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I asked a rather expat-related question on currency exchange which was migrated to money. This seems a bit strange because:

  • It's about a problem often faced by travelers,
  • Most people on the money site have never experienced this problem (except while traveling)
  • It may be most applicable to expats, but the popular consensus is that expat questions are welcome here. (there is an Expat proposal, but it's still just a proposal)

In general, the community seems divided on what is considered 'on topic', but I think questions which meet ALL the following criteria are on:

  • The question is most often faced by people we could classify as 'travelers'
  • Answers would be useful to other travelers

If we decide to move expat questions to a designated site, pushing them away before that site is up seems to miss the point. It smells like a rule that was established when Immagration still existed. Now that we seem to be between good expat sites, can't we relax the ban on expat questions a bit? (we can migrate them when they have a good home)

Thoughts? Do people agree that we're being overzealous migrating this question, or is there some expense associated with keeping this question here that I'm not considering?

2 Answers 2

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The meta answer that you linked to was a community discussion, but the overall consensus including those from our overlords at StackExchange is that this site is NOT for expat related questions (this is reflected in our FAQ).

In your question's case, it was contended by community members that it's likely to be a problem faced by expats rather than travellers, primarily because if you're travelling long enough and have a visa that allows you to work in the country you're staying, then that's more of being an expat than being a traveller. Secondly, the question was migrated and not closed because in this case, it was felt that you're far more likely to get better answers at Money.SE as it's a better for that Q&A site - and you did!

Hope that explains it!

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  • I did indeed get good answers for the question, but most or all while it was on Travel. Either way I got some feedback, though, so good enough. The mod / overlord line seems to contradict popular opinion here, and this leaves expat questions homeless for the moment (ahh, the symbolism). But I completely agree, SE benefits from the guidance of our overlords: we mustn't allow the hordes to drag us into mob rule, we're above Yahoo Answers and Reddit!
    – Shep
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 19:19
  • Well, it was proposed as a solution but I can't hunt down where at the moment the hive mind decided this wasn't the place for expat questions. I actually proposed a merger between Expat and Travel.SE myself, which wasn't well-received. For now, we stick to FAQ consensus and close / migrate questions which are considered to be such.
    – Ankur Banerjee
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 21:29
  • I'm curious about anything you can hunt down. Do you have any references for the merger not being well received?
    – Shep
    Commented Sep 10, 2012 at 3:27
  • I believe as @Shep that this very question about money might be useful to travelers. Yes the formulation of question was expat related, but when scanning travel.SE for an exhaustive list of payment methods abroad, I couldn't seem to find it. I think beyond the debate about expat, travelers also have money problems and since this business is very profitable (people probably lose 5% of their money on fees when paying abroad), it would be useful to offer them some help.
    – Vince
    Commented Sep 13, 2012 at 6:45
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I should point out the one you pointed to was firstly, a meta discussion, and secondly, you've cherry picked an answer which was NOT the accepted answer - this one was. Dori (the answerer) was SE Overlord staff (although she no longer works there, the views still stand), and as such Expat and immigration questions are off topic. We'd love an expat.se site, so that we could direct people there because I assure you you're not the first to have this issue, but the fact remains, as per SE overlord statements AND our [faq], expat and immigration questions are off topic here.

Also just because an answer posts the question here doesn't mean we should keep it - otherwise we'd have no need for the migration tool! It's meant to be a seamless transition to a site where there's more likely to be a useful answer for them.

And in addition, the more borderline questions we keep just to make a user happy, the further out the border stretches and the less defined travel.se becomes. Travel overlaps ever so slightly with Great Outdoors, Money, Expat proposal, various Language se sites, and more - but it's about getting the question to the site with the most appropriate audience - if there is one.

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  • Sorry, my post needed clarification: I changed "consensus" to "popular consensus". True, I "cherry picked" the most popular answer. My second list is required conditions. I would completely agree with moving / closing any question that didn't meet any of those. I hope my post is clear now.
    – Shep
    Commented Sep 10, 2012 at 2:58
  • But regarding your second paragraph: with one day on each, the question got 4 answers on travel, zero on money. I don't see a lot of evidence that money is more likely to provide a useful answer. More fundamentally, if this is an expat question, does the lack of a designated expat site mean we should migrate to the next closest fit? I would rank expat as the best fit, travel second, with money a distant third. You seem to be arguing for migration simply as a means of expulsion, without considering where the question goes.
    – Shep
    Commented Sep 10, 2012 at 3:25
  • That can simply mean travel is a more active community. Given the same number of users, I'd hope that money would be more useful on a money question. Note that I've not said money was more useful - I wasn't a migrator, but that it was off topic on Travel (a well established fact on travel in our faq). If money decides it's off topic there, they could close it too. By migrating it, at least it was getting a second chance.
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Sep 10, 2012 at 5:46
  • Long story short, you may disagree about where it goes, and that's fine - but Expat questions are off-topic here. There were only two correct options at that point - close, or migrate. There were by the looks of it, two votes to get it migrated.
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Sep 10, 2012 at 5:47

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