Raystafarian recently posted a number of tag cleanup requests:
- Be done with [gtd]
- What to do with [to-do]
- It's time we managed [time-management]
- and a tag synonym request: Tag Synonym request: [tag:task-scheduler] vs. [tag:windows-task-scheduler].
We batted around a few ideas on the time management question and I went off to look at the tagged questions more closely. It turns out this is the tip of an iceberg, and we may want to look at the bigger picture. There is actually a Gordian Knot of inter-related tags that are used extensively to mean multiple, overlapping things.
I had to stop collecting tags and regroup when I hit about a hundred overlapping tags. The tagged questions can be grouped like this:
A substantial portion of the tags are used in multiple cells of this matrix, across any and all boundaries.
In the discussion in the comments about [time-management] and [time-tracking], there was a thought to combine the two tags, but separate the questions between meat and silicon, calling the meat group [productivity]. This would fall into the Meat Enhancement cell of the above matrix. Let's call that Human Productivity. It turns out that the topic encompasses at least the following topics and tags:
Time management and tracking would fall under the last topic, "Accomplishing Things". Roughly 50 of the tags are included here. A crude attempt to provide some organization:
Some of my category assignments are a bit artificial. In reality, many of the tags in different boxes have been used interchangeably.
These tags are used in virtually every possible combination of up to 5 tags, sometimes additively to provide a more precise description, but often just to include more tags meaning the same thing.
There are roughly 75 tags covered in this post, and almost all of them could use cleanup. The problems include:
Numerous disparate uses. Many have no wiki excerpt but even when they do, the guidance is often ignored.
Incorrect/irrelevant tag usage
Redundant tagging
Meta and meaningless tags that don't add value.
Tags that are irrelevant to the site even if the question is on-topic
Excessive granularity. Many of these tags may originally have been nuanced, but that has since been lost (or were originally created not realizing an almost identical tag already existed).
There are a lot of candidates that can be synonomized or outright deleted. I question whether every single calendar, notes, or to-do applet needs its own tag. Is every version of MS Project and Outlook unique enough to warrant a separate tag?
A number of these tags have zero followers and often a limited number of questions, which speak to its value as a tag.
Perhaps we can use answers here to suggest specific strategies to chip away at this.
