For users with 500 < Reputation < 2000, there are two options: "retag" and "edit". It's great that the retag button is there, but it clutters up the question view. There is no reason the Retag option can't be merged with the Edit option.
The Edit option already knows when you are only performing a Retag - and it pops up an annoying "use the Retag option instead" message. If it's already that smart, why can't it automatically reroute the retag through to the right action?
Retag is dead, long live retag.
Erm. Long live smarter edit.
Retag is gone. It has ceased to be. The "please go back and click the retag link instead of edit" message is gone. We will (not) miss it.
Editing tags only will result in the same behavior as retag, except for the message (low enough rep will put it in review queue for suggested edits, having the retag questions privilege will make it a regular edit.
Yes please!
In addition to the benefits mentioned in the question this will also put a small impediment in front of a small group, who I'm going to call the "re-taggers". This group has 2 factions:
Both factions are, essentially, harmless. However, having the ability to re-tag without having to edit the question means that they take the quick and easy option. If the option didn't exist they might be encouraged to edit more1.
My one concern would be that it might hinder decent re-tagging behaviour. If someone re-tagged and edited it would go into the suggested edits queue; it's possible that people will stop editing just to get their re-tag done quickly.
1. I doubt it'd make that much difference but it might nudge2 them in the right direction.
2. Pity me.
It's kinda strange that while you can retag questions without problems in the 500-2000 range, if you retag AND edit them it goes to the the edit queue. This might have some valid points (if the new tags are only valid if your edit is approved, but in this case maybe your edit is invalid anyway)
So one more proposal: if the retag option is killed then, when editing, retags should be instantly applied, and only the actual edit of the post should go to the review queue. The two revision could be merged after the post edit is approved, so there won't be separate revisions for the retag and the edit.
I noticed today that the "retag" button had disappeared. I read this whole topic to know why and I understand the motive. While I admit the motivations are good and that it makes the interface lighter and reduces ambiguity.
However, I would not say there are no holes at all. There is actually one little drawback: my "edit" button is blocked - I won't complain, if I am blocked, that just means there are good reasons for me to be blocked -, and I could still still retag questions, which I consider harmless compared to editing and less error-prone. But now that the "retag" button disappeared, I simply cannot retag any question anymore.
I will not claim it back, but I wanted you all to know there are actual drawbacks, even if not that big :)
After reading this change, I understand why it was made, and it's probably for the best. But this change confused me in a way that caused an edit of mine to be unfairly rejected. I think this new feature could be improved to prevent that confusion.
Here's how my problem came about: I wanted to retag a question. I looked for the old retag link – but it was gone! Fine, I thought, I'll just edit the question. And then I edited the tags in the question. But then I remembered the rule of editing “make substantial edits”. If I just change the tags, I thought, my edit won't be substantial enough and it will be rejected. I guess I have to change more things, to make my edit substantial. Weird – I wonder where the retag feature went. So I also changed one little thing in the question body in my edit to try to make it more substantial, and then I submitted my edit suggestion.
But after a few minutes, my edit suggestion was rejected. I'm not sure if it was because it was too insubstantial – my suggestion was “Rejected”, but a reviewer chose the Edit option to post it after editing the tags further. But it is at least possible that I would have had the edit straight-out rejected for being too minor. Either way, that edit increased my “rejected edits” statistic by one, which I did not deserve. If I had known the new method of retagging, I wouldn’t have also edited the body of the question, leading to the rejection. But the site failed to communicate to me the method of editing tags without the edit being reviewed.
To fix this, users should somehow be told that edits of only tags will happen instantly, unlike most edits. One way to do that would be to change the label of the “Save Edits” button, depending on what edits the user is making. As soon as the user edits something other than the tags, the button label could change to “Suggest Edits” or “Propose Edits”. Alternatively, we could just state in the “How to Tag” sidebar that “edits of only tags will automatically be accepted”. Or perhaps the tag-editing field could have a different background style from the rest of the page to subtly suggest that editing it will work differently.
