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  1. There are hundreds of tags that do not even need discussion, and never should have been created. They are at the Far end of the tags, and they are not magically dissapearing. And many of them do not come up in a search , like when seeking out the dupes.

  2. At the far end of tags, there are fad items, vapor , and worded different repeats that at most have a few items to move, that both fall easily under either one. Would this far end of the tags be a Swift way to reduce total tags, without changing tags that have Many many questions tagged already?

  3. Why are there constant threads on tags that are Used and possibly Useful, when there are tons that are pure garbage is beyond my understanding. I am willing to hear a valid explaination?

    The Tag Zebra still exists among others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEBRA_(computer) <-- not

    Check out AcerOne sets of tags, one Acer tag or one AcerOne Or a ONE tag and an ACER tag only should be enough. minor example, but repeated over and again with other things.

  4. Does every set of possible Combined words need to exist on tags, when tags can Be Combined?

Please Pick one method:

4A) The majority of tags should be Simple , from those FEW tags any combination can be created. The assumption here is from a word base of ~5000 technical terms and Brand names , about ~500,000 different usable combination tags could be created. Some tags would have to remain in the long form , making a total of ~5500 tags. (The actual math is ~5000^5?)

4B) Tags should be as descriptive as possible, Combinations of words should be used as often as possible so the meaning is clear, and having ~250,000 tags will be effective, and each can have a very well made descriptions. Endless creation of combination will have to be created.


5) Does the community agree with me on this idea? A very limited quantity of moderators, like one or two total, should set a pattern and make descisions about Tags, or even be given control of the Tags on SU , so they can administer them properly under one theme? One idea, not 2-3 ideas that differ in the organisation of the tag system?


6) Do you think that:

6A) Other than a few new tags created each year, that the number of available tags, Are sufficient now to properly and fully tag any question that is on Superuser? Even if a new product feature or software should come along , could it fall under one of the tags that are now available?

6B) Should at least one Other person in the community "approve" of a tag prior to One person creating a new tag?


7) Fun historical comments

these tags are WAY too long, and screw up listings in a bunch of places. We need less absurdly long synonyms for this. – Jeff Atwood

@json: for whatever reason SU went the complete opposite way. like since august '09. which is why i'm bumping this. – quack quixote Apr 8 '10 at 20:24

Interesting... SU always seemed a little backwards. – perbert

Why are people making up tags when we have one?
- Let's nip this thing in the bud before it gets to be a problem on ALL stackware websites
- To get a badge...

I sometimes wonder if everybody sees the suggestions while typing the tags

(my notes, it is always important to think about how Tags are typed/searched by the user, before assuming the one picked will come up for them when they start typing.) The Most Commonly Used tags are the first items to come up.


ADDITION My definition of "followable" People have specific interests, You can pick a bunch of tags to follow Or ignore.

When those tags items are [combined-already], you have to find all the combinations and attempt to follow or ignore them.
If I wish to follow [AUDIO] with Simple tags I find [AUDIO] and follow it. With the simple method I am now Following , [AUDIO][ENCODING] , [AUDIO][OPTICAL] , [AUDIO][ANALOG] , [AUDIO][CONVERSION] , [AUDIO][DIGITAL] , [AUDIO][SOFTWARE] , [AUDIO][DOLBY] , and every other combination the users can dream up where audio is involved.
My follow is more or less permanent, it is one item

When items are combined Already, I could find [AUDIO-ENCODING] , [AUDIO-OPTICAL] , [ANALOG-AUDIO] , [AUDIO-CONVERSION] , [DIGITAL-AUDIO] , [AUDIO-SOFTWARE] , [AUDIO-DOLBY] , It is very unlikly that I am just going to follow Just One of these combined items. Each time a new combined item is created, it is not in my follow list, which is now only following this "audio" mess , and I still have the other interests I would want to follow.
My follow is way more items strewn through the tag system, that changes.

This is just one example, If I was following the OS I am using, A hardware type I am interested in, or a branded set of peripherals, it would be different.

Really do I need specific examples? Managing Management lol

Possible dupe :-) Should We Zap The Low-Occurrence Tags?

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  • 5
    Where's the question in all of this?
    – Ivo Flipse
    Mar 7, 2012 at 22:13
  • This is a discussion, the Numbers are placed there so you can discuss. There are little ? charachters at the end of the questions.
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 7, 2012 at 22:20
  • 2
  • In our situation , not in a programmers situation, how many tags would we need for Android? to ID an android system? then to combine with other words Android and Phone , Android and Tablet Android and Laptop. then Atom and ARM combine again with the other 3 items and less tags. Assume that was the pattern. Did we damage anyones ability to tag , or follow ? Android Atom and Arm might be very followable, Questions taged with the system or processor , They define something (at least) . Phone laptop or tablet says a lot, and are also followable.
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 7, 2012 at 22:45
  • Tomorrow , it is confirmed that android defines nothing. The tags gingerbread, IceCreamSandwitch , Honeycomb , are added. Usable tags? followable for people who have that version? does any thing need to be recombined, re-created? and eventually Gingerbread can be tossed. For these few items it "works"
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 7, 2012 at 22:57
  • Same thing happens at SO, dont have to look far to see the results stackoverflow.com/tags?page=876&tab=popular Instead of someone making a [weblogic] tag they made 18 , 1 used , Top 6 come up in the tagging, the specifics fall to the wayside. Did they need "Weblogic the Updated version" Yes! Will they need Weblogic12 yes. did they need to think before making many of tags? why was [integration] and [Maven] added to the pile as a combo?
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 8, 2012 at 16:26
  • 2
    FYI Zebra is probably referring to the thermal printers. Mar 9, 2012 at 21:56

3 Answers 3

3

I'm really having a hard time trying to make any sense of your question.

If this is the gist of your question

My follow is way more items strewn through the tag system, that changes.

It is very unlikly that I am just going to follow Just One of these combined items. Each time a new combined item is created, it is not in my follow list, which is now only following this "audio" mess , and I still have the other interests I would want to follow.

then make use of wildcards. The favourites & ignore system can handle wildcards, so add audio* & video* as part of your favourite tags.

enter image description here

So whatever combinations of a maybe used, it'll be listed. Something which you'll miss out if you're going to insist on style of tags.

2
  • That works great. How would anyone know to do that? Where is it written? I looked for the info under "tag subscriptions" instead of jumping to a Faqs on tags, it jumps to what looks like a "Stack Exchange" log-in ?
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 11, 2012 at 9:00
  • @Psycogeek tag subscriptions aka filters work at the network level. For example: Creating a tag subscription allows you view all questions from all Stack Exchange sites (or specific ones), about the tags you're interested in. or example: stackexchange.com/filters/1096/oracle-pl-sql
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Mar 11, 2012 at 9:44
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I will only address part of what you wrote, but let me first agree with you that

There are hundreds of tags that do not even need discussion, and never should have been created

But still … nothing we can't fix. We're constantly cleaning up anyway.

Does every set of possible Combined words need to exist on tags, when tags can Be Combined?

I don't know. I'd always prefer over logical and . Because "video" by itself doesn't really mean anything, and "conversion" is applicable to all kinds of domains.

But I will assume that most people don't browse on tag combinations, but one actual tag they find interesting. After all, what are tag wikis for? Let's take the "conversion" example … I wrote a tag wiki for "video-conversion", because it makes sense to condense the most important info and tools right there. Not in "video", and not in "conversion".


Does the community agree with me on this idea? A very limited quantity of moderators, like one or two total, should set a pattern and make descisions about Tags, or even be given control of the Tags on SU, so they can administer them properly under one theme?

No, I disagree. The whole point of tags is that it's a folksonomy. People create stuff based on what they think is right. Now, sometimes – with a certain predictability –, people are not too smart. They will for example use the tag when we already have . But it's not like we can't salvage that.

For example, these are the new tags for the last 30 days, accessible in /tools for users ≥10k reputation.

We can always fix these. As you can see, we have already dealt with , for example. Of course, we don't have so many 10k users, and not everyone checks these tags. But community awareness is good enough so that when something needs to be done, it gets posted here as a .

Should at least one Other person in the community "approve" of a tag prior to One person creating a new tag?

Since we have these tools, no. We can always review them and act as necessary.

And honestly, our moderators have better things to do. They should only step in when the community can't do anything. But we can maintain tags on our own. Arguably, some other sites do a better job at this, but it's just a matter of Meta etiquette and culture. Nothing that we can't fix.

Let's not bother community moderators with that.

The only thing I'd like mods to do is actually burninate (delete) tags: Moderators should be able to remove a tag

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  • Note that I won't really have the time to dive into a deep discussion about this. I'm fine with the way it currently is, as long as we have enough people to review tags and post cleanup requests as necessary.
    – slhck
    Mar 7, 2012 at 23:08
  • Video and conversion , give the ability for Audio and Conversion , PDF and Conversion , Video and Ecoding , etc. It is either endless ability to combine, or endless combinations. . Perfect example of the Loss, A combined word Description. (as I did mention). But for example Explain Encoding General, explain Video General, and Explain decoding General, and not only are they combinable terms , but they are also One description that coveres the combination too. Video Is followable (me video person) Video-Conversion is not. Start typing in conve. r and what doesnt come up?
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 7, 2012 at 23:29
  • If that is 30 days of tags , then that IS fully controllable, it also shows that about zero thought was put into the creation of them :-) I also happen to know that many of the ones show for the 30 days, already have a similar created. FEW of them would have been useful as singular terms.
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 7, 2012 at 23:35
  • See, about those new tags: If they're not used, they'll be pruned anyway. Thinking about it, I could put up a monthly report on newly generated tags and let the community judge whether some of them should be killed again right away :)
    – slhck
    Mar 7, 2012 at 23:37
  • Certannly do not bother the moderators with that, any more than a moderator should be bothered with a shoot-down of a question or answer until moderation is needed (like it becomes a shoot-out instead). All I said is one other community member. I disagree with handing ALL moderators the delete tags, As stated a community decided pattern should be formed and followed, not different ways, because we already have confused mess. Think Big, Elect a Tag Controler?
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 7, 2012 at 23:44
  • Pruning - The tags are used, the used tags do not seem to be pruned. I have been over the Far end before, I stated they are not dissapearing , and many of the ones that have FEW items already on them, are easy combines. . Way less Stuff to change , than the ones that have Many many uses already.
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 7, 2012 at 23:53
2

Sorry about the mess on this thread, I am trying to keep all my noise in a single thread on the meta.

I am asked to show Single examples, when the whole concept cannot be grasped. If you think this is all about ONE item, then you will never grasp the concept.

Do this for yourself, and see. Pretend that your tagging a question (your about to ask).
Type in Video
do you SEE Video-Conferencing? NO
Do you see Video-Playback? NO
Do you see Video-Encoding? NO

Wild assumptions are made that these combined tags will Come up, when a person begins to add a tag, that the correct long combined tag will be displayed, it will not until more of the combo word is typed in.

What goes go wrong with this?
The questioners do not know all the chosen word combos, a specific set of 6 items are shown. They can start guessing what you called it:
start adding in another Letter like VideoM
Video-Meeting NO
Video-Teamview NO
Video-Whiteboard NO
Video-VNC NO

What do they pick?
They pick what shows up, IF that applies Out of 6 items
They pick the simple term [Video] and Combine when that does not.
You may have known what They should have typed next, they do not.

This example also shows that the creation of synonyms or thousands more combo-tags would be required, or they will use the Simple ones in combination anyway. That will not change the view of 6 items.
More lesser used combo-tags will still not show up in the 6 item view.

If you have a solution for this ONE example, then you missed the point, I could make 50 examples like this.

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  • I see the problem, but it would for example be easy to show more possible tags in the suggestions. Or somehow group tags better.
    – slhck
    Mar 9, 2012 at 23:22
  • I don't really want to put my 2 cents in, but I've +1 both your posts in this thread. I see what you're saying and I wish it was coming out more eloquently. I do, however, agree with @slhck in that this manageable and not, as I assume you're putting it, futile. Mar 9, 2012 at 23:56
  • just seeing it, is all that counts. In the long term (more tags) it will matter more. This guessing, and not seeing game happens when I tagged my own questions. The "following a tag" happens when I went to set my own "Ignore tags" mostly.
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 10, 2012 at 0:47
  • So are you sugguesting removing the "video" tag itself? BTW this isn't just in the scope of Superuser, it applies to the whole network. If this really matters (which I feel like that you should have more specific tags: subscriptions & wikis), then you should bring this to Meta on Stackoverflow. It might work to do a "subtagging" system on the whole nework or do a "tag group" so you can be specific on the questions but then only subscribe to the "audio" OR you can do the "digital-audio" one. Dec 23, 2013 at 23:22
  • Quite the opposite, I am an advocate of "tag combining" on the question. About 5000 total tags could exist of technical terms, and those tag are used in combination with other tags. By not creating complex multiword tags , the number of tags would be way smaller and multitudes of combinations could be created by using them in combination. Video (as one) and Whiteboard (as one) the words could be applied in many other combos also. Pre-combining creates thousands more tags.
    – Psycogeek
    Dec 25, 2013 at 4:25

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