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I've noticed, at least on the Oracle questions that have been migrated here, that there is either a very poor quality of question or (more importantly) that the user never returns to the site.

Should this be a concern? Does there need to be a better way of showing the end user that a question has been migrated to dba.se? Maybe an e-mail to inform them?

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The network software already notifies them via the StackExchange notification mechanism, on their return to any SE site. We can not force them to come to the new site and followup, and frequently those who are least familiar with the site don't understand they should login with the same login they used previously.

This is an oft-addressed issue and discussion amongst the moderators and SE team and on Meta.StackExchange (the network meta), but since this is a "people" issue and not a "technology" issue, there's very little to enforce here. All we can do is alert them, and encourage them how to do things properly.

StackExchange staff have been in a process of rewriting a fair bit of the user documentation to ensure that the less-frequent users of the network are better able to navigate easily amongst all the sites, and these things do take time to refine.

All that is to say "sorry, we can't stop them getting migrated and ignored, but it does suck".

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  • I think it took me an undue amount of effort to align my various SE accounts. I was confused the whole time, so I can't put it clearly into words. I think I had to create a dba.se account, using my SE OpenID to log in, and then change my username to match my username on SO. Something like that. It isn't clear to a newb that your reputation is tracked separately across the sites. I expected to see my SO account info here on dba.se. I see how it works now, but it wasn't clear then.
    – Cargo23
    Sep 18, 2012 at 20:39
  • Yes, well, we're in constant talks with the SE staff on this. I may record a series of sessions with a friend and show what the hell happens as someone who hasn't seen the site navigates asking some questions and getting them migrated.
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Sep 18, 2012 at 21:05
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I think it is a concern. A poor quality question usually needs further clarification, which is impossible without the OP, of course. That way even the best suggestions will be only shots in the dark.

On the other hand, the not-so-rare 'giv me teh codez'-type OP (incl. the 'show-me-where-to-click' ones) will not be satisfied with the answers he/she will get here. On average, those will be way too complex and very probably will lack an instant copypasteable code block. (It may be my stupidity, but sometimes I only paste a simpified example in order to trigger some thinking from the OP.)

I don't know, however, what a good solution could be. I think that if the OP is really interested in getting an answer, he/she will check his/her post and click on the link pointing to the migrated question.

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