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Currently there are a total of 3,749 questions on this site. On SO there are 2,166 questions tagged "reverse-engineering" and on Security.SE there are 122 questions tagged "reverse-engineering". Not all are focused specifically on RE but quite a few are. Here are some examples:

From SO:

Ida Pro Radare2 LD_PRELOAD

Is it possible to extract function signatures from object files?

Unable to set breakpoints in gdbserver via IDA Reading from already open COM (serial) port?

protect python code from reverse engineering

From Security.SE:

Identification of TPM accesses in UEFI firmware

Exploitation: EIP refuse to jump to the stack although it's executable

Volatility Plug-ins to investigate packed exe files

I've been using this site since roughly December 2016, so I'm not exactly a grizzled veteran, but these exemplars strike me as on topic and focused on or directly involving RE concepts.

I took a look at this question from 2013 about the same kind of thing: Is it possible to migrate a question from other stackexchange sites to Reverse Engineering?

This site has been in beta for 1448 days now and has unquestionably proficient moderators and an enthusiastic and knowledgeable core group of users. The idea that this site is not "well established" simply because it's still in beta strikes me as laughable (unless I am misunderstanding what it means for a site to be "well established"). The number one problem seems to be getting more people to ask more questions here.

Here is my question: given that questions from other sites cannot be migrated to a site in beta (like this one), how can the number 1 factor keeping this site in beta - the low number of questions per day - be addressed? It seems like a chicken-and-egg problem: this site needs more questions to get out of beta, but people do not know about this site and so ask on another site, depriving this site of needed traffic (and the person asking an RE question a good answer), and then the question can't be migrated here, keeping the site in beta. Furthermore, due to its technical nature RE is never going be as popular as something more accessible like Bicycles or Worldbuilding.

Others and myself have commented on people's questions, telling them directly that it would be good idea to ask a RE question here rather than SO or wherever, but it does not seem to do any good. Personally I believe that if a question is on topic for this site and in unanswered, it should be allowed for that question to be migrated here, now that it is 2017 and this site is 4 years old.

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  • See here
    – Igor Skochinsky Mod
    Mar 7, 2017 at 9:05
  • I completely agree, but its a dilemma. If topics of (sub-) comminuties are not deemed offtopic in others, StackExchange principally eats its children. <sarcasm> We may get out of beta by allowing other questions i.e. about Ubuntu, Latex, English, ... </sarcasm>
    – Nordwald
    Mar 10, 2017 at 9:00
  • @Nordwald i think i see what you are saying. It seems like things are the way they are for a good reason in terms of how things are organized here
    – julian Mod
    Mar 10, 2017 at 23:37

2 Answers 2

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I think what you are already doing is about all that can be done at the moment (in addition to adding good questions and answers here). In particular, from this answer :

Moderators can migrate a question anywhere in the network, including public beta sites. Migrating to beta sites isn't something we encourage because beta should be all about a site figuring out its own voice rather than getting questions from elsewhere, but an occasional migration doesn't hurt much.

Additionally (emphasis mine):

By Stack Exchange policy, only questions that are off-topic on the original site may be migrated. The rule exists for a good reason. Many questions fall within the scope of more than one site, and allowing migration based on the sentiment that a question might do better elsewhere could lead to questions being moved around on a whim. Also, if questions are routinely migrated from low-traffic sites to high-traffic sites, the low-traffic site would never get a chance to mature.

Although this is about migration in the other direction, the point about off-topicness still applies. So unless you can make reverse engineering off-topic on those other sites, the questions can still be asked (and answered) there. However, recommending others to ask here may still be useful. Just don't overdo it to make it look like spam. And if a specific post is clearly off-topic on the source site, you can still flag it for a moderator to migrate here (see first link above).

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  • It seems like new users who have not spent much time familiarizing themselves with the Q/A format of SE have a tendency to ask questions that could be considered vague or off topic. Should we "go easy" on them by commenting on their less-than-ideal questions to guide them in the right direction instead of immediately flagging/voting to close their questions? Im worried about driving potential users away. They may be put off by immediately having their very first question closed for being a bit vague for example. I think the recent e-cigarette firmware question is an example of this
    – julian Mod
    Mar 10, 2017 at 23:36
  • @SYS_V one thing that may be useful is some meta posts with common questions, issues and etiquette which could be linked to for the new posters. We could also make some posts with resources, links etc. For example, the Japanese SE has a very nice resource list which they can link to for new users who ask an off topic question covered by the post.
    – Igor Skochinsky Mod
    Mar 11, 2017 at 0:07
  • To me this sounds excellent. How should an RE.SE-specific implementation be approached? For example, who should begin working on this? The pros who still use this site may be busy and enthusiastic newcomers like me are probably not qualified. What I could do is post a prototype to get things started and then the people who know better could edit it as much as it needs to be
    – julian Mod
    Mar 11, 2017 at 0:55
  • @SYS_V maybe you can make a draft and we can discuss it in the chat. Other thing that may be useful: go through closed and unanswered questions and see what are the most common problems, maybe we need to adjust or clarify our guidelines/close reasons.
    – Igor Skochinsky Mod
    Mar 11, 2017 at 20:19
  • statistics.SE has something similar to a resource list as well
    – julian Mod
    May 7, 2017 at 22:26
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Following up in Igors explanation there seem to be two solutions:

  1. Get SE to change its offtopic-policy (not likely)
  2. Make the site more popular, so people may rather ask these questions here

Maybe a feature proposal is the best way:

SE already checks is there were similar questions when you post a question. Principally, the same could be done to check if there may be a SE community better suited for this style of question. In the end, the user can still decide where he wants to post his question, but it may help some people realize there are more specialized communities for the question.

I can see a feature like this helping most smaller SE sites with similar problems.

On the downsite, I'm well aware that this is no trivial task. My proposal is to have moderators of subsites to provide keywords indicating relationships to their community.

edit:

On a site node, I actually think the chat might be essential for the growth of this site. I#ll try to lurk some more...

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  • Something I have observed is that people prefer to ask questions on sites where they are trying to build up their reputation points even if their question is better suited for a different SE site. Some are more interested in rep than getting the best answer. Option 2 - making this site more popular - is probably the most realistic i think.
    – julian Mod
    Mar 10, 2017 at 23:30
  • Checking for dupes across the whole network is actually a pretty interesting idea, maybe you should post it on the global meta.
    – Igor Skochinsky Mod
    Mar 11, 2017 at 0:10
  • Cross-reference to global meta: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/292275/…
    – Nordwald
    Mar 13, 2017 at 11:57

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