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Movies:SE have recently altered their policies on questions to tighten their minimum requirements and close those don't meet their new quality standards. They're also now deleting any closed ID questions that remain "un-improved" for a significant period of time (a moderator recently suggested something between 9-29 days).

A quick glance through their closed questions list reveals a number of questions that are now at risk of deletion that don't meet their standards but do meet ours (e.g. That are uniquely identifiable and contain obvious elements of sci-fi and fantasy) and that if asked here wouldn't have been closed.

for example;

etc etc.

Should we offer a migration path (formally or informally) for Movies:SE to migrate these unwanted and unloved Sci-fi and fantasy ID questions to us?

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  • Related (not dupe): Migration Paths
    – Möoz
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 20:46
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    Could our downvotes explain why they think this is a bad idea?
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 23:46
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    Post on their meta; asking here isn't going to change anything. That said, don't hold your breath, there's not enough to matter, so it's unlikely to actually be added. Just flag them.
    – Kevin Mod
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 3:30
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    @Kevin - This is more about making them aware of our willingness and raising awareness (assuming the community is happy to accept these wayward souls) that we've invited them over
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 7:33
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    I've had a couple closed over there. Those guys are total sticklers. In one case, I was trying to identify a specific character in a movie, yet was not allowed to post a screenshot image actually showing the character. Say what?
    – Omegacron
    Commented Nov 30, 2017 at 20:42
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    FYI, there is active discussion about Movies.SE banning ID questions altogether.
    – Thunderforge
    Commented Dec 2, 2017 at 0:14
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    @Thunderforge - Yes, I spotted that. It seems to be a case of "ratchet democracy" where the moderators ask the same question over and over again until they get the answer they want, at which point they'll never ask again. Hopefully their loss will be our gain. With any luck, we can farm off the SFF ID questions and get to reap the rewards in terms of a constant supply of new (grateful) users joining the site.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 2, 2017 at 0:57
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    @Valorum In my opinion, the vast majority of story id questions on Movies.SE are pure drek; you're welcome to take them all on this site. That said, I have noticed the quality of story ID questions on SFF.SE are of much higher quality. Maybe it's a matter of investment: reading a short sci-fi story requires more effort than catching a glimpse of film while channel flipping.
    – Thunderforge
    Commented Dec 3, 2017 at 3:19
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    @Thunderforge that has been my hypothesis as well. and as for "ratchet democracy" valorum, I put up the discussion about id's because most of us that stick around on the site decided that they just weren't useful, and provided a lot of evidence to back that up. no one came forward to refute anything, so we as a community came to a consensus, the mods are just enforcing this
    – DForck42
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 20:48
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    @DForck42 - I stand by my earlier point. If the goal is to get rid of them, then that's the decision (and loss) of Movies:SE. But don't delete them, migrate them somewhere where they're welcome.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 21:21
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    movies.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4090/27759
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 1:21

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Yes, absolutely we should. SFF:SE should aim to be the home of science fiction and fantasy questions and we should welcome any additional (on-topic) questions from our sister sites with open arms and big smiles.

Points in favour

  • Movies questions are definitely in scope.

  • It's very easy for them to determine which questions should be migrated (e.g. those that seem to have uniquely identifiable features / that are about science fiction or fantasy)

  • The volume is not likely to be especially high (No more than one or two a day, although probably a higher volume to begin with if they're actively deleting older questions) which will make moderating them super-easy.

  • Happy users getting their questions answered are likely to stick around on SFF (and Movies) and might ask other questions.

Point against

  • Err. I can't think of any. Unless they start using us as a dumping ground for all of their Story-ID questions. Which I can't see happening given that both of their mods have current SFF accounts and are pretty well versed in our quality standards.
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    s/both/all?
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 20:19
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    Echoing my answer on your other question from last night: I'd disagree with "It's very easy for them to determine which questions should be migrated". Easy to see which are on-topic, yes. Not so easy for them to know what we'd consider high-quality or not, since their quality standards are so different from ours. But of course a custom mod flag from someone who knows SFF's standards should be enough.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 20:26
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    @Randal'Thor - I think their mods are sufficiently aware of our quality standards. We've discussed them with them often enough. Also, a very quick glance suggests that every single migration candidate has sufficient detail to be on topic here.
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 20:33
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    Easy to see which are on-topic, yes. Not so easy for them to know what we'd consider high-quality or not, Doesn't matter bro, what harm is it if a couple of crap questions come over, we can always improve them or at worst we close them. no biggie.
    – Möoz
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 20:44
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    @Möoz - Exactly so, especially since pretty much everything they're likely to put over is on-topic here. If there's a really bad one, they can have a quick chat with Rand or Null and get their input.
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 20:57
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    @Möoz I don't think you're understanding the scale of the problem other sites have with ID questions. SFF has been incredibly lucky; multiple other SE sites have been forced to ban ID questions entirely, despite their obvious usefulness, because they were simply being flooded with so many awful ones! It's easy to sound laid-back about "a couple of crap questions", but what if it was a couple of hundred crap questions every week?
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 9:37
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    @Randal'Thor - That's what the "ignore tag" option is for
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 10:32
  • @Rand You're right, it's not going to be just "a couple of bad questions". However, we'd be understating if we simply say that we've been lucky. In fact, it's because we've been working hard to get our ID questions to reach a worthwhile state. And adding a bunch more won't be so different. Besides, let's try it and see for a while.
    – Möoz
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 10:34
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    @Möoz It's not just luck, agreed, but I think the good state of our ID questions is less to do with work we've put into improving them (after all, A&M and M&TV also put work into theirs) and more to do with the nature of the subject material and the fact that we get more about books. (FTR, I do agree with this proposal and have upvoted it. I just think there are potential issues here which we should address up front.)
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 10:37
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    @Randal'Thor - I'd agree except that a very large chunk of our "ID this" questions are about movies, not books.
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 11:17
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No, migrating isn't the best option.

Instead, they should be prompted to ask a new question here.

Migration has issues related to user accounts. New users (the kind that tend to post ID questions) tend not to have accounts on the target sites (so if they ask on Movies, they probably don't have a Fantasy account). They don't get notifications the same way. Editing becomes more of a challenge for them, or even commenting on their own post to get details. These hurdles don't affect everyday users, but every time we look at the stats, it's not everyday users asking story-id questions.

This also removes the onus from reviewers/Movies mods from determining if a question is on topic on topic for us. You simply say "Ask on [fantasy-se] if your question is about a Sci-fi or Fantasy film".

Guidance I've received from CMs as a beta moderator is that migration is messy, and we should avoid it when necessary. Other times I've heard rumors of it being disabled at some point for anything but to/from meta/main. Instead, it's been suggested that the questions being asked again under the context of the target site (making it clear that the question belongs there, and avoiding all the technical and user account mess).

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    This is a fine idea except that it requires us to pester the OP to re-ask here instead, something that's been made crystal clear is not acceptable practice.
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 27, 2017 at 21:41
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    @Valorum Crystal clear from who? CMs have told me multiple times that the preferred method is asking OP to reask. If Movies mods aren't allowing that, then that doesn't seem kosher. It's different if it's an acceptable Movies question, but if it's not... Then blocking users from a proper stack seems completely against network culture.
    – user31178
    Commented Nov 27, 2017 at 23:54
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    That only applies where the question's subject is off-topic. These questions are most certainly on-topic but have failed to meet a community-decided quality standard
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 0:08
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    So they're off topic there because they're not the right kind of ID question that's "good enough".
    – user31178
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 1:11
  • If the asker is unresponsive on SFF, we can always close the question as unclear. I don't think this is a non-theoretical problem.
    – Kevin
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 2:16
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    @CreationEdge - I suspect their mods will take a very dim view of us trying to encourage users to re-ask on SFF. They'd prefer the user to improve the question on Movies
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 7:05
  • @Valorum But you said they're deleting the questions. How is migration supposed to help that?
    – user31178
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 13:53
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    Because we could answer them
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 16:59
  • @Valorum No, I mean, how are you going to stop them from just deleting them? What's actually going to get the migration to happen to begin with if they're deleted first?
    – user31178
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 21:24
  • @CreationEdge - I'm going to ask nicely. And since their mods are reasonable people, they're almost certainly going to agree. Let's face it, the difference between a deletion and a migration is just which button they push.
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 21:26
  • @CreationEdge over at Aaime and Manga first close the question and then when it had a score of -3 regular users could vote to delete, or a mod would close and delete, or we'd just let the roomba delete them. in all cases the question would be closed as off-topic but migration is just another option under off-topic except it moves the question off the site. i would assume the same for Movies and TV
    – Memor-X
    Commented Dec 1, 2017 at 4:20

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