7

We have nine "named" OS X tags (ex: ) plus four synonomized "number" tags (ex: ). They account for over 4,000 questions.

The wiki information on all of them is similar, but it is a bit sparse, and some information that should be in the excerpt is in the wiki and vice versa. I would like to improve them all a bit, but didn't want to make bulk changes without some feedback.

Here is an example of a "before" and suggested "after" for a sample tag:

Current Version:

Excerpt:

Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) is the 7th version of Mac OS X released on August 28th, 2009.

Wiki:

Questions tagged with this tag should refer specifically to versions of Mac OS X 10.6. Anything related in general (non-version specific) to Mac OS X should be tagged with [osx].

Version Relation:

Additional Info:

  • 1st version of Mac OS X that works only with Intel based Macs.

Proposed

Excerpt:

Use for questions referring specifically to versions of OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. Non-version-specific questions related to OS X should be tagged with [osx]. Questions about Mac hardware should be tagged with [mac]. Questions about running OS X on non-Apple hardware are generally considered off-topic.

Wiki:

OS X (pronounced OS ten; "X" is a Roman numeral), version 10.6, codenamed Snow Leopard, is the 7th major release of Apple's Mac operating system. It was released on August 28th, 2009. It is a Unix-based graphical interface operating system.

Snow Leopard is the only OS X released in both 32 and 64 bit versions (prior versions were only 32 bit and subsequent ones only 64 bit). Snow Leopard works with Intel-based Macs. It is the last version to support Rosetta (software that allowed many PowerPC applications, from the prior platform, to run on Intel-based Macs without modification), although it was not installed by default in Snow Leopard.

Version Relation:

Any suggestions for improvement are also welcome.

15
  • Looks good to me. Thanks!
    – Excellll
    Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 13:29
  • "Hackintosh" should be a tag, not off-topic. Running Mac OS X on non-apple hardware is definitely popular enough to warrant on-topic questions.
    – Ulincsys
    Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 16:20
  • @Ulincsys - Except question on a Hackintosh is off-topic.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 16:38
  • @Ulincsys meta.superuser.com/q/1471/76571
    – Excellll
    Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 21:16
  • @Excellll So basically, we can ask and answer questions about jailbroken IOS devices because the process of jailbreaking IOS has been ruled as "Legal" in the U.S. court of law... but we can't ask and answer questions about Hackintosh computers because it "Might" be illegal?
    – Ulincsys
    Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 20:24
  • 1
    @Ulincsys This question has nothing to do with Hackintosh, so this discussion doesn't belong here. If you want to discuss the topicality of Hackintosh questions, either comment on the linked question or ask a new question on Meta.
    – Excellll
    Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 20:33
  • Why a tag about versions of OS X?
    – Braiam
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 19:06
  • @fixer1234 windows is wildly different than OS X environments, as OS X support is way shorter than Windows and they don't bother about backwards compatibility, so having several tags for the exactly the same problems (ie how to install ms office on OS X), and given the lack of understanding of how version specific tags are meant to be used makes me wary, if not totally against, of using this kind of tags.
    – Braiam
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:28
  • @Braiam: properties, features, operation, problems, even platforms change from version to version. If an OS tag is to be useful, a version-specific one makes sense. Same as for Windows. Also, people may not have familiarity with the issues or solutions associated with older or newer versions, so version specific tags allow them to find the questions relevant to them.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:28
  • @Braiam: there's a distinction between the existence of version-specific tags and the usage of them for a specific question. You're right about using a more generic tag for a question when it isn't about a version-specific question. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have version-specific tags for when they're relevant.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:33
  • NONONONO! Please, do not ever use such shallow reasoning. Tags are for answerers to find questions they want to answer! Segregating the topics they are able to answer into several tags just makes difficult for them to find questions and reduce significatively the opportunities of those questions to be ever answered. Don't categorize stuff just so its categorized, give it a meaning to the categorization or don't do it.
    – Braiam
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:34
  • 1
    @Braiam: regarding this question, is your suggestion that we delete all or most of the version-specific OS X tags rathen than improve the wikis? If community preference is to retain the version-specific tags, would you leave the existing wikis alone or improve them?
    – fixer1234
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:58
  • @Braiam - if a question is tagged 10.6, then answer will often not be the same as if it were tagged 10.10 Not having the tags makes the first comment "What OS?" Having the tags allows someone to tag osx and Yosemite or 10.10 to make search, classification & answer more coherent.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 10:23
  • @Tetsujin you couldn't be more far from reality, strictly speaking, no one ever has a problem that only affects a single version of their OS, and the very rare case they do, it doesn't actually matter. Read meta.stackexchange.com/a/85744/213575 and meta.unix.stackexchange.com/q/3102/41104, but the summary of each is "don't use them if you can help it' and 'people don't know how to use them'
    – Braiam
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 11:49
  • Let the community decide. Provide an Answer & see how the votes go.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 11:58

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