Migrating Crap to SO. Really, Programmers?

Question

So there was this question asked by a new user. And it's undeniably crap. It is a code-dump showing 0 research effort, not even a problem statement. This is the prime example of what a crap question is.

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/255703/how-to-get-the-average-of-an-array?noredirect=1 :

Now that question is on SO and the situation isn't any better. The question still is crap.

I know what you all are probably thinking right now: "Another mindless rant by a new user". Well you may think that way, and I'm okay with that, but I want you to ask yourselves a simple question:

Has SO become the trash dump of Programmers?

From what happened to that question, this one definitely looks like a yes. And I think that is very sad.

Some users have even realized that this question should not be migrated. Please programmers-users, don't become mindless crap-migrating SO users and think before pressing the migrate button.

Answer 1

Has SO become the trash dump of Programmers?

The specific question certainly isn't... stellar, but you are over-reacting. In fact, of the 258 questions we've migrated to SO (in the last 90 days), only 13% have been rejected. Conversely, the numbers aren't as good the other way around. We've rejected 16% of the questions SO has send us (but you don't see us complaining about it, do you? ;).

Next time you spot a shady migration, just vote to close it and move on.

Answer 2

Close voters at Programmers would better memorize the criteria for debugging questions to be acceptable for Stack Overflow:

Questions seeking debugging help ("why isn't this code working?") must include the desired behavior, a specific problem or error and the shortest code necessary to reproduce it in the question itself. Questions without a clear problem statement are not useful to other readers. See: How to create a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example.

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As for the question in question, I for one picked the custom close reason that stated that question isn't appropriate at both sites. It was pretty sad to see how it was migrated against my will and I immediately voted to close the incorrectly migrated question using above reason:

^{This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:}

• ^{"Questions seeking debugging help ("why isn't this code working?") must include the desired behavior, a specific problem or error and the shortest code necessary to reproduce it in the question itself. Questions without a clear problem statement are not useful to other readers. See: How to create a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example." – gnat, Stijn, Unihedron, ItachiUchiha, kiheru}

Answer 3

I think the migration is right.

The question is, let's be honest, utterly crap.

That said, such "flavour of crap" belongs to SO. Let's see the options the community at Programmers have:

1. Migrate the question. Have the people in SO close the question according to the rules of their forum. Now, the original poster knows (ok, that's wishful thinking) both where and how post the question that is nagging him/her/it.

2. Close the question in Programmers as off-topic. The poster knows now that Programmers is not the forum to ask such kind of question. And then, the poster will diligently go to SO and post again the same question (to get it closed again, because it is crap).

3. Have a Programmers "close option" that explains both that it belongs to SO and also that it is crap by the SO standards. For the poster, who may not be fluent in English, it will sound something like "you should post in SO but you can not post in SO". Quite confusing, IM(ns)HO.

4. Get some mechanism to deliver a electric discharge that fries the poster PC as retribution for posting that crap.

While I fully endorse #4, I'll discuss also about the others:

#3 seems the most direct approach. It has the disavantages that it only makes sense for issues that happen often and that may be confusing to new users. If it is considered worth having such an option, it should be worded with extreme care

The only practical difference between #1 and #2 is that with #2 the OP will have to post the crap twice before he gets to understand what he should be asking and where. Hardly an improvement, and may discourage newcomers from using the SE forum.

So, I would say #1 is not such a bad option.