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Related, but old and not on GD: Is game development no longer relevant on SO due to the creation of Game Dev SE?

I'm unclear when, or even if we should be trying to migrate on-topic questions from StackOverflow to GameDev.SE. Migrating on-topic questions, that game developers are more equipped to answer than other programmers, is good for the ecosystem here and advertises the existence of this site.

When I tried to migrate this question, I got in to a bit of a comment war: How to know if the player is signed in?. The OP eventually cross-posted and got 8 votes, and an accepted answer with 7 votes: How to know if the player is signed in?

I also flagged this for migration: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17455038/parallax-background-resizing. But the migration was declined: "This isn't off-topic here".

If that's a reasonable rejection reason, is there ever a case where a question is off-topic on SO but on-topic here?

Where is the line?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ That parallax question could be border line in both places, and I can see the rationale behind rejecting the migration. It is a coding question after all. It was cross posted here as well and has two close votes. \$\endgroup\$
    – House
    Jul 5, 2013 at 18:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ Aren't most questions coding questions? And I'm pretty sure the only reason that guy knows that this website exists and was able to cross-post is thanks to my comment. Maybe that's a solution, don't flag, just mention GD.SE in the comments? \$\endgroup\$
    – John McDonald
    Jul 5, 2013 at 18:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ I mean to say, it's not a coding question a game developer could answer better/differently than another developer. I agree that your comment brought him over here. I think commenting and flagging together are a reasonable solution. Then the moderators over there can decide, and the OP knows they have the choice. \$\endgroup\$
    – House
    Jul 5, 2013 at 18:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JohnMcdonald The problem with just mentioning it is that if its not a post that has gotten much attention on SO then they are just going to cross post anyway. Which do you flag as a duplicate? \$\endgroup\$
    – SpartanDonut
    Jul 5, 2013 at 18:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ You can't mark cross-posts as duplicates: "The duplicate question must exist on Game Development Stack Exchange". Do we really want to drop a link and encourage cross-posting? \$\endgroup\$
    – John McDonald
    Jul 5, 2013 at 18:21

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Personally, I think we should (try to) migrate on-topic questions where game developers would be more able to answer the question than non-gamedevs. This is how I discovered this website, and I think this will help our community grow.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I agree with this. I don't know what the "official" stance is, but even if a question is on topic on a certain site (SO in this case) I think migrating to more appropriate / better suited sites should be not only a valid option, but encouraged as well. \$\endgroup\$
    – SpartanDonut
    Jul 5, 2013 at 18:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 I guess it's the SO moderators that have the final word in this, but the fact that this particular question was answered only on GDSE might help in favoring migration. \$\endgroup\$
    – Laurent Couvidou
    Jul 7, 2013 at 13:19
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    \$\begingroup\$ Fun that when i didnt know GD, i never got a single answer on gamedev posts os SO. People here are more capable for our suited problems. \$\endgroup\$
    – Gustavo Maciel
    Jul 9, 2013 at 16:30
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The way I view it is there is a lot of overlap between GSDE and SO. Going by my understanding of the SO faq almost all questions that are about code and not hypothetical/theoretical on GDSE would be on topic on SO.

However, I think it makes since to direct to the most specialized site when there is any overlap. GDSE is more specialized than SO so all SO questions that relate to game development should be migrated. This not only applies to technologies (XNA, OpenGL) but to context. A question about Node.js about creating a server for a game’s leader board should be directed here in my opinion. There may be situation that arise unique to its association with game dev that allows users here to answer the question more completely beyond just the knowledge necessary to create the sever.

Also why on earth is there no GDSE option under migration at SO? That’s just dumb.

SO not allowing the migration of the mentioned question is strait up cannibalism and GDSE isn’t all that big to start out with, destructive behavior that is against the point of having the area 51 site in my opinion.

Anyways my point is I think that when there is overlap migrate to the most specialized group. Also add GDSE as a migration option from SO :/

Anyways I think the tagging system could be extreemly useful for sorthing out this sort of mess.

Why don't tags encurage redirects for off topic questions? Anything with the XNA tag on SO should be on GDSE with very few exceptions. Seems a simple way to handle whats on/off topic where. Share the tags but different SE sites claim certian ones.

P.S. I'm pretty sure GDSE would double in size and SO wouldn't notice a thing if when there was overlap the question was migerated to the most specilized site.

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When dealing with soft, fuzzy border problems like these, I like to look at the intention.

Is the intention of the post to get help with game development? BAM, in the GDSE bucket.

The reason for this; there are a lot of game programming related questions that could be answered by a non game developer, but the risk of not getting the specific by-knowledge (game articles, relevant anecdotes etc), that is so valuable, is higher than the reward of cleaning out GDSE from non-pure game related content.

IMHO.

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Personally I would migrate only questions that are obviously off-topic on Stackoverflow. If the question just begins: "I am making a game", edit it and remove the opener. Migrating is a good way to "save" a question, that can be useful on GD and would be probably closed on SO - since not many people know about GD there. And I am sure there are more game programmers on SO than on GD.

However the system has review, so if you feel that it should be moved, flag it (for moderator attention I guess) and comment on it. You can also bring this question to chat on GD where GD mods hang out often.

Maybe even start a question on meta whether a specific question should be migrated?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What exactly constitutes a question that is off-topic for SO, but on-topic here? The question you linked to is really just a bin packing problem, and according to a lot of people, programming-only questions should be migrated the other way. Fun times. \$\endgroup\$
    – John McDonald
    Jul 7, 2013 at 16:01
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In my opinion we should rather do the opposite - move more questions from gamedev to stackoverflow.

There are a lot of questions here which are about generic progamming problems and do not need any special knowledge about game development. When a question could be answered by an experienced programmer without any special game development experience, it should be asked on stackoveflow.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think a little of both is good. If you look at the question in sm4's post, it really is just a programming question. Maybe an identifying factor is not having answers for a period of time on either site, transfer to the other? \$\endgroup\$
    – John McDonald
    Jul 7, 2013 at 16:03

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