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Restrict tag choice to existing tags instead of adding the please-use-existing-tags tag? And what qualifies as an existing tag?

asked 2019-02-28 09:38:18 -0500

mldichter gravatar image

updated 2019-02-28 16:41:23 -0500

I don't see the purpose of the please-use-existing-tags tag. As far as I know, the tags are meant to associate a post to certain topics represented by tags. In which case, I don't know why anyone would want to look up all posts with the please-use-existing-tags tag, especially when the nonexisting tags may have already been changed to existing tags in the post.

Is it possible instead to restrict users choice of tags rather than letting users have the ability to type in any tag whatsoever?

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Also, what are considered existing tags? I did find the list of tags, but rarity of use didn't necessarily imply an unhelpful tag, although that was usually the case.

For example, "tdv" is a very specific tag, but also its own little topic within energy modelling. In contrast, "getting" does not seem like a very useful tag.

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@mldichter I believe that this was initially created so that Unmet Hours moderators could let others know that they were using tags incorrectly, with the hope that in future posts they would use an existing tag. @__AmirRoth__ is a moderator who frequently does this, maybe he can shed more light there.

I would definitely agree that Unmet Hours tags can be cleaned up. It would be great to have a way to force people to select a tag as they type, instead of potentially entering in any new tags by mistake. If you are motivated enough, you could re-tag posts yourself to help clean things up.

Aaron Boranian gravatar imageAaron Boranian ( 2019-02-28 17:14:54 -0500 )edit

@Aaron Boranian I agree. I've also entered tags before that were sort of the best I could think of when I wrote the post, but a moderator later changed my tag to the standard synonym used on unmethours, which tended to be a better descriptor or made the post easier for someone to find via the tag.

But I'm still not really sure what are considered "correct" tags. Is there a documentation page, or something similar, for posting on unmet hours and how to choose tags appropriately? The only thing I found was setting an email alert whenever a tag is used.

mldichter gravatar imagemldichter ( 2019-02-28 17:29:23 -0500 )edit

@mldichter many of the unusefull tags (e.g. "getting") actually don't have any questions associated with them because they've been retagged. I'm not sure if these are periodically deleted from the list or not, but that might be another area for improvement.

MatthewSteen gravatar imageMatthewSteen ( 2019-02-28 20:10:32 -0500 )edit

Cf askbot feature request here, which didn't get any traction since 2015. If you happen to have an Askbot account with some karma, go upvote it please.

Julien Marrec gravatar imageJulien Marrec ( 2019-03-01 04:18:12 -0500 )edit

Actually better yet: go upvote the feature request on the Github askbot-devel#564

Julien Marrec gravatar imageJulien Marrec ( 2019-03-01 04:19:52 -0500 )edit

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answered 2019-03-01 07:50:31 -0500

The primary reason for 'please-use-existing-tags' is to publicly shame question authors into using existing tags in the future. I'm also thinking of starting a 'which-software-are-you-using' tag.

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@__AmirRoth__ That's kind of a circular problem though. The people that poorly tag posts typically do not provide nearly enough information to diagnose their problem. My favorite variety is "Energyplus crashed. Help!!!" and then one sentence description. Ha Ha

Is there a way to lock posts from edits, comments, and answers, except the author, to sort of hold their question ransom until the author writes a good post?

mldichter gravatar imagemldichter ( 2019-03-01 09:40:30 -0500 )edit

I'm not the administrator. Also, I'm not actually trying to fix the problem, I just want to shame people.

__AmirRoth__ gravatar image__AmirRoth__ ( 2019-03-01 10:18:11 -0500 )edit

answered 2019-03-01 10:41:05 -0500

Improving tag moderation is the highest priority for upgrading Unmet Hours. While we can rely on volunteer efforts to help clean things up, it would be great if we could have higher control over tag content. We are searching for ways to work this into the Unmet Hours budget.

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Asked: 2019-02-28 09:38:18 -0500

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Last updated: Mar 01