There are a few tags floating around such as unity, makehuman and yafaray. How should we deal with tags like these that are valid but about other packages?
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4 Answers
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I agree with both previous answers in a 50/50 ratio. There are some applications which will (or should) always been fringe-on-topic cases. Maya is one of these, and as such, should be synonymized with external-applications.
Some others, such as Make-Human, should have their own tags, because they are likely to be used along with Blender quite regularly (and in the case of Make-Human especially, it was once a Blender plugin).
answered Nov 5, 2013 at 17:52
A Wild RolandiXor Has AppearedModA Wild RolandiXor Has Appeared
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1$\begingroup$ I agree with this, Unity is a good tag but Makehuman is a bad example to justify this as I said above. In relation to Blender, all it really does is export models. Currently, all the tagged questions don't even ask anything about any correlations with Blender or any specific issues. $\endgroup$– iKlsRCommented Nov 5, 2013 at 20:42
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$\begingroup$ I could also agree with this this, but I really had an issue related to a mhx rig. Given that our site is still growing, tags to refine the structure could be added later. $\endgroup$– stackerCommented Nov 5, 2013 at 23:32
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This site is about Blender and as such, all questions and tags should be about Blender or anything related (general CG topics etc). Questions about other 3D software or applications are on-topic however, provided that they follow the guidelines outlined here - Should questions that compare Blender and <insert competing 3D modeling software> be allowed?.
If we encourage these unique tags, there is no limit to this and as such, anyone asking a question can easily create an accompanying tag such as zbrush, sketchup and maya etc. These questions are already borderline and one will also notice that they are usually very localized. Therefore, I don't think other packages need specific tags on this site.
I propose that we synonimize every existing tag (and future ones) that relates to another application under external-applications.
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3$\begingroup$ I disagree. There's a big difference between competing software and complimenting software. OP's example of the
unitytag is, in my opinion, a very valid usage because it involves Blender working with other software that does a different job. $\endgroup$– KeavonCommented Nov 15, 2013 at 3:01 -
1$\begingroup$ So, based on all the discussion here. I think a good mix is that we keep those that closely correlate to Blender ([unity][yafaray]) but group those that compete and or are less relevant ([make-human]) etc. $\endgroup$– iKlsRCommented Nov 15, 2013 at 13:06
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Blender is frequently used as part of a process e.g. to create models for game engines.
When the question is related on modelling, import, export or restrictions of available features on the target platform it would be easier to find (or filter) questions by a tag of the related software.
On stackoverflow there are currently aprroximatly 37000 tags. Why so many?
Because there are several programming languages for each is a huge number of frameworks/libaries in different versions available. As a long time SO user I often use the tags to drill down to find answers. Even a very basic control structure for-loop has already almost 10K questions.
Mostly the language java c++ is used as a primary tag, then the library spring stl serves as secondary classification followed a list of tertiary tags which give rough information on the issue conversion exeption errormessages etc.
How could this work on blender.SE?
Example of actual redundant use of tags:
Blender comes with the bundled addon for mhx import (Makehuman file format) the tags (mhx and makehuman) wouldn't harm as long the question is Blender related and not on the 3rd party product.
Same for game-engines like unity and external render as yafaray.
Tags help to structure content, if someone tries to add interseting questions to the favorites he will probably not find them again if the number exceeds a few hundred. Organizing the question by bookmarking in the browser could help, but the structure information wouldn't be shared.
Therefore please let us have more (non-redundant) tags.
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1$\begingroup$ You make several good points but remember that StackOverflow is a huge site. There are dozens of languages, hundreds of technologies and computer/programming terms etc. I think it is unfair to compare us to them, we are a niche site. We are small and growing, I think we should keep our content as organized as possible and not water it down with borderline questions/tags. Take a look at the makehuman tag, absolutely none of the questions asked have anything to do with makehuman really, just that they exported models from it. $\endgroup$– iKlsRCommented Nov 5, 2013 at 13:12
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$\begingroup$ Unity is a slightly stronger case but it is still borderline and localized and as I said above, it makes no sense to exempt a few and ban others so it's ultimately better to just unify them under one tag. As it relates to the redundancy you pointed out, see this question. Tags do allow us to structure content, yes, but there are already other more relevant tags that can do a better job. Rigging a makehuman model? - tags, (rigging). $\endgroup$– iKlsRCommented Nov 5, 2013 at 13:19
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1$\begingroup$ @iKlsR I didn't mention SO to introduce unfair arguments, it was rather supposed to the show the analogy: A single language on SO is comparable to the implied (Blender) scope of blender.SE, a library or framework could be compared to 3rd party products because it implies best practices, scope, abilities etc. $\endgroup$– stackerCommented Nov 7, 2013 at 9:43
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I think that it makes sense to keep non-redundant tags for external software if that software is being used to compliment Blender in questions that use it. As stacker wrote, tags can be used to organize things in different degrees of hierarchy. For example, the tag external-applications could be used as proposed, but adding the tag unity could further refine a person's search. If somebody is interested in all external applications, they could search by that tag. However, organizing by specifics, like unity, can be very useful if the user is only looking for that.
However, when not used to compliment Blender, redundant/unnecessary tags for external applications should not be kept, for example an application which exported a model to a standard format where the question is not regarding the opening of the model. Also, questions should not tag external applications in a way in which they are competing, for example "I want to do _________________ like in Maya" and tagging maya.
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$\begingroup$ Good point. Reading back, grouping everything under one giant tag would have gotten out of hand sooner or later. I think we could work with something like this for a while. It's pretty easy to determine what correlates more with Blender so we will know how to deal with those that don't. $\endgroup$– iKlsRCommented Nov 15, 2013 at 13:08