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SFF currently has thousands of questions relating to major lit works such as Tolkien's writings, Harry Potter, Dune, etc. What should we do when we see questions that are already answered on SFF. More specifically when we see the questions resemble SFF questions suspiciously.

The biggest issue I see with this is that then other users may simply find and copy and paste answers from SFF as well. While being part of the Stack network, when you google the questions SFF answer may well show up at the top of your results, hence answers from lit coming from other peoples answers on SFF.

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    @ChristianRau sqb seems to be asking about migration to or from SFF just purely on content/topic , im asking about duplicates between sites.
    – Himarm
    Jan 18, 2017 at 18:33
  • Ah, I see. But then, what are you expecting differently from general existing SE policy here.
    – Cahir Mawr Dyffryn æp Ceallach
    Jan 18, 2017 at 18:34
  • @ChristianRau from my understanding (of the existing se policy) if i didnt ask the question on the other site, i could ask it over here with no consequences. which for a new user seems fine, but for a user on both sites, they could potentially re-word and re-ask ancient questions from SFF over here to potentialy game the system from people who dont frequent sff and know its already there.
    – Himarm
    Jan 18, 2017 at 18:44
  • Suspiciously worded sounds like plagiarization, those should be closed (and deleted).
    – Helmar
    Jan 18, 2017 at 20:52

2 Answers 2

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If the question is 100% identical (without specific literature.SE variations that would invite answers from different angles), I would propose closing them, with a link to a duplicate.

Ideally, that should be accompanied by a comment pointing out the duplicate, and explaining that the question can and should be edited if it is in fact different from SciFi one, and in which way.

Basically, same way we handle same-site duplicates but without convenient logistics.

  • In a special case, where the answer here attracts an outstanding answer that's missing from SFF, the best solution - although perhaps untenable from migration theory standpoint - would be to (1) Migrate the question to SFF; (2) Merge it on SFF with the original question, to preserve the outstanding answer.
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    I agree, on the caveat that it should ACTUALLY be a duplicate from scifi, ie a copy-paste or attempt to hide a copy-paste. this question: literature.stackexchange.com/questions/28/… while similar to the sff question, isn't a copy-paste job and should remain on here as on-topic.
    – DForck42
    Jan 18, 2017 at 18:43
  • Frankly, I would expand the same asnwer to the cases where it's 100% duplicate even without ill intent (e.g., if we'd close the question as a duplicate if both were posted on the same site), and not JUST malicious copy/paste. But I think that should be a related, separate question.
    – DVK
    Jan 18, 2017 at 18:44
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    What would the close reason be? Would we need a custom close reason?
    – Skooba
    Jan 18, 2017 at 19:01
  • @Skooba - probably.
    – DVK
    Jan 18, 2017 at 19:19
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    If they are 100% identical they are plagiarized and belong in the deepest hells of deleted questions—not just closed.
    – Helmar
    Jan 18, 2017 at 20:50
  • @Helmar - True, but I'm assuming the actual literal plagiarism will be maybe 1-5% total
    – DVK
    Jan 18, 2017 at 20:56
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If someone has copied content from another site, then that's plagiarism, and we'll deal with it accordingly.

If someone just asks a question that has already been asked on another site, then that just means it's a popular question. There's no rule that if a question is asked on quora or on reddit that it can't be asked on Stack Exchange; I see no reason why a question asked on another Stack Exchange site can't be asked here. Note that the Literature site has different standards than many other sites, so maybe they're asking the question on this site because they prefer our answers to another site's answers.

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    “If someone has copied content from another site” without attribution it's plagiarism. Copying a question with attribution is yet another issue.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Feb 24, 2017 at 21:15

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