crossposting: How to deal with question asked twice on other stack exchange sites?

Question

I have noticed a user asking the exact same question both on serverfault and stackoverflow. I'm referring to this question:

stackoverflow: importerror-no-module-named-xhaus-python-module-importing-error-from-ansible serverfault: importerror-no-module-named-xhaus-python-module-importing-error-from-ansible

To me it is obvious that the user placed to question on both sites to gain more attention. It has already been pointed out in other questions on meta serverfault crossposting is considered bad behavior, but I can't flag this question as duplicate because the flag as duplicate function gives me

The duplicate question must exist on Server Fault

I would like to see a clear guideline how to deal with those question and maybe it should be made possible to mark questions as duplicate when asked on other stack exchange sites.

Answer 1

If the question isn't a complete waste of electrons, V-t-C migrate to the more appropriate site, and then it can be closed as a dupe. Adding a comment to the to-be-migrated question linking to the original (so people on the destination site can easily close-as-dupe when it gets there).

That particular example... I think I'd just burn it with fire from SF, and let the SO community make their own determination. It's a poor question, and falls off-topic on "reproducibility" and, to a lesser degree, "managing information systems".

Answer 2

As a longer-term solution, I would suggest adding cross-posting as an explicit reason when flagging and/or closing questions. This is already being used on Unix & Linux, listed under Off Topic.

This question has been posted on multiple sites. Cross-posting is strongly discouraged; see the help center and community FAQ for more information.

It seems to work well. Off-topic, cross-posted questions are generally closed soon after I flag them as such.

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In the short-term, this suggestion doesn’t help those of us (such as the OP and myself) who have less than 3000 reputation and can only flag questions but I think it would be useful to add this feature. Note: It would also involve up-dating the What topics can I ask about here? help page.

Here’s a non site-specific version that might be useful for custom close reasons:

This question has been posted on multiple sites. Cross-posting is strongly discouraged; see the community FAQ for more information.

Answer 3

When you see a question that has been cross-posted on multiple Stack Exchange sites, do two things:

1. Add a comment pointing out the cross-post and describing that our policy forbids cross-posting. Here is a candidate template you can use:

   [Also posted on ](). Please [do not post the same question on multiple sites](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/64068). Each community should have an honest shot at answering without anybody's time being wasted.

   Also posted on Panda Stack Exchange. Please do not post the same question on multiple sites. Each community should have an honest shot at answering without anybody's time being wasted.

2. Flag the question for moderator attention, with custom reason, and indicate to the moderators that the question has been cross-posted and should be closed here. Here is a template you can use:

   Cross-posted on blah.SE (see comments), which violates SE rules. Please close this copy.

It's useful to post a comment on both copies. Pick one of the copies to flag (e.g., if it is cross-posted to X.SE and Y.SE and seems like a better fit on X.SE, flag the copy on Y.SE for moderator attention).

You can also vote to close on either or both sites, if it is meets the criteria for closure on that site.