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Several times, including perhaps this question today I would have liked to suggest migration to Physics.SE. Similar to this question I would like to ask for this feature to become available as a possible migration option:

Flagging > Closing > Off-Topic > Migration > Physics.SE

I do not know how to find earlier examples where this has happened (cf this answer to another similar question) but I would expect there are quite a few of them.

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    $\begingroup$ (1) You can always ask a moderator to migrate a question manually, to any site. (2) The number of possible migration targets is severely limited (4? IIRC). Thus, it only makes sense to set this up for sites where there is demand for a steady flow of migrated questions. If I didn’t miss anything, according to mathoverflow.net/tools/posts/migrated/away , the number of questions migrated to physics.SE in the last two years is: 0. $\endgroup$ Oct 11, 2017 at 15:19
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    $\begingroup$ All right, I do not have access to that page, but if it is indeed zero that does not seem necessary, even if I would have wanted to suggest this several times in the past year. I guess I'll stick to manual flags in such cases for now... $\endgroup$ Oct 11, 2017 at 15:29
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    $\begingroup$ @JulesLamers Yeah, usually the case for a new migration target starts with a steady stream of questions being flagged for migration to that site. (FWIW I did some checking on the Physics end and found three migrations from MO since May 2012.) $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Oct 26, 2017 at 3:32
  • $\begingroup$ To add to Emil Jeřábek's comment the number of migration paths is at most 4 other sites + 1 spot additional spot for meta (which is always present). See this comment and this meta.SE post: More options when flagging for migration. $\endgroup$ Nov 30, 2017 at 5:47

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According to FAQ on migration a migration done in this way (if users flag it as off topic/belongs on another site) is rejected if none of the tags on the exists on the target site. Quote from What is migration and how does it work?:

A migration can be automatically rejected before it even gets migrated if any of ... The question does not contain any tags that exist on the destination site, with three exceptions:

(There are also some other situations when migration is rejected, but I only included the one which is tag related.)

This means that to migrate questions such that none of the tags exists on Physics.SE, you would need to involve moderators even if the migration path is open. So I think that if a migration path is discussed, it should be also checked whether questions to be migrated are likely to have common tags.

Although more important criterion is actually whether there are enough questions being migrated.

EDIT: As pointed out by Asaf Karagila (physics) is an intrinsic tag on physics.SE. This means that if a question being migrated has tag before migration, the migration will not be rejected.

I have noticed a few tags which are common for both sites. (I am not sure whether there is an easy way to compile a complete list. I found this ones by looking at the most popular tags on Physics.SE and also on looking on questions that were mentioned in discussions about migration to Physics.SE here on meta.) Here are some such tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

There are also some tags which are rather close. (Such as here and (mathematical-physics) on Physics.SE, other examples are differential-geometry, algebraic-geometry, algebraic-topology) In such cases, creating a synonym on Physics.SE could help against migration getting rejected.


I have tried to get all MathOverflow tags and Physics tags from Data Explorer and then I simply used grep to get the intersection of the two files. Unless I made a mistake, the complete list of common tags consist of the following 56 tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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    $\begingroup$ I am sure that the foundation tags are completely disjoint in the two sites, by the way. :) $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Nov 30, 2017 at 8:02
  • $\begingroup$ I certainly agree. There are probably a few more tags where meaning of the tag with the same name is slightly different (and sometimes entirely different) on the two sites. Still, the software only checks whether there is a tag with the same name (or synonym with the same name) when deciding whether the migration is rejected. $\endgroup$ Nov 30, 2017 at 8:05
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    $\begingroup$ Yes yes, of course. I was merely pointing out this observation that seems amusing to me, migrating a question about foundations to physics.SE... :) In an unrelated topic, do you know how we can find the intrinsic tags of a given site? $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Nov 30, 2017 at 8:06
  • $\begingroup$ @AsafKaragila I have asked on meta.SE whether it is possible in some way to find all intrinsic tags for some given site: Is it possible to find out which are intrinsic tags for a given site? In this specific case it is explicitly mentioned in this post on Physics meta that (physics) is an intrinsic tag on that site. I have updated my answer to reflect this. $\endgroup$ Nov 30, 2017 at 8:32

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