Stack Overflow moderator declined to migrate question asking to shorten code

Question

According to the FAQ, the following topics are wanted on Code Review:

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Isn't there a point missing? I see a review of my code not only as an attempt to improve performance, security and structure, but also to reduce redundant, unnecessary code paths.

Isn't improving readability a major goal in a code review?

Specifically, I flagged this post, from which I think belongs on Code Review as there is no problem with it. My flag got declined because the moderator didn't see any evidence to intervene.

• Jamal: Yes, those things are also allowed, but not all mentioned in Tour. The site's scope is best covered in How to Ask.
• greenhoorn: Thanks. I just stumbled over this post. It basically answers my question, but I'm still confused. Should I flag a question on SO, which wants code to get shortened or not?
• cimmanon: Generally speaking, code refactoring requests are frowned on over on SO because the OP is usually incapable of sufficiently clarifying the question in such a way that it would be useful to future visitors. (see: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/295665/…)..

Answer 1

Yes, shortening code by reducing redundancy is within the scope of Code Review — it naturally falls under the category of general code improvements.

However, migrating a question involves a more complex decision-making process than you described. Please read A guide to Code Review for Stack Overflow users for more information.

For the specific question you cited, the Stack Overflow moderator may have declined to migrate the question based on...

• Lack of evidence that the question is off-topic for Stack Overflow. Did you cite an off-topic reason in your flag? (The moderator dismissed your flag without closing the question as off-topic, so it can be deduced that the moderator thinks it's on-topic for Stack Overflow.)
• Poor question quality (the "Don't Migrate Crap" rule). The question basically consists of a code dump with no explanation of motivation. What is a? What does length_wordlist mean, and are there just two cases or is this an excerpt of 2 out of n cases? The code looks like it might be incomplete, since the first case has FILE.close() but the second case does not.
• A comment by @jonrsharpe (a highly ranked Code Review member) encouraging the original author to cross-post with clarifications. If @jonrsharpe had thought that the question was worthy of migration, he would likely have flagged it instead.

• greenhoorn: Thank you, I will keep that in mind for the next time.