Timeline for On tags and time periods
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
28 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:54 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://genealogy.stackexchange.com/ with https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/
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| Mar 27, 2017 at 15:45 | comment | added | user104 | @PolyGeo agreed -- tags can be adjusted before during and after a question is answered. | |
| Mar 27, 2017 at 2:02 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | @ColeValleyGirl I could not agree more with this comment of yours but I would add that it "may mean the tags get adjusted [before and] after the Q is answered" | |
| Mar 26, 2017 at 11:38 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | @ColeValleyGirl I half agree with you (as represented by your answer), just not entirely. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 11:55 | comment | added | user104 | @PolyGeo I understand your view and the reasons behind it. I hope we're going to hear from others in the community -- whether they agree with you or me. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 11:47 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | @ColeValleyGirl there's rarely right and wrong on tagging, only guidelines on how the community decides they think they work best. My point is that I think decade tags have a usefulness that may or may not exceed century tags on particular questions. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 11:43 | comment | added | user104 | I'm not going to retag anything until we've arraived ar a consensus. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 11:43 | comment | added | user104 | But it's a balancing act between attracting the right experts to answer, and making the question valuable to others besides the OP. Which may mean the tags get adjusted after the Q is answered. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 11:42 | comment | added | user104 | @PolyGeo reading the answers and the material referenced there, I'd say 19th-century as a tag would be more use to people seeking answers to what is essentially the same question whether you're talking about 1820 or 1880. I'd use this set of tags: 19th-century scotland marriage-practices marriage-records | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 11:10 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | @ColeValleyGirl as the asker that is my best estimate of suitable time tagging but I think tags are for the potential answerers so if one of you/them thinks 19th-century (and 18th-century?) is more appropriate just retag it (preferably with a comment to say why). | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 11:03 | comment | added | user104 | @PolyGeo but does the answer depend on that specific time period? Unlikely... | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 10:38 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | @HarryVervet the question is about "marriages around that time and place" where that time is 1829 +/- 5-10 years gives 1820s and 1830s but not 1810s without stretching. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 10:14 | comment | added | Harry V. Mod | I understand how decade tags are nice in some cases, but the biggest problems in my eyes are that we also have century tags, and the use of decade tags is extremely subjective, both of which precludes these tags from being applied in a consistent and useful way. For example, the question you mention in your search results: genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/9663. You've tagged it 1820s and 1830s. There is no mention of the 1830s in the question. Why not add 1810s as well, because the answer would be the same? | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:52 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | I lived with century tags in the past, but I just kept coming back to "but these are too coarse" for what I wanted to do with tags that indicated the key time period of the questions I was looking for. That's why I prefer decade tags over century tags, especially for the 18th century and later. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:48 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | For some purposes more precision can be great; here I use tags as a complement to the SE search methods, because of their convenience, and so it is suitable granularity rather than precision that meets my requirements. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:44 | comment | added | user104 | Re searching, it may be more to type but you can be much more precise. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:42 | comment | added | user104 | @Polygeo, I wan't to say something about 'curating' as well, which ties into your comment about meta-tags. Sometimes a decade tag may not be a meta-tag if it was really germane to the question i.e. the answer would depend specifically on the decade in question. But havinf decade tags on the wite wil increase the 'curation' workload that falls on a few individuals -- mostly remaining decade tags that don't shouldn't be there (which will be most places). And it would be hard for newcomers to understand why most often their decade tags were removed... but some were left in place. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:41 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | I've not proposed using "an 1881 tag". What I have said is that an 1880s decade tag is useful to me when I am trying to filter questions using that era in combination with other, usually geographic, tags. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:38 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | "it’s probably a meta-tag" - in this case it is not a meta-tag although I agree that the "rule of thumb" that you mention can often indicate one. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:37 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | "how does that differ form the following google search?" - it's a lot less to type | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:02 | comment | added | user104 | And finally, the time frame "after 1881" is the least important aspect of your example question, a long way behind the methodology and sources somebody would use (which are almost never decade-sensitive). But the use of an 1881 tag would disgtort the search engine results. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 7:00 | comment | added | user104 | Also: "If the tag can’t work as the only tag on a question, it’s probably a meta-tag" and "The reason meta-tags are a problem is that they do not describe the content of the question" | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 6:56 | comment | added | user104 | PolyGeo, how does that differ form the following google search? site:genealogy.stackexchange.com 1880..1889 | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 3:57 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | @JanMurphy "Every tag you use should be able to work, more or less, as the only tag on a question." (with my bolding). In this case its less as the only tag and more as a qualifying tag to something like a geography tag. SE sites have many examples of tags that are only used in concert with other tags to achieve their potential, and the agreement to do that comes out of their community discussions, just like we are discussing here. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 3:15 | comment | added | Jan Murphy Mod | Decade tags violate the "Tags must work as the only tag on a question." criterion. How likely is it that someone will need to ask about how to do genealogy only in a specific decade? It makes sense for missing census years like the 1890 census but there's no other example I can think of, and if people are looking for census substitutes, or substitutes for any missing records, IMHO they are better off being tagged as such. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 1:46 | comment | added | PolyGeo Mod | @JanMurphy Tags are used quite differently than search. A question that says "X was born in 1823 and I am looking for where they went just after appearing in the 1881 census" would be usefully tagged 1880s and would not be tagged 1820s. The tag has had a value judgement made by someone familiar with our tagging protocols, and it is that curation that makes this and any curated tags valuable. When I'm looking for questions from 1882-89 (like above) the one-click tag gives many of them to me trusted and instantly. | |
| Mar 24, 2017 at 1:04 | comment | added | Jan Murphy Mod | Yes but why must there be tags to search for those things? Wouldn't a search for the text in the Q do just as well? | |
| Mar 23, 2017 at 23:28 | history | answered | PolyGeoMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |