Is there a feature that lets me cross post one of my questions from Stack Overflow to the Web Applications SE?
I want my question to appear on both sites, but I don't want to have to rewrite it.
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1Can I cross post questions from stackoverflow.com to meta.stackoverflow.com :) :)– Drew LeSueurCommented Dec 10, 2010 at 17:51
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2 Answers
Cross-posting questions is strongly discouraged. See
Allowing cross-posting is a slippery slope.
If you might have slightly better odds of getting an answer by posting it on two sites, well, by gum, why not maximize your odds by posting it on twenty sites!
There are some questions which fall into grey areas between sites, and I think it's OK to ask and delete, then re-ask if you feel you have asked on the wrong site.
But as a general rule, do not cross-post questions, please. Pick a site and go with it.
It is also ok to ask two different versions of a question but you MUST tailor it to the audience on that site. Copying and pasting would put you on the road to account suspension.
answered Dec 10, 2010 at 22:25
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For a question such as Configuring an IIS site, I would state that this is a Server Fault question, however, I believe that a lot more people on Stack Overflow would be able to answer the question who would not actively be browsing Server Fault. Is there a recommended route for this sort of question? Commented Mar 9, 2011 at 10:59
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1This doesn't seem to answer the question of what is wrong with, say, posting a question about syslog on both askubuntu.com and unix.SE, and perhaps also on SuperUser. In these sorts of cases there really is no best fit, especially if you are using ubuntu as your linux distro. Neither AU nor unix nor SU would be a "wrong" place to post such a question. I've previously cross-posted a question on all three, kept the posts meticulously updated with synchronized changes, and gotten different useful answers on all three cross-postings.– intuitedCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 14:54
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The only problem I can see with cross-posting on 20 sites is that, without engine support, it's a logistical nightmare to keep the answers straight, not to mention tedious legwork to actually push the posts and any updates. I suspect that the corollary to this is that it would also be a logistical nightmare on the back end to merge responses, comments, etc. from users with accounts on different sites.– intuitedCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 14:57
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Ermm.. i mean um, my friend cross-posted to those sites. That was it. Actually, if I recall/understood correctly, cross-posting of this nature was at that time encouraged, or at least at some point before then. It took me a while to get the memo :)– intuitedCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 15:01
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@intuit we really discourage cross-posting. We do support asking different versions of a question that are tailored to the audience on that particular site. Think Rashomon imdb.com/title/tt0042876 and for a practical example: blog.serverfault.com/post/… Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 22:56
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@Jeff: Sure, questions pertaining to the same issue, posed on SO, SF, and dba.SE would be posed from very different perspectives, and would focus on different aspects of the issue. I'm thinking more of sites which have significant overlap in their scope — not in the sense of having clearly delimited perspectives on an overlapping body of situations, but in the sense of having overlapping perspectives on situations.– intuitedCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 23:44
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@Jeff: So if I'm restricted to posting my question about syslog on only one of the SE sites rather than on unix, AU, SU, and SF, I miss out on the wisdom I could glean from the users who only frequent the other sites. It's pretty easy to come up with an example question that would logically be written in a very similar or identical way on all of those sites: something is weird with syslog; I run ubuntu; I don't know if this is something to do with ubuntu's config or build of syslog, or with the upstream package.– intuitedCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 23:48
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@intuit "if posting a question on one site is good, by golly, posting it on TWENTY sites is twenty times as good!" If you're not willing to respect the communities you're asking these things of by tailoring the question to them -- at a minimum -- why should they spend their valuable time answering your mindlessly copy-n-pasted question? Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 23:50
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@Jeff: I guess I'm still not understanding what exactly the rationale for disallowing this is: why it's inherently bad to post the exact same question on multiple sites. I can think of a few possibilities — partially or completely redundant Google results, annoyance with users who frequent multiple SE sites, a lack of a centralized gathering place for answers. But it seems like these problems could be worked around or resolved through some engine ugprades, like perhaps this idea.– intuitedCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 23:53
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@Jeff: No, I'm talking about cases where the question should naturally be posed in the same way to multiple sites. Maybe it would just require too much moderation effort to sift these out from the chaff?– intuitedCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 23:55
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@intuit see linux.sgms-centre.com/misc/netiquette.php#xpost and decades of prior art. If you honestly believe your question is so generic that it applies to 6 different audiences as-is, that's just another way of saying your question sucks. Commented Apr 2, 2011 at 0:08
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@Jeff: So what, I should only ask questions on askubuntu.com that cannot possibly apply to any other linux distro and have nothing to do with server administration? The fact that the scopes of some of the SE sites broadly overlap doesn't mean that stack exchange sucks, it just means that it's making the best of an inherently difficult undertaking. Some questions, as written, are bound to be applicable to more than one site.– intuitedCommented Apr 2, 2011 at 3:52
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@Jeff: For example: I asked identically-phrased questions about syslog on askubuntu (6 votes) and unix.SE (8 votes). Two very different discussions ensued. As phrased, the question could also have been posted on serverfault and superuser, albeit with an additional
unixorlinuxtag. Does that question "suck"? Again, my apologies for the rules violation; at the time I was unaware of this policy.– intuitedCommented Apr 2, 2011 at 3:59 -
@int yes, that is unacceptable. I migrated, merged, then deleted the merge and migration stubs. If you want to do this you MUST tailor the question to the audience. (And for the record I see zero reason this should ever have been asked on askubuntu at all.. there's nothing at all "ubuntu-y" about it, it's pure generic unix through and through.) Commented Apr 2, 2011 at 5:41
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@Jeff: Well, in order to know that for sure — for example, to preclude the possibility that a bug specific to ubuntu is causing this complication, or that a particular setting used in ubuntu makes this functionality work in an unusual way — you'd have to already know the answer to the question.– intuitedCommented Apr 2, 2011 at 5:48
If only they implemented some kind of feature for this...
ignoring the fact of whether it's ok to cross post or not
