Crossposting Etiquette

Question

I posted a question here yesterday and after 6 hours I had less than 10 views. So I crossposted to the Ask Ubuntu SE since it is a bit more active of a site. The question is by no means Ubuntu specific and I genuinely think the answer would be of value to this site. But in order to achieve an answer, I spread my net a little bit wider.

After I crossposted, I edited my post to include some new information and to mention the crosspost. I did this as I have been told before on other sites on the SE network that crossposting is fine so long as you observe proper etiquette and mention the crosspost.

I then received a comment from a user telling me, I'm paraphrasing here, that they had information that might solve my problem but that they would not give it to me because I crossposted. Shortly thereafter, the post was closed as off-topic by a diamond mod.

I have a couple of problems with this.

First, it is not off-topic here. If anything it is off-topic at Ask Ubuntu because it is not Ubuntu specific. I simply went there because it is a bigger site than the Unix SE so there would be more traffic and more chances at a possible answer.

Second, the user's statement that they could help but wouldn't due to a breach of etiquette seems to be contrary to the Stack Exchange's mission statement which is:

...the ultimate intent of collectively increasing the sum total of good programming knowledge in the world

Anytime I've crossposted and got an answer, I've gone back and answered my own unanswered questions so that I can help increase the sum total of good knowledge in the world. None of my previous crossposted questions on any other site have ever been closed.

Third, the close reason included states that, "Cross-posting is strongly discouraged." Discouraged, yes. But outright banned, no. For every post calling for an outright ban on crossposting (1, 2), there is another (1, 2) suggesting that limited use, as long as it is openly declared, is fine. And as long as you go back and spread the knowledge, it is a net positive. This is in contrast to having the knowledge but refusing to share it do to a perceived breach of etiquette which I see as a net negative for this site in particular and the network at large.

In reference to some of the statements in the above linked meta posts, I had honestly not even considered migrating the question. Because, as I've mentioned, it is more of a general Unix question than an Ubuntu specific question. Some of the links in my question reference Fedora, SUSE, and others. So I really feel that it belongs here. But if the knowledge is not available here, getting it elsewhere and bringing it back is of value to the site.

I think what irks me most is that, had I not mentioned that I had crossposted, the user might have shared his knowledge, fixed my problem, and added to the volume of good posts on this site. But I had been told in the past that crossposting is okay if proper etiquette is observed and the crosspost is declared. I did so and ended up getting my question closed.

So my question is this: Specific to Unix SE, is crossposting outright banned here? If so, I simply won't mention it again. Or do others think as I do and that obtaining good answers elsewhere (when they cannot be obtained here in a reasonable amount of time) and bringing them back here increases the value of the site so long as it is done in an open and transparent way?

Answer 1

I don't know where this focus on admitting it came from, but it seems irrelevant to me if you divulged the crosspost, that's not the reason we avoid them. If you post on one site, aren't getting any answers, and want to move to another site, we can move it for you. Duplicating the post and trying to keep it in sync is unnecessary work for you, and since almost everyone else who does this ends up not keeping the posts in sync, we just don't allow it.

There's little reason to have the information duplicated; future users don't benefit by googling a question and finding the answer on AU followed by the exact same answer on UL. We're part of the same network, just capture the information somewhere so people can find it. We generally link to the still-open version so people who stumble across our version can find the other one, so nobody misses out on a solution. There's no benefit to separate threads; it's like keeping two copies of a file around instead of symlinking one to the other

Answer 2

I didn't see the comment you're talking about, but your attack on its author is out of line. Anybody is free not to answer a question.

Multi-posting is forbidden between Stack Exchange sites by default, by near-consensus on the main meta. A few Stack Exchange sites do allow it, check their metas for policies. Unix & Linux does not allow multi-posting and even has an explicit close reason for that. The fact that this close reason is misclassified under “off-topic” is due to a limitation in the Stack Exchange engine.

The posts you're citing as saying that multi-posting is “fine” actually apply to multi-posting between Stack Exchange and a non-SE site, and they don't say that it's fine, they say that it's discouraged but that if you do it anyway you must be explicit.

“I didn't get enough attention” is not a valid reason to repost. Reposting the same content again to get more attention is a form of spam, and on Stack Exchange, like pretty much anywhere on the internet, we don't like spam.