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This question was first closed with only 2 votes. I left a comment under it explaining how it is a linguistic question, and it got reopened. It then got migrated to a different site without discussing with the author by the same moderator who closed it.

It is my understanding that:

  • Moderator close votes (especially when there are few community votes yet) are used for blatantly off topic questions.
  • When a question fits on multiple sites, it is the author's prerogative to choose which site they want to post on, for whatever reason (good experience with the community, different perspective, etc.). You can suggest a different site, but you don't migrate away without consulting the author.

I therefore find the timeline of this question very strange and would like to kindly ask for this kind of thing not to happen again.

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    Mods aren't limited to only voting on blatantly off-topic questions - those should be the only times mods don't need to vote because everyone else will be quickly closing them! Instead we use our judgement to vote on all questions. There have been many questions that I've left for the community to decide if they're off-topic. But IMO, according to the on-topic definition determined by the community on this very Meta site, that question wasn't even borderline. It was asking for an explanation of the language-specific origins and usage patterns of one word. I think it firmly belongs only on ELU.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 10, 2021 at 6:15
  • But if the other mods, or the majority of the community, disagree, we can restore the question so it can be answered here. And if so, then we'll need to generate some new guidelines to follow for the future.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 10, 2021 at 6:36
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    @curiousdannii Could you engage my original comments on the question on which I explain why it is not off topic? Furthermore, after it was closed the community reopened it. Why then did you migrate it still? Clearly it was not “not even borderline”.
    – Keelan
    Oct 10, 2021 at 7:01
  • You didn't really make an argument. I'm not sure what there is for me to engage with. Sure, sociolinguists might be able to give some insights to the subject matter, but the question is still firmly within the area of English usage. I can't account for the open voters, but they didn't leave comments explaining why they thought it should be opened in contradiction to the site standards.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 10, 2021 at 7:32
  • I think you may be reading more sociolinguistic depth into the question than the OP intended. If the question had been asked in a way that would necessitate a sociolinguistic background in order for someone to answer it, then I think it would really belong here.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 10, 2021 at 7:36
  • But let's see what the other mods think.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 10, 2021 at 7:46
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    @curiousdannii could you also respond to this? “ Furthermore, after it was closed the community reopened it. Why then did you migrate it still? Clearly it was not “not even borderline”.”
    – Keelan
    Oct 10, 2021 at 17:36
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    Also, it’s kind of strange to complain that I didn’t make an argument when you’re the one to close and migrate the question without any comment at all! My argument is right there in my last comment: english.stackexchange.com/questions/576412/…
    – Keelan
    Oct 10, 2021 at 17:37
  • I cannot explain the question being reopened - it is inexplicable as the question appears to me to be clearly off-topic. No one made a strong argument that it deserves to be here, and as other comments suggested it be moved to ELU, that's what I did.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 10, 2021 at 21:42
  • Alright, I've delinked the migration, so the question can be edited, voted reopened again. I don't think it should be reopened - according to the site standards as I've always seen them enforced it is clearly a language usage question, not a linguistics question. Feel free to edit it to make it more clearly on-topic, or else people can vote to reopen in its current form.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 10, 2021 at 21:47
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    @curiousdannii I appreciate it, but I think you should also reopen it. It was open when you migrated it. You effectively overruled the community twice here now, and normal users cannot vote to reopen twice. I’m concerned how the author experiences all this.
    – Keelan
    Oct 11, 2021 at 5:33
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    @curiousdannii again you left a question closed in review because "original close reasons were not addressed" while the original close reasons were disputed (see comments). Are you aware that when you do this as a moderator, the question is removed from the review queue? In such a situation it is better to skip it, so that others can see the question and decide based on the original discussion in the comments whether it should be closed. After all, there is no agreement that edits are required to make the question on topic at all.
    – Keelan
    Oct 27, 2021 at 16:01
  • 1
    You mentioned you would open a meta question for discussion. Is that still coming?
    – Keelan
    Oct 27, 2021 at 16:01
  • Yes I'm aware of the effects of my actions, and I don't take any actions carelessly. I do skip questions in the queues too. I am still intending to make another Meta post about etymology questions.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Oct 27, 2021 at 23:01
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    @curiousdannii so can you explain why you didn’t skip that question?
    – Keelan
    Oct 28, 2021 at 5:26

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