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I came across a question from 2009 that just got bumped: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/702286/what-open-source-ruby-or-rails-project-would-increase-your-appeal-to-a-potential

I know that it's off topic for Stack Overflow, but I don't know whether it should be migrated to Programmers.SE, or closed. The fate of the question isn't relevant to me, as I'm not an active member of Programmers.SE.

As Programmers.SE doesn't want bad questions migrated, should my default action be "can't be bothered deciding, send a flag asking for it to be closed", or should I flag the question and say "I don't know whether it should be closed or migrated. Can you choose the best option?"

(I have the ability to vote to close, but you can't kill zombie questions that way; flagging would be the only way!)

About the question: The question got two up-votes and a down-vote; it received seven answers, and the most-upvoted answer got seven up-votes.

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    Nobody wants bad questions migrated; the first rule is "don't migrate crap."
    – avpaderno
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 23:44
  • ... or I could just mention it on Meta. That fixed the problem within 6 minutes of asking!
    – Andrew Grimm
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 23:56

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Rule of thumb: If it's not academy-award quality, don't migrate it. Just vote to close.

If you flag, you should have an opinion about something that requires moderator intervention; don't just say "You decide." That kind of flag implies that the post didn't really need to be flagged.

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If it's a very old question that has not been bumped in the front page, then you can vote to close it, and flag it; if it is an old question that has been recently bumped in the front page, then voting to close it should be sufficient.

As per migrating bad questions, the first rule should be "don't migrate crap." it's not just programmers.SE that don't want bad questions; every SE site doesn't want bad questions being migrated to them.
Suppose that a question is non constructive; that question would be non constructive on any SE site, and it would be closed in any SE site it gets migrated to. There is no reason to migrate such questions, which would be closed in any case; it is better to close it in the site where the question has been asked.

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Flag it and vote it to close. Thats what I do.

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Vote to Close and Migrate to Programmers if you're unsure. Then flag it for the same if you feel it won't get enough activity to see it gets moved.

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  • Thanks for putting this option out there. It looks like the consensus is against this option!
    – Andrew Grimm
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 2:18
  • @Andrew, yeah, Programmers is a polarizing concept.
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 3:31
  • You've missed the point. If you don't know whether it's OK for Programmers (or Server Fault for that matter) but you know it's not OK for Stack Overflow, simply vote to close as "off topic". If in doubt, don't migrate.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Commented Dec 4, 2011 at 22:08

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