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I noticed we can flag posts for migration to physics.SE and stats.SE. Can you please add options for migration to Mathematica and Computational Science, too?


(A.K.): The Mathematica site has graduated from beta stage. Perhaps it is now a reasonable request that migration paths be opened for users?

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    $\begingroup$ Just to note: until those two migration pathways are opened, 3K users can always vote to close as off-topic and flag for moderator attention to migrate to the desired sites. If you are flagging anyway (since you are < 3K right now), you can use the free-form field instead. $\endgroup$ Mar 26, 2012 at 8:33
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    $\begingroup$ I am bumping the question, hopefully an answer from the SE managers will come soon. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Apr 18, 2012 at 21:14
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    $\begingroup$ I second Asaf's bump. $\endgroup$
    – robjohn Mod
    May 16, 2012 at 17:44
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    $\begingroup$ @robjohn If you want this implemented you might want to check the mod statistics on migrations and add them as evidence that a migration path is needed. SE only adds migration paths if there is a history of migrations to that site. Then you can ping one of the community team members to get them to take a look at it. $\endgroup$
    – user9733
    Nov 5, 2012 at 16:47
  • $\begingroup$ @MadScientist: Since Mathematica is only recently out of beta and CompSci is still in beta, there is not yet much history. We may have to wait a while to build up some statistics. $\endgroup$
    – robjohn Mod
    Nov 5, 2012 at 17:21

2 Answers 2

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At this time, I will have to decline this. In the last 90 days, there have been 10 migrations to Mathematica (with a 30% rejection rate), and 2 to Computational Science (with a 50% rejection rate).

As noted by Mad Scientist in the comments, we only open migration paths to new sites when there's a demonstrated need for the migration path due to high frequency and volume. At the levels currently visible, this is not the case - handling it with normal flags for moderators should be sufficient.

To put in perspective, consider Arqade and Game Development - these are very, very easy topics to cross the threads in theory. In practice, there is no history of migration from Game Dev over to Arqade, and there have been only 25 questions migrated from Arqade to Game Dev over the course of over 2 years. Thus, in spite of expectations, there isn't a real need for a migration path because it will mostly be unused. The rate is way slow enough that Arqade can handle migrations through flags.


I'm fine to keep an eye on the situation as time passes - Mathematica is pretty young and they do have a high rate of migration over to here. When there starts to be a build-up of migration rate from here to there, then I'll be happy to reopen the consideration of a migration path. Same goes for Computational Science. Until then, no new migration path.

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    $\begingroup$ Thank you for a detailed and well-reasoned answer. The statistics are interesting. However I have to wonder whether the low rate of transfer is because manual migration (which essentially requires a flag to notify a moderator; and then a moderator which thinks that the question is indeed migration worthy) is a more involved process which is more likely to fall through; or is it that there are really no migrated questions? I do agree, however, that it is possible (and even likely) that people just post on the "correct" site to begin with, which is good. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Nov 5, 2012 at 22:05
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I'm writing this answer to provide both a target of upvotes for people who would like to see this migration option and a space where we can collect questions that would have been appropriate for the Mathematica site. I agree with Asaf's comment under Grace's answer (which received more upvotes than the answer by the way); we need statistics on what actually happens to such questions; if it turns out that many of them fail to be migrated manually (and are either just closed as off-topic or stick around on the wrong site), then the statistics that Grace referred to actually argue in favour of the migration option.

If you see a question that should have been posted on http://mathematica.stackexchange.com, especially if you vote to close a question for that reason, please add it here:

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