What's the status of ELL relative to ELU?

Question

Since English Language Learners beta is up & running (in "private" mode, whatever that means), is it now reasonable to close and/or migrate questions like When is it correct to use no and nope?

I think that's a typical case where almost the entire focus is on the needs and interests of people wanting to learn how to use colloquial English more fluently, and I don't think such questions should be on ELU unless there's some significant "backstory" involved. Which there isn't, there.

So if you disagree with me, vote this question down.

---

EDIT: Just to be clear. I'm not suggesting anyone should go trawling through old ELU questions looking for candidates to migrate to ELL. In this particular case the OP got his answer a year ago (and hasn't revisited ELU for months). I closevoted as GR back at the time, so I can't re-vote, but since someone has reposted it on ELL, I just don't see the point of leaving the "original" open here.

As I understand things, ELL will be out of "private beta" in a week or so, and I assume we won't normally want the same question to remain open on both sites. I'm asking whether in the circumstances it's reasonable to pre-empt what I expect to be a strong argument for closing the ELU copy at some point in the near future.

Answer 1

Patience.

The ELL site is not out of private beta yet, so it would not be possible to migrate questions there at this point, and even if we did, the OPs wouldn't be able to access the questions until the beta is opened to the public.

Even then, when ELL Beta is public, migrating questions from EL&U to ELL will be strongly discouraged. Rather, if the community here feels that the question is more appropriate on ELL, then they will be encouraged to leave a comment suggesting that the OP take their question there.

There will be no direct pipeline from EL&U to ELL.

That's because ELL is formative and its distinguishing characteristics are still nascent and mutable. Until ELL has its own community with firmly committed ideas about its purpose, it will be necessary to prevent a flood of well-intentioned migrations from this site.

Does that mean you can be more zealous in your close-voting here? Well, that depends. Right now, OPs still have nowhere to take their questions. When the ELL Beta opens to the public, they will. Personally, I think off-topic is off-topic and the existence of ELL doesn't really change my criteria for figuring that. If you have been more lenient and forgiving, then by all means, tighten up as much as you feel is appropriate.

Answer 2

It seems like ELL was started in large part because a lot of ELU questions seemed like they would be a better fit in a different community with a different mission.

As such, I'd be against a mass migration of questions from ELU to ELL. If we were talking about a small handful of questions, I think I'd feel more neutral about it. However, I don't think we should start a new community by migrating a ton of questions from an older site. The filtering process seems like it would be too onerous; plus, I think ELL should be allowed to grow on its own.

Some ELU questions probably would have been a better fit on ELL – had ELL existed at the time. But I think it's best to just consider those questions grandfathered in, at least for the immediate future.

Answer 3

Since ELL is public beta, this question seems to be very valid.

Although the scope of ELL is still forming, something will be unlikely to change. First off, ELL is for questions that native English speakers would consider obvious.

So, for example, NRAQ here will remain NRAQ there.
GR are usually accompanied with no prior research, in this case they will be unwelcome at ELL as well.

However, it is good and encouraged to harvest good questions for ELL among closed and deleted ones here at ELU.

What can be done right now?
Many users of ELU are not aware about ELL. Possibly, the opposite will be the case as well. Advertise on both sites about one another. This alone will reduce an amount of bad Q's at both sites.

The only alternative to migration is when users manually repeat their question (closed here) to ELL. We can't stop it, and I think it's worse than migration.
There are several problems, however:

1. There are technical limitations, like automatic creation of user profiles or storing comments and votes;
2. The one who actually migrates should be very familiar with the goals of both sites. Most likely, it should be a diamond mod for both sites. Since there were no elections, it must be a global mod who's ready to throw in a large amount of their time daily;