<p>Two hours ago (ish), a new user posted <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/149548/p-value-f-statistic-test">this</a> question on two-tailed F-values - how to do them in R. </p>

<p>He (or she, but I'm going to say he) was told to take it to SO. So, he did what he can see to do -- he deleted* his question here, and subsequently reposts on SO. </p>

<p>* it's no longer deleted right now. See the update.</p>

<p>To little surprise, they see it as a <em>stats</em> question, and migrate it <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/149562/p-value-f-statistic-test">straight back here</a>.</p>

<p>The OP has already been told it doesn't belong here, and deletes the second copy. </p>

<p>He's a new user who has been scared into deleting his own question, <em>twice</em>. </p>

<p>He's acted in good faith but risks getting himself <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/86997/what-can-i-do-when-getting-we-are-no-longer-accepting-questions-answers-from-th">auto-banned</a> from being able to ask questions at all (and no, making a new account won't work either) -- a new user has no way of knowing this.</p>

<p>I'm somewhat disturbed by the eventual outcome here, especially in the way a new user that seemed to be trying to do the right thing was run around and ended up with a really bad outcome (two deleted questions). I think we should aim to find a way to do better than this for our new users, even if their questions do eventually close.</p>

<p>For openers, I think:</p>

<p>1) we need to avoid just saying "it belongs on SO". If it looks like a stats computing problem, there's a good chance we're wasting everyone's time. If you're not looking to see what happens to these posts when they go there, you probably should avoid sending people there. (Better to close a question, but we can do more than that.)</p>

<p>2) Even if we do decide to send them there, we need to make sure that new users know not to delete and repost. If it (deleting their own post) happens enough to a low rep user, it can kill their ability to post and <em>we mods can't fix that ban</em>. Generally it's better to migrate (and a few more heads get to have some input). But we should <em>never</em> migrate a poor question -- we have to improve it first, just as if it was a question here. </p>

<p>3) We also migrate too readily. Don't just migrate everything you think has something to do with computing; again, if you're not paying attention to what happens to these posts when they get migrated there, don't be quite so hasty. They often come straight back.</p>

<p>4) If a question must close, then so be it, but we should seek to give as much help as we can on the way.</p>

<p>5) I think we do need to take a slightly more lenient attitude to these questions (especially with new users). If you look back two or three years ago we have many similar questions that remained open, were answered and got upvotes. Some have a <em>lot</em> of upvotes. </p>

<p>Edit: In respect of (5) (and in turn, (1) and partly (3)) -- in particular there's a category of posts that if asked here tend to be migrated to SO and if asked on SO would tend to be migrated here, because enough people there see it as fundamentally a stats question to migrate (it would also include a fraction of the posts we close instead of migrating). To me this isn't a tenable situation, and I think we should look at trying to actually take a larger portion of those posts that a substantial portion of both sides think fit on the other side. This is not the same thing as taking a large fraction of posts that clearly belong on SO. I don't think this will vastly increase our volume -- it's not like the migrations are in the tens per day.</p>

<hr>

<p>So to the main question: <strong><em>What are good ways to improve the outcome here?</em></strong></p>

<hr>

<p>Some followup:</p>

<p>I undeleted both questions; hopefully that helps avoid risking an auto-ban. I closed as duplicate the migrated one (which rejected the migration, oddly - I thought close as duplicate was one option that didn't reject the migration).</p>

<p>The original needs to be improved -- initially it should be clarified even if it migrates or we send the OP somewhere else; I think it can be rephrased to a statistics question ("How do I calculate two-tailed p-values with an F-test?" -- which certainly is on the 'requires statistical expertise' -- they shouldn't be dealing with that on SO) with a small R-component (i.e. giving the line of code required to implement the explanation).</p>

<p>I think this particular question is actually a stats question in disguise ... there are a bunch of issues about two-tailed F tests that are often handwaved or glossed over that should be discussed before going anywhere near how to implement any of it in any packages -- and I think once the statistical issues are clear, the computer problem is trivial (and would likely survive on SO if asked as its own question, though I doubt it's necessary).</p>
