Can we please have better tag wiki excerpts?

Question

Today someone proposed lots of tag wiki excerpts edits that all followed the form:

Questions about <tag-name>, <description of object>.

Why do we need the Questions about element?
We don't, it consumes the limited excerpt space and adds nothing.

On closer inspection of the tag list it seems several other tag wikis also contain meta-data not directly related to the tag, or unnecessary bits like this.

For example, (until Sathya edited it) the highest tag on our network, windows-7, had the excerpt:

Questions and answers asked of Windows Vista often also work and apply to Windows 7 and vice versa

This tells us nothing about Windows 7 except that it's similar to Vista (and with Vista as the main bit of sentence, not 7). And why do we need to know the tag contains questions and answers when that's the point?

Lets have a look at email:

Questions about email software and email software configuration. Questions about webmail are off-topic.

Again, tells us pretty much nothing about email, but also contains irrelevant meta instructions about off-topic nature of webmail.

Moving to the second page of tags, vim jumped out at me:

All about the Vim editor.

Now, this might not look so bad, but is basically the same as "Questions and answers about the vim editor". It tells us almost nothing except Vim is an editor (of what?). If the excerpt was the first sentence of the body it would be much better (note: I've now edited it to this):

And one more that I've just spotted is security:

Security -- as in Computer related Security.

Body:

On Superuser, the 'security' tag is in the context of Computer Security.
'Computer Security' is a very broad term and at Superuser, the tag is usually used to mark questions related to security of and from computer software.
^{We usually do not find questions related to physical security of computers at Superuser.}

Painfully meta, with basically no useful info on the topic at all!

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Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of very good tag wiki's, and I'm sure they form the majority, but there are a few like this that a quick glance at the first page or two of tags turn up.

I believe that there is no place for meta-data in tag wikis, nor should the very space-limited excerpts contain any irrelevant filler text that states the obvious.

What does everyone else think?
And if there's some agreement can we please all start getting some of these tidied up!

Answer 1

Lets have a look at email

Questions about email software and email software configuration. Questions about webmail are off-topic.

Again, tells us pretty much nothing about email, but also contains irrelevant meta instructions about off-topic nature of webmail.

The premise of this question is not just wrong but DANGEROUSLY wrong and DIRECTLY contradicts advice on the blog:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/03/redesigned-tags-page/

Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is highly specialized. The “email” tag, for example, does not need to explain what email is. I think we can safely assume most internet users know what email is; there’s no value in a boilerplate explanation of email to anyone.

The other four guidelines there, which are all important and should be taken to heart:

1. The excerpt is the elevator pitch for the tag.

   Meaning "convince me this is the right tag for my question", not "explain to me what email means". If you have a question about email and you need someone to explain to you what email is, God help you.

2. Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is highly specialized.

3. Concentrate on what a tag means to your community.

   For “email” on Super User, mention desktop email clients and explicitly exclude webmail, as that would be more appropriate for webapps.stackexchange.com.

4. Provide basic guidance on when to use the tag.

   In other words, what kinds of questions should have this tag? Tags only exist as ways of organizing questions, so if we don’t provide proper guidance on which questions need this tag, they won’t get tagged at all, rendering the tag excerpt moot.

The idea that the email tag wiki should explain what email is (or that the excel tag should explain what excel is), is completely incorrect. In the case when the topic is obscure by the standards of the particular site then it might be OK to explain what it is, but for things like Excel and Email on Super User -- there's no way these need to be explained beyond the very briefest three word descriptions.

Answer 2

For tags such as iphone and android then yes, the nature of the questions should be put in the excerpt. It's the chunk at the top of the page when users go looking over the questioned tagged as such.

Between what the tag is about and what the tag should be used for in terms of use on Super User, would go for the latter any day.

The body of the tag is where you can go into detail about the product details related to that tag.

Tag wiki excerpts aren't meant to be dictionary grabs. They're supposed to quickly guide new users and old of the correct use, maybe with a heads up along the way with regards to the site they're being plied on.

Check out the mac tag for a good example on the nuance:

Any and all questions that relate to the actual hardware of Macintosh, a brand of computers created and sold by Apple Inc.. Not to be confused with MAC address.

Answer 3

If you write are or is in the first 40 characters of an excerpt, the part before, and including, are or is is removed when showing the excerpt. That is the reason why most excerpt starts with "questions about," "topics related to," or something similar.

This answer reports the regular expressions used to truncate the excerpt; in short, you cannot start an excerpt with, for example, "this tag," "this tag is," "this tag is used to," the [foo] tag," "the tag [foo]," "blah blah is," or "blah blah are" (replace "blah blah" with any phrase that uses less than 37 characters).

Answer 4

The purpose of the Tag Wiki is two-fold:

• So Users will know what a Tag is for
• So Users will know how to use a Tag

A Tag Wiki is Meta information. We should not try to sanitize them to just be wikis about the subject, they are wikis about the Tag which is a Meta object in and of itself.

Here's the official blog post on the subject, a relevant portion is:

Here’s a few words of advice on writing tag wiki excerpts:

1. The excerpt is the elevator pitch for the tag
2. Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is highly specialized.
3. Concentrate on what a tag means to your community.
4. Provide basic guidance on when to use the tag.

The most important reason to have tag usage info in the excerpt, it that the first three lines of the excerpt shows up in the Tag tooltip. This will give useful information to new users of the tag on when to use it.