Weeding out bad tags initiative 2014

Question

During the process of burninating [tag:software], I found other ill-defined tags. I have collected them for us to tackle together. It's time to sort out this tagging mess. Let's get this started.

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What are good tags?

1. Does the tag add valuable information when it is added to a question?
2. Can the tag be the only tag of a question?
3. Does the tag commonly mean the same thing for different people?
4. Does the tag create a specific, well-defined category?
5. Can you see anyone at some point subscribing to the tag or searching for related questions by using the tag?
6. Can you see anyone using this tag to ignore a topic?
7. Is there a very similar tag that is more popular which could be applied instead?

If a tag's usefulness is contested, think about whether its name or definition could be improved and rather err on allowing it.

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Tagging-Guide

Applying that logic, some examples for good and bad tags:

1. Software tags – GOOD

   • multibit
   • bitcoind
   • cgminer

2. Service tags – GOOD

   • bitstamp
   • coinbase
   • blockchain.info

3. Altcoin tags – GOOD

   • dogecoin
   • litecoin
   • auroracoin

4. Cryptocurrency specific terms – GOOD

   • difficulty
   • mining
   • block

5. Tags that describe the question, not the content – BAD

   • best-practices
   • definition
   • opinion

6. Tags that mean different things in different topics – BAD

   • earnings
   • data-quantity
   • computing

7. Tags that could be used on (almost) any question – BAD

   • usage
   • workings
   • comparison

8. Tags that are off-topic – BAD

   • hosting
   • sd-card
   • ip

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How to help?

Pick a tag that you are familiar with and look through questions tagged with it. Fix the whole question, also fix:

• grammar errors
• bad titles
• remove inappropriate tags
• add tags that should be on the question.

Anyone can suggest edits! Feel free to join us in the Bitcoin Lounge. :)

If you feel that a tag on this list should rather be kept unchanged, move it to the disputed section, and post an answer why it should stay.

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Tags to be evaluated and processed

alternative-blockchains alternatives amazon build compiling control conversion crypto-2.0 crypto-currencies deterministic development diskspace dns donation earnings education electricity encoding error exploitation export formatting forum fragmentation future governance hacking hash hashing hashpower hosting hybrid identity incentive installation installing irc job ledger library license limit linode live-data local logging loss lost-transactions market market-depth marketplace media mining-pools novelty oracle orphaned-block ownership packets people performance phishing politics portable power probability race random restore retail reward rsa safemode search security-key services shops speed spending stability stale-block standardization stocks streaming support terms ticker trade travel uk uri usa value value-add video virtual-currency visa volume voting warmstorage website-development websites wiki wikileaks wireless

I previously had my preliminary notes in the above list, but that made it completely unreadable, so I moved it to this >> tag overview table.

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Tags to delete

Don't just delete the tag from the question and ignore everything else.
If a question also has grammatical errors, terrible title, et cetera, then fix that along with removing the tag.

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Tags to fix

Either these tags have been re-defined or were being used inconsistently. Questions marked with this tag need to be checked and retagged accordingly. When a tag from this category has been cleaned, please add it to the Fixed section at the bottom, so no one else spends time on them.

accounts altcoin lost

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Disputed Tags

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Cleaned

Burninated
academic best-practices bug calculations command-line communication companies comparison competitor computing configuration crash custom data-quantity debug definition delivery design files generation gui idea innovation international ip list maths measurements mistake monitoring morality non-standard notation opinion person read-only reference release resilience resources sd-card software source-code start statistics upgrade usage version wireless write-protect workings

Merged

• debit → debitcard
• download → synchronization
• error-detection → security
• gateway → ripple-gateways
• halving → reward-schedule
• graphs → charts
• jargon → terminology
• notation → terminology
• science → academic-research
• resilience → weaknesses
• stability → price-volatility
• terms → terminology
• vocabulary → terminology
• volatility → price-volatility
• vulnerability → security

Fixed

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Answer 1

Please use the format

tag – Offense (reason to be deleted)

For any tags that aren't obvious perpetrators, please open a new post and link them here.

Candidates for Burninating

• software – meta tag
• usage – Unfocused
• alternatives – Unfocussed

Ongoing discussions

• code, source, source-code, development – This discussion doesn't seem to be resolved yet: Discussion here
• configuration – Should be removed as a meta-tag?

Comments on how some tags might be handled

• upgrade – Delete, seems to be a meta tag. –Murch
• comparison – Not well-defined and specific enough. Should be removed. –Discussion between @DavidPerry, @Murch
• altcoin – needs an in-depth discussion –Discussion between @JacobTorba, @DavidPerry, @Murch
• datacoind – Synonym of bitcoind? –Murch
• data-quantity – Meta tag? –Murch
• ddos – Merge into attack? –Murch
• debug – Not specific, well-defined category, remove? –Murch
• definition – Not specific, well-defined category, remove? –Murch
• delivery – Refers to questions concerning delayed mining equipment. Off-topic? –Murch
• design – Domain should be clarified –Murch
• deterministic – Should perhaps be changed to deterministic-wallet –Murch
• diskspace – Should be defined as diskspace used by the blockchain specifically, but then would be covered by blockchain? –Murch
• dns – It isn't clear how this tag refers to Bitcoin. –Murch
• donation – ranges from charities to legal –Murch
• download – seems to be a duplicate of synchronization –Murch
• earnings – Unfocused: Refering to "earning bitcoins", "profitability" and making money through trading
• education – Unclear: Referring to university and educating new users.
• electricity – Unfocused: Referring to Cost of mining, power-surges, and power requirements of ASIC
• encoding – Should get a tag description at least.
• exploitation – Duplicate of attack?
• export – Should be specified, perhaps to "private-key-export"
• files – Meta-Tag?
• formatting – Unfocussed.
• forum – Off-topic?
• fragmentation – Seems to refer to "Coin selection" and "splitting of outputs", not sure if it is useful.
• future – Seems to collect questions concerned with things that may still come to pass, and futures contracts.
• generation – Just no distinction at all: Bitcoin generation, transaction generation... Should be deleted.
• novelty, academic, alternative-blockchains, alternatives, amazon, best-practices, bug, build, command-line, communication, companies, compiling, computing, control, conversion, crash, crypto-currencies, custom,...

list to be continued starting from "E".

DONE

• idea,innovation – both together just on one question, describing something previously known. Just removed them. ;) -> DONE.
• error-detection – Replaced with security in the one instance it was on a question. -> DONE.
• article – Should be merged into the encompassing news –Discussion between @DavidPerry, @Murch -> DONE.
• competitor – "that one just needs to get burned" –@DavidPerry --- manually edited -> DONE.
• charts&graphs – Should be merged perhaps? --> merged as proposed.
• debit – Merge into debitcard –Murch --> merged
• gateway – Seems to be a duplicate of ripple-gateways --> merged