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Sometimes when I'm new to a SE site I end up having to come up with some tags for my question that don't really fit into what people normally use on the site. Is there any way we could have the "ask question" page make some suggestions for what tags you might want to use for a particular question based on the question text?

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Interesting, but too risky in my opinion: chance is too high that it will cause irrelevant or just wrong tags on questions as people won't bother to check it. –  Shadow Wizard Sep 6 '11 at 10:12
@ShadowWizard It wouldn't have to "commit" the suggestions, but perhaps just list them somewhere near the tags textbox to make it easier for new users to discover existing tags. –  Anna Lear Nov 6 '11 at 0:26
@AnnaLear you mean similar to the "relevant questions" section? This might be useful, but might clutter the GUI too much, in my opinion. –  Shadow Wizard Nov 6 '11 at 8:17
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3 Answers

We could generate a tag cloud from similar/related questions (which are already determined and shown when creating a question), and when you click such a tag is gets attached to your own question!

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Peoples' first instinct is usually correct—they go for the broad, all-encompassing tags like or . If necessary, another user can come along and retag it more specifically.

The fact that SO has these broad tags make it possible to tag any question even without knowledge of tags.

Although I think the site could benefit from showing at least the first two tags for each similar question:

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Isn't that what the auto completion already does? If you are somewhat typing the correct thing, you should quickly recognize the 'common' tag in the suggestions. If you aren't, chances are it is a perfect candidate for a tag synonym.

I rather have people think about which tags they add, than trying to automate that process too much. Furthermore, any tag which can be 'suggested' automatically could be considered unnecessary, as the system is already smart enough to deduce the tag could be relevant.

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