I'm speaking as a fairly long term user of stack overflow. I have just asked a question relating to a particular module for the laravel framework and was shocked to see that you need a rep of 1500 to create a new tag - (I was hoping to create a module specific tag).

This seems like a very high limit. I understand that a limit needs to be in place to prevent muppets from creating duplicate tags and to stop the numbers getting out of hand but this seems like quite a high bar.

Could you not ease us into it a bit maybe with a lower rep limit but with a monthly/yearly limit to the number of tags a user can create at lower reps.

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Every day, the new tags page has obvious misspellings and typos on it (right now I can see javscirpt and bitwise-operatiors at least...), which some might say suggests that the rep requirement is too low –  AakashM Aug 28 '12 at 15:37
You mean all these bad tags are being created by folks with 1500 rep or more? O_o –  Robert Harvey Aug 28 '12 at 15:43
Just saw not-jquery on there. A good example of something that's not a duplicate, but also something that shouldn't be a tag either. –  Servy Aug 28 '12 at 15:44
My thought s would be that those issue would be better adressed by offering suggestions of similar tags as part of a confirmations dialogue before creating new tags - for good measure you could also add a warning that duplicate tags and misspellings will result in a loss of rep or perhaps removal of tag creating priveledges... sorry if this is already in place... obviously I wouldnt know –  WebweaverD Aug 28 '12 at 15:45
I was about to suggest the creation of a "new tags" page and was shocked to discover that it already exists. Thanks, @AakashM! Unrelated: apparently [untagged] is back in action, if anyone feels like doing a little cleanup. –  Pops Aug 28 '12 at 15:54
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1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

If you think you need a new tag (on SO) you're probably wrong; chances are it already exists or shouldn't be a tag at all. If you're really sure, you can always make a meta post requesting the tag be made. If it should exist it will probably be made in a matter of minutes.

There are lots of problems on SO as a result of people creating tags that they shouldn't, either because it's just a duplicate of another tag (a misspelling, or a different wording of the same concept (i.e. C#4.0 vs. C#-4.0) or just something that's not appropriate for a tag.

For newer sites with a lower number of existing questions it's less likely that important and relevant tags already exist for your question, so the rep limit is lower. On SO the sheer volume of incoming and existing questions means that the need for new tags is rather low, and the number (and impact of) incorrect new tags is rather high. This is why the rep limit is so much higher.

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ok, well you're nearly there with the rep, perhaps you or someone else could tell me whether you think the tag I was trying to create is worth putting in a request for: I was hoping to create a pongo-cms tag, which is a module for the laravel framework, I appreciate its not going to be a heavy use tag but since the question is only relevant to people using pongo-cms I thought it would aid search results and communication of where the problem is –  WebweaverD Aug 28 '12 at 15:48
@WebweaverD You should ask a separate question for that, rather than asking two completely separate questions (and having two separate answers) in the same post. –  Servy Aug 28 '12 at 15:49
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