(Since Astronomy SE was created), roughly 61.4% of the questions migrated away from here go to Astronomy SE. And yet, the only site that users can vote to migrate to is the meta site (which actually only makes up 7.5% of the questions migrated away from the main site). Worldbuilding SE also makes up (since it was created) 10.7% of our migrations, so it might be worth having a path there as well. Having multiple migration options is definetly possible, SO has 5. Could this be added?
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$\begingroup$ "Roughly 61.4%" of all-time migrations is not a helpful statistic. How many migrations actually happened in the last year, and of those alone, how many actually needed this pathway? You're not going to justify it if those numbers aren't both close to triple-digits. $\endgroup$– NijCommented Aug 22 at 2:55
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$\begingroup$ Past year has had only 14 migrations (9 to astronomy and the other 5 to worldbuilding). There barely been trip,e digits from all migrations in the past 7 years combined@Nij $\endgroup$– StarshipCommented Aug 22 at 22:14
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$\begingroup$ So no special pathways are even necessary at all. $\endgroup$– NijCommented Aug 23 at 3:23
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$\begingroup$ How are you defining “necessary”. Is it taking up 90% of mod time? No. It is by far our most common migration and a path would be helpful? Yes. @Nij $\endgroup$– StarshipCommented Aug 23 at 9:44
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1$\begingroup$ If it does not take up much mod time, there is nothing wrong with a moderator flag requesting migration being handled in their regular workload. You are only further proving the point, this change is not necessary. $\endgroup$– NijCommented Aug 23 at 11:13
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$\begingroup$ Ideally, what can be done by the general community should be. This is clearly a very popular migration route and I don’t see the downside @Nij $\endgroup$– StarshipCommented Aug 23 at 11:18
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$\begingroup$ So, further agreement that it is nor necessary. There's a reason specific migration pathways are not common, not commonly requested, and not commonly provided. You're then going back over a point already established, it is not popular to migrate at all, let alone any specific site. $\endgroup$– NijCommented Aug 23 at 12:11
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$\begingroup$ @Nij yes there aren’t a lot of migrations total, but in terms of the migrations we have, this a very popular route $\endgroup$– StarshipCommented Aug 23 at 12:19
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$\begingroup$ @Nij I agree with Starship but I see where you're coming from. I won't say anything else to avoid me overthinking/overexplaining. $\endgroup$– Austin OvertonCommented Sep 5 at 4:17
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1 Answer
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I understand the perceived utility, but really to change anything in SE the bar is not just "Might this be something good to try?"
There are a few things necessary before a proposal to change something is given serious consideration:
- demonstrate harm due to the current situation using specific, documented examples of that harm in a convincing way. In this case, have moderators complained? Have migrations that should have happened not happened because of excessive work loads?
- review negative consequences carefully to make as sure as possible that it won't cause trouble and need to be reversed.
In addition to the users who close carefully, there are always people who close early, close often, and sometimes close without thinking. The "Closing this question because belongs on X" write-in close reasons, in my opinion, cause more trouble than they solve because they are often started by folks who are not familiar enough with the site and its history to realize that the question is indeed actually on-topic by community agreement in the past.
They don't carefully review the Community Policy Repository and think it's just up to them to decide what they think is on-topic or off-topic.
The situation with Astronomy SE and Space SE is stable and works well. There are simply some things that are on-topic in both sites - for example
- planetary-science and orbital-mechanics here in Space SE
- planetary-science and orbital-mechanics in Astronomy SE
- and the names of several different solar system objects, e.g. Mars.
Folks who might know that one of those is on-topic in Astronomy SE but not know it's also on-topic here might think "Aha! I found a close reason, yay!" and incorrectly "Close because belongs on..." the quesiton.
Simply put:
If it's not broke, don't fix it.
In other words, first demonstrate harm caused by the current situation, then review the proposed change carefully to see if it can result in new problems.
Only when we have these ready do we usually post a suggested change to the site.
