Tags Taking out the trash Or Creating a bigger mess?

Question

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.

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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?

Answer 1

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.

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

Answer 2

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 video-conversion over video logical and conversion. 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".

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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 compress when we already have compression. 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 things-for-mac, 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 retag-request.

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

Answer 3

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.