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The main question that lead to this discussion is: What does $\mathrm{ms}^{-1}$ mean?

Had I seen the question before there were any answers posted, I would have invoked my moderator powers and migrated it directly to Physics, since a physics question is likely to receive a better answer on a physics site. But when I saw the question, it has already been answered, and an answer had been accepted.

So the question on general policy of Off-topic questions that were asked with accepted answers: should we let sleeping dogs lie, or should we close them/boot them to their correct sites?

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    $\begingroup$ From this, I gather that the "accepted" status is maintained post-migration; I thus would love to hear about the cons of performing such a migration. (And a user who was not before registered on the target SE site can flag to have his answer re-associated.) $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 13:14

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I think that it's better to let the voting system handle it. I think a (credible) answer is an implicit vote that the question is on-topic. If enough other users vote that the question should be migrated that leaves everyone feeling satisfied, unlike if a moderator migrates the question unilaterally.

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    $\begingroup$ There are two possible objections to this approach: most users in maths have some rudimentary backgrounds in other fields. Just because they can answer a question doesn't mean that it is on topic. Secondly: the migration target of Physics is not open for general 3K+ users, so any such migration has to be performed by a moderator. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong Mod
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 13:18
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    $\begingroup$ I agree that just because we can answer a question doesn't mean it's on-topic, but if someone does answer the question I think we should let other people vote to migrate it, rather than asking the moderators to decide. $\endgroup$
    – Carl Mummert
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 15:14
  • $\begingroup$ As to this particular question, I don't think it's more related to physics than to math, because it doesn't seem to be related to anything. I just now voted to close it as not a real question. $\endgroup$
    – Carl Mummert
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 15:14
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As another example: Jeff migrated the question https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/61330/?noredirect=1 to the newly minted crypto.SE even with Paŭlo Ebermann's (he is a moderator pro tempore at crypto) note that it might be alright to stay here, given the vote counts for the question. I don't mind the move, but it would have been better to let users vote for migration, no?

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    $\begingroup$ that one seemed like a particularly, unusually good fit for crypto.se -- and it didn't seem that math heavy to me, either $\endgroup$
    – Jeff Atwood Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2011 at 8:22
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    $\begingroup$ Hum, to answer one of my own comments to Carl's answer: perhaps what we need is to foster a culture where when a user sees a question as off-topic, but better suited to another site, but said site is not yet open as a general migration target, to still vote for closure and leave a flag or a comment about where the question better belongs. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2011 at 12:13
  • $\begingroup$ The migration left behind a dead link? I though migrations created a forwarding page, but maybe that's only visible to high-rep users? $\endgroup$
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Aug 20, 2013 at 22:41

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