over here to ask! lol – Matthew Peters Apr 23 '15 at 20:39
9

The vast majority of all migrations are to the top two in the list, these were chosen from the initial data gathered when we were a young site and mods had to do most of the migration. This has been updated over time - we get extensive stats - and when we look at the number of migrations and rejections, it makes no sense at all to let this be an open ended list.

If you think it should be migrated to somewhere not in the list, just flag as something else and leave a description in the commentary box. A mod will see it and if it should be migrated to that site will take care of it.

8
  • 1
    Part of the reason they're the top two is because they're the top two. The workflow for migrating to an on-the-list site is much simpler and clearer than that for migrating elsewhere, particularly if you've encountered the question through a review queue. I know I've voted to migrate to SuperUser when Unix&Linux is a better fit simply because SU is on the list and U&L isn't, and I suspect other people have as well. – Mark Apr 20 '15 at 21:00
  • 1
    If you think it should go to U&L, select close - other - and write U&L. – Rory Alsop♦ Apr 20 '15 at 21:12
  • 1
    From a UX POV why not simply add a dropdown of all our sites? Perhaps after the flagger selects a radio button called 'other'. – Matthew Peters Apr 23 '15 at 20:42
  • I can think of two reasons: the vast majority of sites will never be appropriate destinations; it's really not that big a problem – Rory Alsop♦ Apr 23 '15 at 20:44
  • @RoryAlsop, I would love to see some stats on how many questions have been migrated to off the wall sites like food.SX ;) As for the UX, there should at least be a note saying something to the effect of 'do you think this question belongs on a SX site not listed here? flag it as 'other' and list the site in the comment box'. Personally, I say make the dropdown but if it's a matter of payoff vs time invested, a simple note may work. Additionally, I think by not having the workflow/datatree well defined it may turn off users to modding/flagging in general... – Matthew Peters Apr 24 '15 at 14:35
  • Stats are mod only I'm afraid. And from being a mod on various sites I can say it would be a nightmare from a quality management perspective. On some sites I could see the argument for having maybe up to 5 choices, but it would cause so many problems for mods to clean up later. – Rory Alsop♦ Apr 24 '15 at 14:45
  • Also, that is what folks do when they want a migration to another site. The process seems to work well across the whole network – Rory Alsop♦ Apr 24 '15 at 14:46
  • @RoryAlsop, fair enough. I'll defer to your experience. – Matthew Peters Apr 29 '15 at 13:55

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .