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The WordPress tag on stack is pretty active, and it also has some interesting questions that are sometimes technical.

March 2012 Stat Compare (data.stackexchange.com)

  • 461 Post where tagged WordPress for March 2012 on stackoverflow

  • 696 were asked on WPSE during the same peroid.

Why does it exist though?
ps.I could not find a migrate query to see how many of those 461 were moved here.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/wordpress

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  • 2
    During the last 90 days 43 questions were migrated from Stack Overflow to WPSE and 53 vice versa.
    – fuxia Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 1:38
  • 4
    Seems kinda low given that they average 450 each month.
    – Wyck
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 4:53
  • How do you suggest/request that a question be migrated?
    – jessica
    Commented May 1, 2012 at 20:09
  • That is a good question, maybe ask it in it's own thread. As for as I can tell when I flag something as off-topic I only get once choice on where to move it, which is to meta.wordpress.stackexchange.com, and it should have other options.
    – Wyck
    Commented May 1, 2012 at 21:20
  • To suggest a migration vote to close as other then put in in the comment. Also There are a few WordPress questions on SO would be off topic here including one I asked over there. I'll bet if you asked this same question on meta you get a different perspective.
    – Chris_O
    Commented May 6, 2012 at 1:43

4 Answers 4

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WordPress questions were never declared as off topic on Stack Overflow, and there are some rules preventing migration:

  • Low quality questions are closed, not migrated.
  • If something could be on topic on two sites, the questions stays where it was asked.
  • The tag wordpress on SO isn't always used properly. Many of those questions would be off topic here (I'm following the tag).

We get already more questions than we can handle. People who prepare their questions properly will find our site anyway. Those who don't will ask on Stack Overflow. We don't need more bad questions.

In short: I see no harm. We should focus on our profile and care about off topic questions here more than on SO.

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    --- Hear Hear! ---
    – Scott Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 8:39
  • 13
    The existence of a Stack Exchange site dedicated to WordPress should make WordPress-specific questions inherently off-topic on Stack Overflow.
    – Chip Bennett
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 14:24
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    Also: I don't think it's so much a problem of getting too many questions than we can handle, but rather a problem of needing to weed through the bad questions to find the good questions. And with so many good questions being left on SO, the signal-to-noise ratio here on WPSE is *decreased, and thus finding good questions to answer is more difficult.
    – Chip Bennett
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 15:12
  • @ChipBennett I totally agree. During the last month I closed 131 questions; I care about our focus as much as you do. :) But we cannot force the SO mods to migrate WP questions to us; they have already more than enough to do. If you see a really interesting question on SO tell our mods here and we can ask the SO mods to migrate it. But that shouldn't happen to often.
    – fuxia Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 15:24
  • I don't want to over-burden the SO mods. :) So, as per my answer below, I'm going to try answering the WordPress-tagged SO questions, with a comment that the question would be a better fit for WPSE.
    – Chip Bennett
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 15:29
  • »People who prepare their questions properly will find our site anyway. Those who don't will ask on Stack Overflow. We don't need more bad questions.« :) +1
    – kaiser
    Commented Apr 20, 2012 at 1:31
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As I just found out, there are two other reasons:

  1. Perception:

    I thought about posting over there, but the response time/quality isn't the same as it is on this particular board/site.

  2. Complete lack of respect for SE mechanics:

    Sorry if that bogs the system, I just really need an answer.

The first part of that comment certainly has relevance. We're a new, less-mature SE community than SO, and as such, we have fewer people answering questions, and a more shallow pool of expertise. But that can only change by diverting WordPress-specific questions to WPSE, instead of keeping WordPress-specific expertise on SE.

The second part of that comment is also relevant, but in a manner over which we have no control: some users will simply disregard SE mechanics, because they are ignorant of those mechanics, or because they are too lazy to follow them, or because they selfishly "just need an answer". The user quoted above not only knowingly posted a WordPress-specific question on SO, but also posted an exact duplicate question of his own from just one hour prior - something that is blatantly against SE mechanics, regardless of SE network site.

There's not much we can really do about the latter (other than use current site mechanics, including downvoting and flagging); but for the former: I might try to spend a bit more time on the SO "WordPress" tag feed, offering answers to relevant questions and commenting that the question would be a better fit for WPSE. Maybe that will help?

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In the information tab of the "Wordpress" tag in StackOverflow you can read:

WordPress Answers Stack Exchange

An evolving Stack Exchange site dedicated to WordPress. WordPress questions not about programming are best asked here.

This quote means that, if I have a WordPress question which is related to programming, I will probably ask it on SO. I expect SO users to be programming savvy, so they will probably answer my question faster or help me understand my problems better. However, if my Wordpress question is not programming related, I will of course use WPSE.

UPDATE

Since my original post, some things have changed both in StackOverflow and in my opinion.

First, as you can see in the comments below, the description of the Wordpress tag in StackOverflow as been changed, and I believe it makes more sense, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

Also, after asking the same question (which was quite urgent) in both this website and StackOverflow, I can tell that it had much more attention in here (specially after I created a bounty, of course). Since the question was 100% about programming (Wordpress related), I can honestly say that this website is more active than StackOverflow regarding this issue. In two days, in this website I had about 60 views. The same question in StackOverflow had about 25 views.

I guess that, as people are becoming (as JCVD would put it) aware of this website, they are starting to use it more for Wordpress related issues. From now one, I will definitelly come to Wordpress@StackExchante first, and only then go to StackOverflow if I have the need to. For this, I just have to thank the StackExchange Wordpress community and be a part of it as a proud member.

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    That is not quite incorrect, WPSE is very well suited for programming questions that are specific to WP and you are more likely to get good answers for such here (because here we have people who specialize in WP and at SO people who don't can submit more generic and poorly fitting answers). I will look into having this changed.
    – Rarst Mod
    Commented Oct 18, 2012 at 11:17
  • 1
    I fixed the description on SO.
    – fuxia Mod
    Commented Oct 18, 2012 at 11:21
  • I downvoted for inaccuracy on WPSE.
    – Adam
    Commented Oct 18, 2012 at 11:25
  • Not sure where the inaccuracy is, I was just expressing my opinion, but sure. :-) I actually believe it makes more sense to have all wordpress questions centralized on this website. However, since I have questions related to other issues as well (html, css, php, whatever), I tend to go to SO first, even if it is about wordpress. At least to check if someone asked something similar there.
    – Cthulhu
    Commented Oct 18, 2012 at 11:26
  • The way you worded your statement beneath the quote can be interpreted a couple of ways. Because of this, I was unsure of the context in which you were speaking. I would have worded it differently. I've retracted my downvote. I'll go use it on someone else :)
    – Adam
    Commented Oct 18, 2012 at 11:43
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    Ok, so there was some back and forth over that tag wiki. Outcome - programming questions related to WP are currently considered on topic on either site. The statements of which site is better / preferable / whatever for them are undesirable since sites' communities can decide that for themselves but not for one another. The point about them not fitting for WPSE in wiki was erroneous and erased.
    – Rarst Mod
    Commented Oct 18, 2012 at 13:01
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It exists because people asked WP questions on SO before WPSE even existed. :)

As we grow we are slowly dragging those to us (it hasn't been that long since SO got more WP questions than us) but given sheer SO size there will probably always be some of such there.

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  • Questions asked at SO before WPSE existed certainly should not even be part of the discussion. But how many questions per month do we get here at WPSE, while SO is getting almost 500 WordPress-specific questions per month? 1000? That means that SO still gets almost 50% of our total. Don't you think this situation exacerbates our community-size/expertise-pool problem?
    – Chip Bennett
    Commented Apr 18, 2012 at 15:11
  • @ChipBennett I'm sending you straight back to ground school! 1.000 + 500 = 1.500. 50% would be 750 and 500 = 30%. :D
    – kaiser
    Commented Apr 20, 2012 at 1:34
  • @Kaiser: if we get 1000 questions per month, and SO gets 500 WordPress-specific questions per month, then they get 50% (i.e. 500/1,000) of our questions. You are correct in that SO gets 30% of the total WordPress-specific questions in all of Stack Exchange; but that's not what I said. :)
    – Chip Bennett
    Commented Apr 20, 2012 at 1:38
  • @ChipBennett Yea, ok ;)
    – kaiser
    Commented Apr 20, 2012 at 1:40
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    @kaiser Don't mean to be persnickety, but for the sake of completeness: "ground" may refer to the earth, the bottom of something or a soccer field, to only name a few. A "Grundschule" will remain an elementary school though. Sending you straight back to English class. ;-)
    – Johannes Pille
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 11:47
  • @JohannesPille Verdammt. Lass mich von Mama gleich morgen einschreiben ;)
    – kaiser
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 11:53

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