[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer (61): When to buy first toy and what kind of toys have any sense for newborns? (if any) by Madison Mallon on parenting.SE

@SmokeDetector tp

I saw that @Joe just protected this old question. I wonder whether we should not just close it right away as price-shopping assistance?

It may have been allowed in 2011, but I don't see how it fits into the SE model and these questions are frequently resurrected with a new link-only answer (and every appropriate answer must be indistinguishable from spam)

I thought about it, but the question is not asking for price shopping assistance. It is a ‘how’ question, or sufficiently close anyway I think it’s okay.

@Joe "Where can I find good suggestions on what kind of toys/occupations [...]"? is not really a "How" question (like, let's say, "How do I determine which toy is appropriate for my...?"). It's clearly asking for resources which will most likely be links (-> link rot).

"If I had to summarize our network in a single word, that word is “learning”. People come to our sites to learn about topics they are passionate about. As the old Chinese proverb goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Every question and answer ultimately should be about teaching and learning — yes, even the shopping ones." Jeff Atwood

parenting.stackexchange.com/posts/34940/revisions This question was just migrated to InterperpersonalSkills although 1) a duplicate has been there already and 2) this was closed for beeing off-topic (interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/18799/…). Is there any way to prevent something like this in future?

It happened really fast. But then again, there was not really much about parenting that would make it on topic here (it's not even a conflict between the parents about parenting). So I'm not sure how the OP could have made it on topic here, without completely changing the question. In its current form, it's also not really answerable on IPS, but rather belongs there and the purpose of closing a question is to give the OP time to edit it so it becomes on topic.

I agree that it wasn't on topic for parents - just thought it would be possible to prevent duplicates on IPS in future :)

A duplicate is not necessarily bad, especially not for the OP. But they also needn't be bad for the site, as different wording leading people looking for help to helpful answers.

It's been an exact copy

What is the problem to prevent? Is it a problem for Parenting.SE, for IPS.SE or the OP?

I think it would be nice to avoid that people have to deal with the exact same question several times on one site.

Maybe the mods from both sites could communicate with each other more. Then again, this happens so rarely, are the IPS people that bothered by it? The last time I remember a question migrated to IPS.SE was more than 2 months ago.

Yeah, I guess it's a good idea if the moderators talk to each other directly. Maybe IPS mods weren't bothered at all, I don't know.

If it happened frequently, this might become a problem - with "it" I mean migrating an exact duplicate of a closed question, but the way it is now, I hardly doubt it causes them much trouble.