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I just saw that https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12681100/boxing-some-cells-in-tabular-enviroment question was closed on SO as being off topic, even after being flagged for migration quite some time ago:

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Similarly I am pretty sure I had flagged TeXShop equivalent on Windows for migration on SO, and then it got deleted. I flagged it again, and it eventually showed up on TeX.SE after quite some time. This happened to show up right after I made this comment at Notable Stack Exchange news, but perhaps that is just a coincidence.

In the process of migration my comments about flagging and re flagging it were removed.

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  • I'm not sure we can: many of them are off-topic there. Migration is an 'add on' to closing as OT, not an alternative (the question is still being closed on the parent site).
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:02
  • 1
    @JosephWright: Well in the past it showed up as a question on SE, and clicking on it used to take you the migrated TeX.SE question, which is the way I think it should be.
    – Peter Grill
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:04
  • That depends on whether it just gets closed or gets closed with migration (when choosing 'off topic', there is a straight 'close' button and a 'belongs somewhere else' one).
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:05
  • Well it is possible that Alex Pigeon above accidentally chose close, but I am pretty sure I flagged it with a commented "Migrate to TeX.SE".
    – Peter Grill
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:08
  • Ack. So they're happy to migrate the MathJaX ones but not the LaTeX ones. Something seems a little ... broken about that.
    – Andrew Stacey
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:42
  • @AndrewStacey: Yeah, especially after it has been flagged for migration. I don't have much of a rep on SO, but I would have thought my rep on TeX.SE would be enough for them to seriously consider it for flagging. When it occurred the first time I thought it was just a mistake, but 2nd time? Granted I did not flag the one Alexis flagged, but that was because I saw that there was already a comment there.
    – Peter Grill
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:46
  • 1
    @PeterGrill I guess you're aware of my question on meta about this: meta.stackexchange.com/q/70466/138421
    – Andrew Stacey
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:52
  • I think your title isn't quite right (I only fixed the spelling). I read the question as being about close vs migrate rather than close vs open, but the title could be taken either way.
    – Andrew Stacey
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 8:53
  • @AndrewStacey: No did not know about that question. Thanks for the link. Also, have edited the title -- hopefully it is clearer.
    – Peter Grill
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 9:07
  • I've questioned this as well, since I've been receiving "helpful" flags for flagging on Stack Overflow, yet the questions don't seem to be migrated. See Migration to TeX.SE. Since then, I only flag once and if the question is actually closed, I reflag as "Other" with a request to migrate over to TeX.SE.
    – Werner Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 16:55
  • @Werner: Something has changed in the process. I don't recall seeing this problem before.
    – Peter Grill
    Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 19:22

1 Answer 1

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An explicit migration path to TeX.SE was initially realized on June 5th, 2012. Following this route doesn't guarantee migration here. If some (other/the majority of) users designate the post as off-topic without specifying an appropriate migration path, then the post might end up as "Off topic" without being migrated, even though you voted/requested it. Why would this happen? This may be due to a number of things:

  1. Vote-to-close voters are not familiar with TeX.SE and therefore do not know that it will most likely be on-topic here;
  2. There's a lot of noise on StackOverflow due to its broad scope, and being the catch-all Stack Exchange site. So, things that are considered somewhat off-topic, probably reaches that point without much discussion;
  3. The harsh(er) nature of SO where it could be assumed that if you don't know about TeX.SE and post stuff on SO, you're SOL.

I've questioned why my migration path suggestions through flagging were not honoured in Migration to TeX.SE. The procedure is explained well over there.

Why is your comment(s) removed during the migration? This is the default setup (I've learned): Any comments with TeX.SE-related links will be removed when migrating to TeX.SE. I think the most likely reason for this is because of the common "This is better-suited on TeX.SE" comment, which becomes obsolete at the time of migration. So, a blanket rule in this regard was probably the easiest option.

Knowing the above, I usually follow these guidelines:

  1. Flag as "Other" with the comment "Migrate over to TeX.SE". This ensures that a moderator will look at the flag (I'm assuming), which could speed up and hopefully ensure migration.
  2. Don't leave a comment stating that it belongs somewhere else (TeX.SE), since many users would then repost here, causing cross-network duplicates. This doesn't really matter, but just the way I've resorted to doing things.

A recent feature request regarding migrations lead to Disable migration for questions older than 60 days (realized on October 18th, 2012). So, migrations are only possible for posts made within the last two months.

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