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So... I think we should burninate the tag

Does it describe the contents of the questions to which it is applied? and is it unambiguous?

It is something that is in some-way related to shipping. Quite ambiguous IMO. From the tag wiki "Shipping is transportation of goods by sea or some other means. Use this tag for problems in API or program related to shipping." - so it is anything somewhat related to shipping

Is the concept described even on-topic for the site?

No. Shipping goods is very off-topic for Stack Overflow.

Does the tag add any meaningful information to the post?

No. It may describe something the question is somehow related to or what it may contain, but tags should describe what it is about, not just what it contains.

Does it mean the same thing in all common contexts?

Absolutely not. It is something related to shipping, but what that something is varies. I've seen it refer to

  • Shipping a program
  • Getting shipping information in WooCommerce and/or Shopify
  • APIs related to shipping (UPS, FedEx, etc.)
  • Printing shipping labels

Because this tag has over 1k questions:

Is the tag causing a fairly large amount of harm?

Harm? Not really, it isn't terrible, although it isn't a good tag IMO. I'd be open to it getting separated into a few separate tags that are specific instead of it getting burninated if that is better.

Overall, I think this tag should go, or (maybe?) split into a few different tags.

Note: There is a process to be followed here, and so DO NOT just go removing the tag from posts. This is a proposal, not a "go out and do it". At least one moderator (maybe more?) have stated this, but I'd like to get ahead of it before it becomes an issue.

5
  • 4
    My first thought when I saw shipping as a tag was to think of the transportation industry since I have done some work in that industry in the past. Shipping as a tag does not add meaningful information without the necessary context.
    – SargeATM
    Commented Aug 22, 2022 at 7:27
  • 13
    Are we no longer doing pun title burnination requests? "Send [shipping] to the scrapyard"? "Let's start [shipping] this tag away"? etc.
    – Lou
    Commented Jan 6, 2023 at 10:57
  • 10
    @Lou meta.stackoverflow.com/a/324071/6296561 - they're allowed before and after, but not during the burnination or featured phases
    – Zoe - Save the data dump Mod
    Commented Jan 6, 2023 at 11:00
  • 6
    My first thought was something totally different. "Shipping" is when two characters in a show or other media aren't romantic with each other but in your mind they totally are. On SE sites outside of computer science, we might actually need that tag.
    – markspace
    Commented Jan 8, 2023 at 2:06
  • 2
    @markspace sure, but burninations are per-site. SO deciding to burninate it doesn't mean it's meant to be deleted network-wide
    – Zoe - Save the data dump Mod
    Commented Jan 8, 2023 at 8:27

2 Answers 2

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Yes, the tag is not making the question more specific.

For questions that match the general sense of the tag, which says:

Use this tag for problems in API or program related to shipping.

They should be tagged instead with the specific API, library, framework, or platform being used to implement the shipping-related features. If necessary, create a <main tag>-shipping sub-tag. For example, questions related to e-commerce already have their own tags1:

For questions that relate to "packaging" or "shipping the software", that's a completely different meaning, and should use the more appropriate *-packaging tag, such as or , or maybe the more generic .

For questions related to debugging incorrect calculation of dates or values, those probably don't need that tag at all, as it relates to the API/framework- or language-specific features used to do the calculations.

For example, the problem

If the time now is after 4pm, I cannot ship today so the next shipping date should be a monday to saturday

is basically a "How to get the date of the next Monday" question, and is basically a date/time question, and is not really about shipping. The tag should be removed from those and replaced with an API-, a framework-, or a language-specific tag.

For questions related to properly displaying the shipping-related input fields or values, those should be tagged with one of the frontend frameworks or whichever is used to render or display the UI. Same as the previous case, the problem of properly displaying something is not specific to shipping.

1 I'm not an SME on any of these, I just browsed the 1st few pages of the shipping tag.

13

has been burninated.

trogdor

Thanks to everyone who participated.

Observations/Retag Guidance:

  • Note that questions just about shipping, and that do not involving programming, should be closed and not retagged.
  • Questions about shipping-related APIs should use a tag related to the platform or API it uses. Examples include:
  • Questions about software packaging should use:
  • Questions about input that happen to be related to shipping (such as address input) don't need any special tags beyond the normal relevant tech tags, such as relevant frameworks, applicable language tags, etc.
  • Equivalently, questions that happen to boil down to logic problems related to shipping only need tags for relevant frameworks and language tags, and any other tags that may be relevant to individual questions

Progress:

The tag is in the process of being burninated. You can help out by reviewing the questions with this tag, and...

  • editing questions to improve the question and remove the tag (retag-only edits are best left to users with full edit privileges; i.e. > 2k reputation),
  • flagging/voting to close questions that are duplicates/off-topic/unclear/too broad/opinion-based (users with < 3k reputation can help quite a bit by flagging questions for closure, which helps keep the Close Vote Review Queue full),
  • filtering for questions with this tag in the Close Vote Queue,
  • voting on questions with this tag,
  • voting to delete the questions with this tag (after they have been closed, and only if the entire Q&A contains nothing of value). However, keep in mind that at the end of the burnination process all closed questions containing this tag will be deleted semi-automatically. Thus, there's rarely a need to vote to delete these questions.

Here are some quick links to get you started:

Track the progress of burnination

Remember that burnination is a clean-up effort!

Salvage whatever possible by editing and re-tagging.

We don't want to destroy value, so salvaging a post should be your first priority. If a question can be saved, please edit it. Your edit should improve all problems with the question and remove the tag, possibly replacing it with another tag, as described above in "Observations/Retag Guidance". (Edits, specially re-tags, are best left to users with full edit privileges)

Unsalvageable questions should just be flagged/voted for closure. They don't need to be retagged.

If the question is not appropriate for this site, then don't worry about removing the tag—just flag/vote to close the question.

At the end of the burnination process, all questions which still have the tag should have been closed. These will be mass-deleted, which will remove the tag from the system automatically, with minimal disruption.

Ask for help if you need it.

If you have any questions about specific questions you come across, or the process in general, please feel free to leave a comment on this post. You can also drop into the SOCVR chat room for real-time advice and discussion.

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