-9

Ok... let me explain the case: I recently got the review upgrade in Stackoverflow and start reviewing some questions. I'm not experienced in this and obviously everyone does mistakes initialy, so I reviewed this question here:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31387686/a-way-to-find-a-bad-links-to-your-website-that-are-using-https-vs-http?noredirect=1#comment50759786_31387686

I thought it was off-topic in SO and guessed the best site for this question would be Server Fault because is business related and was a server issue in my point of view.

Then the user came back to me in SO with the following comment:

Nelson Teixeira - This was the reply my question got over at serverfault.com: "Unfortunately, many SO people, apparently including Nelson Teixeira, have no clue what's topical here, but feel inclined to sent people over here anyway. He was wrong. – Sven♦ 38 mins ago" serverfault.com/questions/705410/… THANKS MAN. – Kaye Handlon

I came to SF and saw moderator Sven treated him very rudely. I have even flagged the question for rudeness. Here:

https://serverfault.com/questions/705410/a-way-to-find-a-bad-links-to-your-website-that-are-using-https-vs-http

Some thoughts and questions:

  • if we are not experienced yet we expect the experienced people teach us the best ways to do things. Not that they are rude at us.
  • moderators should promote SF, not repel who's trying to help. Speccially if they are beggining in this function.
  • this isn't a paid job and even if it was this isn't the right way to treat anyone.
  • what should have been my best attitude so I can improve in the future and avoid this type of behaviour from moderators and users of SO ?
  • what is the correct site I should have directed the user ?

EDIT

Ok... I think that with the last explanation from Sven this case is closed. Thanks to all who helped, commented and gave instructions on how I could improve. Sorry for the trouble and I'll try to do a better job next time.

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  • 8
    I doubt you'll get much sympathy for that particular question... The user doesn't seem to know what's going on and has a clear lack of basic sysadmin knowledge. I don't have the link on hand but there's a guideline / general advice we follow: don't migrate crap. And honestly "halp my site used to have ssl but now it doesn't maybe or it never has and there's warnings but I don't know which and it's not mine I inherited it so I don't know how it's set up!' is crap. That guy needs help from whoever he works under, not us.
    – Reaces
    Jul 13, 2015 at 21:12
  • @Reaces Here's the link: meta.serverfault.com/questions/1435/…
    – 84104
    Jul 13, 2015 at 21:18
  • 1
    Well then I really got a problem. Because it doesn't look like crap to me... looks like a genuine question. So the problem now it's seems to be: how do I recognize 'crap' ? What I think it's happening here is a cultural problem. Maybe from my cultural background I have a different perspective of what could be considered 'crap'. Maybe you can point me some directions ? And there's still the case of moderator rudeness. Or do you also think that Sven's treatment of the case could also be considered adequate and it's me that looking at it as rudeness ? Jul 13, 2015 at 21:25
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    @NelsonTeixeira: You can just use the skip button in the review if you are not sure about a question. Again, when in doubt, don't act.
    – Sven
    Jul 13, 2015 at 21:36
  • 4
    Thank you for listening and understanding!
    – Jenny D
    Jul 14, 2015 at 16:23

3 Answers 3

6

There's a trigger here to this whole thread that people seemed to have missed / ignored.

You don't unilaterally send people around the stack exchange sites!
Let's face it, there are a lot of people out there, and there are a lot of stack exchange sites.
And there's no way that any individual person knows what is or isn't topical on all of them.
Which is why there is a voting system!

If you feel like a question belongs somewhere else, you flag it as a migration candidate. This lets more people chime in and review the question, to make sure that the group agrees that the question deserves migration.

On the other hand, if you're not sure about the question, and you recommend a person to another site, you're just creating a more hostile experience for them.
You put the focus on yourself, and you create two identical questions that might not belong on either site.
In stead of being rejected on one site and having to look for answers elsewhere, the person is now being rejected on two sites. He now has a name to place on his bad treatment, and he's further frustrated that despite following advice nothing improved.

When in doubt, flag and vote! You're trying to help and that's great, but you can't predict peoples reaction to questions you don't fully understand yourself.

3
  • disagreeing at least partially. qoute: And there's no way that any individual person knows what is or isn't topical on all of them. true, but one can figure that out before asking a question or in this case: try to migrate somewhere. Jul 14, 2015 at 8:08
  • @DennisNolte Which is what voting and flagging is for. But in this case the user commented on a question "hey just go ask it at serverfault!".
    – Reaces
    Jul 14, 2015 at 8:09
  • Now this was a real useful advice :) I really did this. I commend and sent him to SF. I won't do that anymore and will only flag questions so people can vote. Thanks for this answer. Jul 14, 2015 at 14:44
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First off, while I wasn't particularly friendly towards Kaye, I don't think I was really rude. I was direct and concise and I don't tend to sugarcoat things.

That said:

if we are not experienced yet we expect the experienced people teach us the best ways to do things. Not that they are rude at us.

If you are not really sure if a question is topical on a site, don't direct people to it. This is the same as with technical questions: If you don't know the answer, just don't say anything. I think that's a very important rule! If you really must, at the very least add something like "but check their help center first".

I am not an expert on the topicality of most/all other SE sites, and if I am not sure it's a good(!), topical question elsewhere, I just let it die.

moderators should promote SF, not repel who's trying to help. Speccially if they are beggining in this function. this isn't a paid job and even if it was this isn't the right way to treat anyone.

It's not a paid job for me either. Again, I don't think I treated anyone particularly bad, but if I've offended you, that was not my intention and I am sorry for that. If have to admit though that I don't care for SO at all.

what should have been my best attitude so I can improve in the future and avoid this type of behaviour from moderators and users of SO ?

As written above, if you aren't sure, just don't direct people to other sites.

what is the correct site I should have directed the user ?

Nowhere, really. It is terribly unclear what the real problem is and it just doesn't make any sense to search for anything if they don't get useful input from their clients. "This is off-topic here" is a completely valid comment without a direction elsewhere.

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  • In the way I'm seeing this, I used the SO's flag mechanism with the option: "should be close..." -> "off-topic because" -> "Questions on professional server- or networking-related infrastructure administration are off-topic for Stack Overflow [...]. You may be able to get help on Server Fault.". So it's seems to me this was a professional server question ("one of my users"). So what I'm affraid is that I WAS sure this was on-topic here and now don't know how I can be sure of what's on topic here. Jul 13, 2015 at 21:44
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    So I guess my only option is not direct any users here and use only the more generic "This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network ". Jul 13, 2015 at 21:44
  • About my perception of you have being rude, I accept your appologies. But please be more constructive next time ok ? We all need to learn. Jul 13, 2015 at 21:45
  • OK, no problem.
    – Sven
    Jul 13, 2015 at 21:52
11

Your main mistake here was to direct someone to another SE site based merely on the very short description in your site's closing options. Guys, please don't do that.

I've been on SF for quite a long time now. I still use the skip button on reviews, where I don't feel that I have the competence to be certain of how to treat it. If a question comes up about e.g. Windows administration, and it's not immediately clear to me that it's obviously off-topic, I'll skip that review, and let someone who actually knows Windows make the decisions on whether it contains enough information to be useful or not.

Occasionally I'll ask in a suitable chat room before voting to migrate, but most of my migrations are to sites where I've spent enough time to have a grasp on what kind of questions are appropriate and wanted there. That's why most of my votes to migrate are to Unix/Linux, which is the site where I have the second highest rep.

Lastly, you say "moderators should promote SF, not repel who's trying to help". That's not quite true. Moderators should promote SF to the audience the site is designed for, not to everyone who has a question that might be business related. There's more to it than that. And most especially, as others have said, if the question lacks sufficient information and clarity, then it shouldn't be migrated - it should be put on hold until the asker fixes the issues, and then it may be migrated if it still doesn't fit the original site.

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    A short note: SF is not on SO's migration list, for this exact reason. This was all manually, with a comment and a new question, not a migration.
    – Sven
    Jul 14, 2015 at 8:06
  • +1, I do the same in the review queue for Linux questions.
    – MDMoore313
    Jul 14, 2015 at 12:34
  • Thanks @Sven, I clarified that in my response.
    – Jenny D
    Jul 14, 2015 at 13:04
  • @Sven that's not true. SF IS on SO migration's list. That's why I send him here. Take a look at this screen capture: postimg.org/image/l786ldvez Jul 14, 2015 at 14:40
  • You flag "Should be closed", then "off-topic because..." than the screen I posted above apears with SF option on it. Jul 14, 2015 at 14:41
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    @NelsonTeixeira: The migration list I mean is something else. If you have 3k reputation, you will be able to vote to close a question. In the vote dialog, there is an option to vote to migrate the question to another site, and if the majority of five users agree, it will get migrated to the site. There is a limited number of possible migration targets on every site, and SF used to be on SOs list, but is not anymore because too much crap got migrated over here.
    – Sven
    Jul 14, 2015 at 14:47
  • 2
    @NelsonTeixeira The option to migrate is at the bottom of that picture, where it says This question belongs on another site in the StackExchange network. When you chose that option, you'll get a list of sites that you can vote to migrate to - then the question will be transferred to that site, if four more people agree.
    – Jenny D
    Jul 14, 2015 at 14:49
  • @JennyD but if that's the case why is this option there ? "Questions on professional server- or networking-related infrastructure administration are off-topic for Stack Overflow unless they directly involve programming or programming tools. You may be able to get help on Server Fault. " Jul 14, 2015 at 14:54
  • @NelsonTeixeira: If the question gets closed with that reason, there will be a informative text below the question that includes this text. That does not free the OP from checking if the question is on-topic on the other site. I really wish they would add a hint like "Make sure the question is welcome" to this message.
    – Sven
    Jul 14, 2015 at 14:58
  • @NelsonTeixeira Because too many people used the migrate option for questions that really didn't belong here, so it was removed. Like the question that this is all about - it doesn't belong here, but you didn't know that because you don't know this site and don't know how to tell a question that is suitable for this site from one that isn't. We were spending way too much time just closing questions that should never have been migrated here in the first place, and it's not as if any of us are paid either...
    – Jenny D
    Jul 14, 2015 at 14:58
  • OK... please see my edit in the question and again sorry and thanks. Jul 14, 2015 at 15:02
  • @NelsonTeixeira So, by not having a direct migration, StackExchange is giving the poster the option to look at this site and to see if their question really is on-topic here, and if so asking it here, instead of it getting transferred directly. It's also still possible for a site moderator to do a direct migration if they consider it suitable, but it's not something that any user with 3k rep can do.
    – Jenny D
    Jul 14, 2015 at 15:03
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    @NelsonTeixeira I do understand that you were trying to be helpful, and I'm sorry it went wrong.
    – Jenny D
    Jul 14, 2015 at 15:05

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