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There have been many questions on CST that were either closed, or just not answered because they weren't considered research level. May those questions (as long as they are of good quality) be reposted or moved here?

I have a particular example question in mind: https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/10385/break-text-evenly-into-certain-number-of-lines

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    $\begingroup$ and here's another: cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/10208/… $\endgroup$
    – Joe
    Mar 7, 2012 at 0:40
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    $\begingroup$ could you please change the tile to "reposting closed questions from cstheory" so it matches the content of the post? $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 7, 2012 at 0:57

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If you're re-posting questions that were closed on CSTheory for not being a research-level question, this should be fine. But note that while most of these will be closed as "off topic", that does not necessarily make the question on-topic for this site.

Also, you should take care to re-post only questions that you yourself asked, or that reflect real problems you've had or could see yourself having. Don't just mass-migrate questions you have no particular interest in - this does not encourage useful answers.

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  • $\begingroup$ Should we ask the cstheory mods to migrate appropriate questions here (once the beta goes public), and/or tell them to ask if we want them? $\endgroup$
    – Kevin
    Mar 7, 2012 at 15:43
  • $\begingroup$ We really try to discourage a lot of question migration to and from beta sites, primarily for the reason I gave in the last paragraph (but also because it's, y'know, a beta site and could be shut down). $\endgroup$
    – Shog9
    Mar 7, 2012 at 16:08
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I am reluctant to migrate them to here since the cstheory community doesn't seem to like migration generally, but reposting questions which were closed as off-topic on cstheory (because of not being research-level or theoretical) on this site should be completely fine.

ps: cross-posting usually means that the question is posted and is open on more than one site.

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    $\begingroup$ I do not think reposting is a good idea; why create database junk if you can just migrate a question? Also, you require the OP to become active again. Afaik cstheory.SE is hesitant to migrate because they (we?) do not want to pollute other sites; I hope the cstheory.SE community has a good grasp what is computer science, so migrating (well posed) computer science questions here should (almost) never be an issue. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael
    Mar 7, 2012 at 0:57
  • $\begingroup$ @Raphael, no, that is not the reason. See this. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 7, 2012 at 1:01
  • $\begingroup$ Sound pretty similar, but fair enough. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael
    Mar 7, 2012 at 1:10
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    $\begingroup$ @Kaveh From CSTheory to CS, the source site would have a good idea of what is a good question on the target site, and the volume would be low. It's very different when the source is SO and the target is a site where people who've only seen the name don't bother to look at the first line of the FAQ and don't have a clue what “research level” means anyway. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Mar 7, 2012 at 1:15
  • $\begingroup$ @Raphael, one possibility is that the OP asks for the migration of a closed question, in which case I think I can migrate it without problem (when the question enters the public beta phase). Other than that, I would prefer not to migrate unilaterally to avoid causing problems. You can comment on closed posts and ask the OP to flag the question for migration. We might also be able to migrate closed questions which are more than a few months old, but that would need a discussion on cstheory meta. If you like the idea you can bring it up on cstheory meta when this site enters the public beta. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 7, 2012 at 1:16
  • $\begingroup$ @Gilles, as you can see on the post I have linked my personal opinion is that migration is fine for off-topic questions, but the community is more conservative because sometimes a non-research-level question receives a research-level answer and migrating the question in such cases causes friction. Anyway, I think we should leave this discussion for the next week when the site enters public beta. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 7, 2012 at 1:18
  • $\begingroup$ Agreed; we should not discuss other site's migration policies here. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael
    Mar 7, 2012 at 1:22
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think there's a problem with migration fron CStheory to here, since as Raphael points out, we should be able to understand this site mandate fairly well. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh
    Mar 7, 2012 at 5:08
  • $\begingroup$ @Suresh, I don't think that was the problem, we do (and did) understand the scope of Mathematics fairly well. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 7, 2012 at 5:24
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Multi-posting, i.e. posting the same question on several Stack Exchange sites, is strongly discouraged as a matter of network-level policy. In the specific case of CS and CSTheory, multi-posting should be forbidden.

If a question is asked on CSTheory, is a generally good CS question but is not research-level, it should be migrated to CS. I expect that when CS graduates, it will become a migration target for CSTheory; in the meantime CSTheory moderators can migrate the question.

Conversely, if a question about theoretical CS is asked on CS and turns out to be research-level, it may be migrated to CSTheory (by a CS moderator).

I expect that we'll get incoming migrations from Mathematics and Stack Overflow and Programmers.

As long as we're in private beta, it's too early for any migration. Generally migrations should wait until the target site has moderators (this is not a hard-and-fast rule). The private beta is intended to seed the site with good questions as well as establish some minimum participation; we should stick to original questions (original for Stack Exchange, I mean) for the duration of the private beta.

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  • $\begingroup$ Gilles, although the tile includes the word "cross-posting", it is not really about cross-posting, it is about migration/reposting closed questions from cstheory. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 7, 2012 at 1:05
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In the early days of TeX.SE, the same question came up, and I think Andrew Stacey's answer is a good one:

  1. Only ask the question if when reading it you think, "Hmm, I'd like to know the answer to that one too.".
  2. Only ask the question if it hasn't been satisfactorily answered.
  3. Re-ask the question rather than just cut-and-pasting it.
  4. Link back to the original question.
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I think many questions should be migrated here (and un-closed, if closed), not only from TCS but also from StackOverflow and math.SE

See for instance this question from SO, and this one from math.SE (that remained unanswered there for several months now), and I'm sure there are many examples.

I'm not sure though what the policy is regarding migrating questions that appeared elsewhere (and got answers there) only because there was no better place to put them.

EDIT: I realized the above question from math.so was crossposted to TCS, and answered there. Nevertheless there are many other examples (search "undecidability" or "halting problem")

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  • $\begingroup$ Old questions can be migrated, but only if the sending site decides that the question really is off-topic and the target site agrees to receive the question in its present state (with its existing answers, and sadly also its votes). $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Mar 8, 2012 at 10:13

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