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So, I asked a question here last night, and this morning I find that it's been migrated to Graphic Design. I can't see any discussion and no evidence for whether the migration was because of a vote or unilateral moderator action (and if the latter, by whom).

I can see that it's on topic on Graphic Design. I believe it's also on topic here - it's about photographs and color choices. Now perhaps I could have been persuaded that it's better over there, but as far as I can tell nobody talked about migrating it (was there talk and it disappeared? that's bad too), let alone had a discussion that I could participate in. Why the urgency here?

My point: Let's take it easy on migrating questions that aren't blatantly off-topic, and let the asker participate in the decision rather than simply slamming quickly moving the question over to an unfamiliar community without comment, particularly if the asker is a long-time member of our community in good standing.

Edit:

It's not always clear who voted to move a question. For example, this morning when I looked at the question, the move note was as follows:

enter image description here

i.e., nothing about who moved it. I see now that the three people who voted to move it are listed, but only on the photo.SE side, which I didn't see earlier (assuming that the notice would be symmetric). This drove part of my complaint.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I've commented about similar 'rule Nazi' style moderation here: meta.photo.stackexchange.com/questions/604/… Not entirely sure what to do about it, but it does seem that there's a general spirit of 'hair trigger' and often unnecessarily punitive decisions being made on photo.se.com. Not sure if this stems from a user-base that is made up of SO members who (to some extent) need to be a little tougher on the off-topic stuff or their community would be overrun, or what... \$\endgroup\$
    – Jay Lance Photography
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 1:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ ... But I do think it'd probably be better if those of us who have been around longer and/or have higher reps could dial it back a little bit, be more welcoming, more tolerant of 'corner case' questions, etc. There may come a time when our community is so filled with users that we need to 'police' it more stringently... But that time isn't now, and we do need every user we can get our hands on, with as many of them as possible becoming avid fans who stick around and contribute regularly. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jay Lance Photography
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 1:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ Again, I'm not exactly sure what to do about the 'hair trigger' moderation in our community, I just know that it'd probably be better if we (as a whole, not preaching like I'm above it or anything like that) just relaxed a little bit. Just sayin'... :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – Jay Lance Photography
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 1:16

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Your question is clearly a design issue (and a web site design issue, to boot). It was only tangentially related to photography post processing, maybe… at best. The migration was completely appropriate.

You say "slamming the question over to an unfamiliar community" as if the action was taken to slap you down for dare treading on verboten subject. IF the Graphic Design SE did not exist, then perhaps maybe-kinda-sorta it might have squeaked by as baaaarely on topic. But as it stands, the subject has a much more appropriate community to address it.

The action was completely appropriate.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think that the problem here is the fragmentation of the SE community. There are sites that clearly overlap and questions can be on topic on two different sites. \$\endgroup\$
    – Carles
    Commented Jan 30, 2011 at 21:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ Hi @Robert, thanks for replying. You are correct that "slamming" was a poor word choice; I've edited the question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Reid
    Commented Jan 30, 2011 at 23:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ Regarding the topicality, I don't think the off-topicness here is so clear. Thought experiment: What if I had the opportunity to purchase some frames for prints in bulk and wanted to know if their color was appropriate? Is that off-topic here too? Same question, different technology. (And I submit that it's irrelevant whether there's a second community where it might also be on-topic; a question can be) \$\endgroup\$
    – Reid
    Commented Jan 30, 2011 at 23:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ My beef is not so much with the move as with the procedure: that I had no opportunity to participate in the decision to move. I might easily have been persuaded if there was a discussion. It's not like I don't come here often - why was it so important to get the move done fast? AFAIK, this was the very first question moved, and it happened without discussion. The prior discussion about moving questions to GD.SE was focused on how-to-use-photoshop. \$\endgroup\$
    – Reid
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 0:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ And finally, I submit that my frustration is legitimate. The sarcastic tone of this answer isn't necessary. \$\endgroup\$
    – Reid
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 0:07
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    \$\begingroup\$ I do have to agree with @Reid here @Robert... While it may not have been your intention, your post reads relatively snarky to me too. Just sayin'... :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – Jay Lance Photography
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 1:33
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I agree with Robert here. This particular question -- as you yourself noted -- is very much on topic for graphic design.

There were in fact three users who agreed to move it, so it was not something done unilaterally by a moderator, either.

migrated to graphicdesign.stackexchange.com by mattdm, ahockley, Rowland Shaw♦ 12 hours ago

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I feel like moving a question isn't bad or insulting to the asker. In fact, moving questions between sites is almost always a positive thing. I understand why it might be disappointing to have your question moved (now all your sweet reputation gets built up on a different site)

To the asker, you're saying "Hey, you've got a good question, but these people will be able to answer it better." To the site to which it gets moved, you're saying, "This isn't our area of expertise -- why don't you folks handle this?"

As an aside: If any question were a perfect candidate for moving to the graphic design site, it would be yours. The teach-me-photoshop questions are on topic on graphicdesign simply because Photoshop is such a common graphic design tool. Yours was legitimately a graphic design question.

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