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As I just asked a question on Excel, I saw that the tag spreadsheet had 3 questions (which are also about excel) and that excel has 50 questions.

It feels redundant.

3 Answers 3

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Excel is not the only spreadsheet, if someone were asking about a different spreadsheet program or looking for a spreadsheet program, what tag should they use? I think they both should stay.

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    He has mentioned that the existing spreadsheetquestions are about Excel, too. You can leave the tag at its place, but he asks if the three (which are Excel questions) should be merged.
    – Ladybug Killer
    Commented Aug 25, 2009 at 12:57
  • ok, agreed :-) - bad idea to merge these
    – Shaharyar
    Commented Aug 25, 2009 at 12:58
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    Except that as the OP states all of the spreadsheet tagged ones are about excel. So doesn't the spreadsheet tag seem redundant at that point? If someone comes along at a later date and wants to ask a generic spreadsheet question, retagging these would not stop that.
    – EBGreen
    Commented Aug 25, 2009 at 12:58
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    The 'excel' tag can just be added to the three existing questions tagged 'spreadsheet' if they are asking about Excel. I think it's worth it to keep the 'spreadsheet' tag in case a new user (without enough rep to create new tags) needs to use it.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Commented Aug 25, 2009 at 13:14
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    Then by that logic shouldn't we go ahead and cerate every generic tag that anyone could ever possibly want to use?
    – EBGreen
    Commented Aug 25, 2009 at 13:15
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    @EBGreen: No, we don't need to go out of our way to create new tags that might be used. We don't need to get rid of existing tags that will certainly be useful either though.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Commented Aug 28, 2009 at 0:11
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Obviously there are more spreadsheets than just excel, so I would leave the tag there. There will be questions about open office calc at some point.

Tagging systems are there to help find questions. They categorize questions. And they are community driven, so let the community decide.

If these tags were duplicates (excel, ms-excel, microsoft-excel), I would fold them together again to help finding questions.

As tags are suggested when we start typing in the tag list, the spreadsheet tag being available will push people in the direction of using it when writing about any spreadsheet. Maybe they already found it when searching for their question and use it therefore.

If it is omitted now, old questions will not be tagged accordingly in the future when others reinvent the tag.

So leave it, as the community has decided to use it.

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  • Except that as the OP states all of the spreadsheet tagged ones are about excel. So doesn't the spreadsheet tag seem redundant at that point? If someone comes along at a later date and wants to ask a generic spreadsheet question, retagging these would not stop that.
    – EBGreen
    Commented Aug 25, 2009 at 12:59
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This would be like saying all photocopies are Xeroxes, that all tissues are Kleenexes.

Just because there's a Microsoft product for spreadsheets called Excel doesn't mean that all spreadsheets are Excel.

OpenOffice.org has their own spreadsheet software, Calc. Should questions on Calc be retagged as Excel?

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  • Except that as the OP states all of the spreadsheet tagged ones are about excel. So doesn't the spreadsheet tag seem redundant at that point? If someone comes along at a later date and wants to ask a generic spreadsheet question, retagging these would not stop that.
    – EBGreen
    Commented Aug 25, 2009 at 12:58

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