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This question, as you can see in my comment, has been posted by the same user on English Language & Usage here

now I've posted a comment on both site indicating this and i've down voted the question here on Arquade (2 reasons, English Language & Usage's question was posted first and i don't have 125 rep to down vote there either)

I am wondering, in situations like this where a user has clearly re-posted their question on another SE Network Site is there a flag we should raise (here on Arquade)? as i'm quite sure cross network posting is looked down upon.

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We definitely frown on cross-posting the same question on multiple sites. In almost all cases, the question only really belongs one one of the sites. If you think your question is on the wrong site, you should flag it for migration rather than cross posting.

In general, though, we don't really mind cross-site duplicates. Questions that are substantially the same can be on topic on multiple sites, and different communities might have different perspectives on answering them. And you don't need to search every site on the network before asking a question; it won't get closed just because someone posted basically the same question on another site.

In this particular case, the questions are asking different things, so there's nothing wrong. The Arqade version asks for the source of the quote, and the EL&U version asks for the meaning of the quote.

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  • Bleh, no. Exact duplicates on more than one site basically means the question hasn't been thought through. It requires more thinking it through on the asker's end before posting, if it can be posted verbatim on more than one site. That said, I don't know if this one qualifies, but if it's a single word difference, then yes, it's definitely a cross-site dupe.
    – Frank
    Aug 20, 2014 at 23:57
  • In the specific case where the questions are word-for-word the same, I agree with you, but in general a question that's basically the same as one on another site should be left to each site's moderation. Aug 21, 2014 at 0:00
  • That's not what your answer is saying. They're both asking for the source, irregardless of the site. Both have slightly different context, but they're asking for the same information, even if they're using different words.
    – Frank
    Aug 21, 2014 at 0:02
  • Yes it is. Cross-site duplicates are not the same as cross-posting. Do you check on Sci-fi for duplicates before posting lore questions on Arqade (hypothetically)? From the examples, this question isn't about word-for-word cross-posts, so that's not what my answer covers. Aug 21, 2014 at 0:06
  • "In general, we don't really mind cross-site duplicates." Yes. Yes, we do. It's something the entire SE network frowns upon, for very good reason.
    – Frank
    Aug 21, 2014 at 0:07
  • Can you provide a source for that? The post I linked to in my comment on this question seems to disagree. Aug 21, 2014 at 0:08
  • That's a pretty old post. I'm pretty sure things have changed since. Lemme see if I can find anything. There we go: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/64068 as of last year.
    – Frank
    Aug 21, 2014 at 0:40
  • Er. Edited last year, at least. I'm on mobile; its not obvious for cwiki posts.
    – Frank
    Aug 21, 2014 at 0:50
  • So, there are two different issues here. The post I linked deals with substantially similar posts on different sites, presumably posted by different people, and the one you linked to deals with identical cross-posts from the same person. This question deals with this weird irrelevant middle ground where a person posts related but different questions on different sites, which is obviously not a problem. I'll edit my answer to clarify the difference. Aug 21, 2014 at 0:54
  • @Frank do you think this is better? Aug 21, 2014 at 0:59
  • Your answer is now contradicting itself. It seems that cross site duplicates are kinda sorta OK, but maybe not.
    – Frank
    Aug 21, 2014 at 2:20
  • As I keep saying, there's a difference between a cross site duplicate (asking a question that was already asked on another site) and cross-posting (asking the same question on multiple sites). They are very similar, but the former is OK and the latter is not. We don't expect people to search every potentially relevant site before posting. Aug 21, 2014 at 2:22
  • @Frank Original asker here. I posted the ELU one first, and got several comments suggesting that the source of the quote was MGS2 itself, and that there was no "original meaning". Rather than shift the focus of the question there, with users who might not be familiar with video game lore, I posted question two here to try to confirm the quote's origin as being from MGS2. It was perhaps not well-advised on my part to ask the questions in such a similar way, and perhaps in the future I could avoid this confusion by simply stating my intent in the question.
    – Zibbobz
    Aug 22, 2014 at 16:30

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