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Currently, AU only has a defined migration path to Meta:

Migration paths

Why is there no migration paths defined for U&L SE, and possible the ElementaryOS SE as well? To me, it would make more sense to be able to vote for moving than closing questions related to non-official derivatives of Ubuntu - and I believe it would benefit the users as well.

As it is we have to advise users to delete the question on AU and re-post on the appropriate site. Moving would offer a better exprience, especially to new users of both AU/SE and Linux.

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    meta.askubuntu.com/questions/8646/… :=)
    – Rinzwind
    Commented Jan 11, 2020 at 21:44
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    @Rinzwind Yup. I'm aware of the history. However, in my opinion it's time to air this question again... Feel entirely free to downvote my question if you disagree - I will not take it personally in any fashion :) Or chime in with your thoughts in an answer :)
    – vidarlo
    Commented Jan 11, 2020 at 22:19
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    Imo, the arguments not to, are still the same as in the link's answers.
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Commented Jan 12, 2020 at 7:47
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    Lest this becomes a trend, if you want to question past decisions, it'd be beneficial to the discussion if you explained why you thought previous logic was incorrect, or why it's due a change. Elapsed time has not —in this case— caused anything to change mechanically. Everything that was, still is.
    – Oli Mod
    Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 13:51
  • @vidarlo And I continue to say that there is no benefit to opening a migration path because 99% of the things that would migrate are not good quality anywhere to begin with. Not bad enough to delete, not good enough to migrate. For all the reasons Oli stated.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 14:53

2 Answers 2

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First up, we can migrate anywhere, it just takes a bit of teamwork. If you think you're looking at a great question that has already had some great answers, flag it for a moderator. We'll likely* agree and kick it over.
*Depending on your criteria, obviously. If we can fix it, we would probably try that first.

Otherwise I'm not sure what's changed since last time...

  • We aren't the other sites. We don't know their quality thresholds.
  • Our volume of migratable questions that are objectively bad is very high.
  • There's no point migrating an unanswered question without its user. I've investigated this before. The abandonment rate for migrated questions is sky high. So soliciting effort from a third party site with a higher-than-normal chance that it's going to be abandoned feels... rude.

So all in, the cost of open migrations is —in my rather unhumble opinion— high, for very little reward. Where there is genuine and obvious benefit to be had, just issue a custom flag and we'll weigh it up.

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    To be fair, none of the rationale has changed since the last fifty times this has been brought up. All of these factors stated here are still accurate - we aren't other sites, the vast majority of migratable questions is 'bleh" quality to begin with, and most of the migrated questions get no answers. I see no reason to open up any migration paths without moderator intervention still.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 14:52
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Speaking as an ex-mod here and current mod on U&L, and having seen the kind of question that is often suggested for migration, I can assure you that opening this path would be a horrible idea. Quite frankly, most questions that are flagged for migration are usually off topic on U&L, or just very bad questions.

In my ~3 years as a mod here, I don't think I migrated more than 5 or so question to U&L. It just doesn't happen very often. The vast majority of cases where an OP doesn't realize this site is Ubuntu only, they also haven't bothered to craft a useful question. Questions that are worth migrating are so rare, it is simpler and more efficient to just flag for mod attention and ask for migration. Or, much, much better: just leave a comment to the OP suggesting they delete their question here and ask it again on the target site.

Migrations are next to useless as implemented. The question retains its original date, so it doesn't appear as new on the target site, it is very confusing for users and especially those with no account on the target. The whole thing is just more trouble than it's worth. So no, moving would absolutely not be a better experience for the user, more often than not, moving results in an orphaned question.

There is essentially no benefit whatsoever to opening a migration path and there are significant downsides.

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