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There has been significant discussion on the scope of this site as it relates to UI and UX, and also the SE 1.0 UX Exchange.

(and I think I've seen a couple others in the past that I'm not finding now)

Based on the discussions that have occurred and support for taking action, here's what we're planning to do and what you need to know:

  1. Put both UI Stack Exchange and UX Exchange into read-only mode.
  2. Import top questions (and their associated answers obviously) from UX Exchange. We have learned from past experiences that migrating old content in from SE 1.0 sites does not go well for a number of reasons. So, we'll be doing a "best-of" import of questions.
  3. User accounts will not be imported from UX Exchange. However, if you have an account on UX Exchange and UI Stack Exchange, make sure that your display name, open id, and email match on both sites. If a post of yours is imported, and an existing account on UIUX Stack Exchange is found, you will be granted ownership of the post. This is so much easier to do as part of the import process rather than after the fact, so please make sure your account details match now!
  4. We will then perform a site-wide reputation recalc. This will grant reputation to anyone from item #3.
  5. We will update the logo and descriptions to reflect UX instead of UI (welcome banner, how to ask, faq, etc)
  6. Point uxexchange.com here and provide a data dump of the SE 1.0 site if desired?
  7. Turn off read-only mode on UX Stack Exchange.
  8. Enjoy!

UX Exchange users - if you are interested in coming over to the UX Stack Exchange, please create your account with matching display name, open id and email now before we do anything!

We are looking to make this happen next Wednesday or Thursday.

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  • Two questions: 1: How do I make absolutely sure that my account-details are identical? 2: What can I do to nudge my content into the pool of merged content (and why can't we get all of it?)
    – Jonta
    Mar 25, 2011 at 17:10
  • @Jonta, 1) make sure the details on your user profile here match the details you have on UX Exchange. 2) importing in a lot of old content can hurt a community, we've seen that several times. By only taking the top content, we substantially decrease that risk and add content that only benefits the community.
    – Rebecca Chernoff
    Mar 25, 2011 at 18:40
  • Does this mean that newer content will automatically be eligible for merging?
    – Jonta
    Mar 25, 2011 at 18:46
  • @Jonta, we're looking at a few things tied to votes. This means that the community has vetted the posts that we bring over.
    – Rebecca Chernoff
    Mar 29, 2011 at 20:38
  • @Rebecca - I'm really confused as to how importing a lot of old content can hurt a community. What do you mean by that?
    – Charles Boyung
    Mar 30, 2011 at 14:32
  • @Charles - old/low voted content doesn't always match the target site very well, plus it has the potential for creating lots of duplicates.
    – ChrisF
    Mar 30, 2011 at 21:21
  • @ChrisF – "Doesn't always match the target site very well": this isn't one of very many merges, it's an individual one, and should imo be treated as such. I think UX will fit very nicely under UI, and can't think of questions ("content") that wouldn't be appropriate on UI. "plus it has the potential for creating lots of duplicates": Then the ones that were to be discovered would be merged, creating even better content. Or am I missing something here?
    – Jonta
    Mar 31, 2011 at 12:25
  • @Jonta - There were other SE 1.0 sites where it was proposed but abandoned plus attempts at wholesale migrations from Stack Overflow to Programmers (as an example) have been resisted for this very reason.
    – ChrisF
    Mar 31, 2011 at 12:28
  • @ChrisF - but @Jonta's point is still quite valid. I really don't see how a mostly complete merge would have hurt here. We were merging two basically identical sites.
    – Charles Boyung
    Mar 31, 2011 at 12:51
  • I don't really see how this is status-completed. It doesn't look like the mapping of UXExchange users to UI.SE users took place at all. Is this still in process or what? Look at this question: ux.stackexchange.com/questions/4775/… I know my accounts matched exactly, and I'm sure that Glen's accounts matched as well. I'm sure there are others too, but I can't find a single merged question where the user accounts match up to an existing SE account.
    – Charles Boyung
    Mar 31, 2011 at 12:53
  • @Charles - I understand you point, but I was trying to explain what I understand to be the thinking behind the decision. I'm not part of the team but being active on several sites (and a moderator on two) I see the results of attempted mass migrations. While in this case they could work, perhaps the team decided not to risk it.
    – ChrisF
    Mar 31, 2011 at 12:54
  • @Charles - I'd post that as a separate question.
    – ChrisF
    Mar 31, 2011 at 12:55
  • @ChrisF - I can understand their thinking, but I don't think it makes much sense to not listen to those of us that are active in the communities (either one or both). No one from either community seemed to think that a full merge would be bad in any way. I just seem to think that if these sites are managed "by the community" (As SE repeatedly says), then the community should have a bigger say in how things are done on that community. It all seems to be unilaterally decided upon and once SE (one person in particular) has made a decision, they are completely unwilling to listen to reason.
    – Charles Boyung
    Mar 31, 2011 at 13:12
  • 1
    @ChrisF - added: meta.ux.stackexchange.com/questions/248/…
    – Charles Boyung
    Mar 31, 2011 at 13:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The merge is complete, as far as I can tell. The SE team had some difficulty getting the votes copied over, and then had trouble getting the reputation to calculate correctly. But it all appears to be fixed now, and I think -- I can't speak for the oddly quiet SE team -- the merge is totally, completely MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, fat lady sung, sharks have been jumped with friggin' lazers on their heads, done. :-)

Note that not all of the rep from uxexchange.com was carried over.

  • Only a subset of questions were migrated.
  • Questions are now awarded 5 rep per upvote. (I think the old site was still 10.)
  • There's an off chance you hit the cap of 200 rep / day on a day in which you earned rep on both sites.
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  • 1
    BTW, there's a diamond next to my name because I'm a moderator pro tem -- a regular ux.se user with a few special privileges. I'm not privy to the internal workings of Stack Exchange, Inc. The information I've posted is a summary of what I've learned from reading the threads on meta and watching changes in others' reputations.
    – Patrick McElhaney
    Apr 6, 2011 at 19:03

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