Not all the SE sites are in the option when flagging a question as off topic. It would be nicer to suggest the exact SE site when flagging off-topic questions. Or am I missing something? Is such an option available in addition to notifying it in the comments section?
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2 Answers
There are two ways for migration:
(Flagging →) Closing → Off-Topic → Migration – This is only available for frequent migration targets. Academia has only its own Meta as target as this is activated by default.
Adding new migration targets here is possible in theory, but as far as I can tell, there is no site to which we are migrating very often. Most questions we get that are on-topic on another site are still closeworthy there (due to being unclear, opinion-based or similar) and thus they should not be migrated. Also such a target should only be established if close voters can be expected to have a clear idea as to what is on-topic on the target site, which does not hold here in my opinion.
Also note that if you flag for closure (and do not have the close privilege), the only effect closure has is that the close voters see this and may thus need less time to find out what shall be wrong with the question.
Migration by moderator – If you are sure that a post needs at most minor tweaks to be a good fit for another site, you can use a custom flag to alert a moderator to migrate it.
In this case, you can also flag to close. While custom close reasons exist for users with the close privilege, they are not available to flaggers (see here). So, all you can do is flag as blatantly off-topic, leave an explaining comment.
Two side notes:
- If you think a question is generally a good fit for another site, but has issues, advise the asker to improve these issues and read the other site’s guidelines.
- If you are not sure whether a question is a good fit for another site, state this in your comments and advise the asker to check the other site’s guidelines (or do so yourself). A considerable amount of users get frustrated because they are recommended other sites when their question does not actually fit there (we have this problem ourselves, see here).
answered Sep 15, 2015 at 15:09
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So, in short, I would not be able to flag with specific migration suggestion until I get the close privilege, right? Sep 16, 2015 at 4:07
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Yes, unless you want to migrate to Meta Academia and unless we decide to create a new predefined migration target.– Wrzlprmft ModSep 16, 2015 at 5:49
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Answer accepted! Now, how to suggest this feature to the admins? I see I am not the only one facing this problem. Why not have a auto drop-down combo box like the one on top of the web page to list the StackExchange community? Sep 16, 2015 at 6:09
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Why not have a auto drop-down combo box like the one on top of the web page to list the StackExchange community? – Because that would almost certainly end up in a lot of people suggesting sites or actually migrating to sites that are not actually fit for a question. Take for example this question that was also posted on Writers and closed there as well. Individual comments allow you to specify a question’s problems and how certain you are that a question fits on another site.– Wrzlprmft ModSep 16, 2015 at 6:18
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If you still want to suggest that we get some default migration target, suggest on Meta Academia. If you want to change something about the way the interface works (e.g., that you can use individual reasons when flagging to close or can always get some predefined dialogue with a drop down of all sites), you are better off on Meta Stack Exchange, but beware of duplicates.– Wrzlprmft ModSep 16, 2015 at 6:19
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Why can't it be based on majority rules? If most of the flags suggest the same SE site, then that can be the confirmed one. It would help both the moderators as well as the questioner. Sep 16, 2015 at 6:44
To suggest migration to another site, you have to add a custom comment. I was confused by this myself at first, but apparently this is a deliberate choice by design due to the very large number of SE sites that now exist (see this meta question for some history).
I would recommend adding a comment manually, and then using the "Blatantly off-topic" flagging reason.
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You cannot use a custom off-topic reason when flagging for closure.– Wrzlprmft ModSep 15, 2015 at 12:28
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In flagging, I still see: "Other (add a comment explaining what is wrong)" Is this high-privilege only?– jakebealSep 15, 2015 at 12:48
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@jakebeal: Yes. You can check by going through the flag dialogue on a site where you do not have the close privilege.– Wrzlprmft ModSep 15, 2015 at 15:10
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@Wrzlprmft Oh, hey, that's a smart thing to do... I am updating my answer accordingly.– jakebealSep 15, 2015 at 16:24