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When off-topic questions are posted, one of the reasons for closure available to voters is that "This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network." But when that selection is made, the only option for migration suggestions is "belongs on music.meta.stackexchange.com." At least having SE Music Fans as a choice would be nice, since many questions eventually get migrated there.

Why is this the only choice available? Couldn't we have an opportunity to browse for a suitable migration target, similar to the opportunity we get to browse for suitable duplicate questions when voting to close as such?

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    I've always wondered this!
    – Richard
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 23:35

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We've requested it in the past, but migration paths can only be made with sites that are out of beta. Music Fans is very much still in the beta phase of its life cycle. If it gets out of beta I definitely see this a being one of the first things done, however there are things to consider.

As a mod for both Music Fans and Music we could make a bigger push to do something about this, but I see this being more harmful as of now due to some of the issue I point out here. One of the biggest issues is quality which should be one of the first things assessed before migration. The first rule of migration is don't migrate low quality questions. About half of the flags I get about migration suggestions are for questions that are just a link and a sentence which should not be migrated regardless of if it's on topic or not.

The other big thing is knowing the scope of the other site. We've made other migrations where I talk with mods of the other site before sending it since they have a good feel for the site they moderate. While some users here understand the scope of music fan's, it's better to read around the meta there or ask users of the site if it would fit. I have blocked a few migrations both to and from music fans for this reason.

The last and most important reason is the question has to be off topic here. Being off topic here is the key to migration. If there are other issues with it (too broad, uncelar, ect), it should not be migrated in its current status. Not often, but a few times I've seen questions that were being closed as opinion based or too broad as flagged for migration.


Long story short it will happen someday, but in the mean time you can flag it with the custom reason. Before doing so please consider the following:

  1. It is off topic here (and not too broad, unclear, or primarily opinion based)
  2. It is on topic on Music Fan's (if you don't know feel free to ask)
  3. The current question is of an OK quality
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  • Just to support Dom's point - as a mod here I have migrated a few posts to music fans... And some of those were not appropriate over there. We all make mistakes, especially if not familiar with another site.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 7:11
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    @DavidBowling I don't want to discourage users from suggesting migrations, I would just like to encourage user to think before suggesting it. Music Fans is still in a state where several topics are fluid and subject to change so things may change if you visit infrequently. For example, identification questions were initially off topic, they became on-topic, and now we're trying to figure out what best to do with them. They are a lot of the current ID questions, but the site has low views on them and low responses.
    – Dom Mod
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 15:55

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