Getting rid of the popular science tag

Question

Related: What is the purpose of the popular-science tag?, Can we encourage the "research-level" meta tag? What about a "popular" tag?

We currently have a tag called popular-science. It's basically for questions which demand a layman explanation.

and as mentioned here it has problems.

• It's fundamentally a meta tag
• It's ambiguous. I've been seeing many edits in the queue that retag to the popsci tag, and I've seen many other older questions tagged with it — it seems that everyone has a different interpretation of it. This is quite harmful because it degenerates into being applied much more broadly than intended and there's confusion all around. The tag wiki is already pretty unambiguous, however it still seems like the tag is being interpeted differently. A tag called laymans-terms could work but it would probably have similar issues. The basic issue with level filtering is that people look at the tag as "Hey, that's the tag with all the bad questions". (Not "that's the topic I don't like", the focus remains on the tag). And then it gets applied more broadly because everyone has their opinion of what sort of questions they don't like. This is already currently happening, as mentioned before.
• Level filtering has a rather harmful effect in that it opens the tag to abuse. We already have homework which has this problem¹, and I'm not keen on having another. Basically, this tag(popular-science) can be used to get a question "ignored" by many users here; it's a softer form of deletion in a sense. Sure, people will still notice it, but there's a reasonable chance that the people who would have otherwise answered it won't. Couple this with the ambiguity issue and it's much worse -- it's hard to even detect such abuse because of the ambiguity.
• Note that having a tag for it is usually taken as a sign that we welcome all such questions. While we don't disallow such posts, we don't want to actively encourage them either.
• Does popular-science really help in the first place? Questions asking for a layman explanation usually mention it in the title. They're easy to ignore, there aren't many of them. There are a lot of home-experiment and everyday-life questions coming in though, and ignoring these may clean up your main page much more significantly than ignoring popsci if you don't enjoy layman questions. There are approx 3 questions per month in the tag (ignore the last data point, recently there has been tons of retagging in that tag, not all of it fitting the description). I don't see a pressing need to filter these out. There just aren't that many. Applying the tag more broadly to catch more popsci questions-- well, then you get a very broad tag, which is probably more ambiguous. And in this case favourite tags would serve you better.

Can we get it burninated?

^{1. Not entirely, though. Usually, on-topic homework questions don't need the tag in the first place.}

Answer 1

There's been an awful lot said here already, so I'm gonna cut to the chase: popular-science is clearly a meta tag, in the same way that homework is a meta tag - it can't stand alone when describing a question.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or should be removed though. [popular-science], like [homework] has value in describing the sorts of answers that can be found on a question... or should be provided to a question.

BUT THAT ONLY WORKS IF FOLKS ARE CONSISTENT IN HOW THEY USE IT.

After years of support and many thousands of questions, we had to burn [homework] on Stack Overflow because folks were using it as a club to beat others over the head with. When folks are regularly getting into fights over a tag, that tag has become a liability and must be removed - regardless of how nice it might be in theory. And before you say "it can't happen here", open your eyes - it already is happening.

While I sympathize with Jim and others who wish to classify these questions, Manishearth is dead right with regard to the ambiguities and potential for abuse: these are the reasons why meta tags are discouraged. If this tag is going to remain in use, three conditions must be met:

1. This should go without saying, but... Y'all have to want pop-sci questions on this site. I don't mean easy questions - I mean questions that demand answers written for a general audience: no post-highschool physics knowledge required (if even that). Answers you could give to your 8 year old when she asks an annoying string of "why" questions. You could just disallow these questions entirely and side-step the whole issue; not saying that's a good idea, but if folks really hate them then that's an option. If you do want them, and want them tagged as such, then...

2. ...You need to be ruthlessly consistent in how the tag is used. If a given question doesn't explicitly ask for and receive a "general audience" answer, then it's not a pop-sci question. You may think it's too simple, that the author doesn't have sufficient knowledge to understand the answer he's asking for, or just detest the topic, but... Tough cookies; down-vote or vote to close it as appropriate. Unless the asker states, "I don't know any physics, please give me an answer that doesn't require it" or the equivalent of it... You must not use this tag.

3. It cannot be the only tag on any question. If there's no clearly identifiable topic beyond "I want a layman's explanation for something", then the question is either poorly-written, off-topic, or badly-tagged - so if it's not closed or deleted, you need to tag it. homework is already failing this condition - there are 24 posts with no other tag.

And most importantly, you cannot fight about this. Tags should be obvious to anyone reading the question, not a point of controversy. If you find folks engaging in edit wars over whether or not this tag is appropriate, point them to this post; if they continue to misuse it, they will be blocked; if the problem becomes widespread, the tag will be removed with no further discussion.

Answer 2

This is me listing the reasons I'm pro popsci tag.

First, if I may address its similarity to home-experiment and everyday-life. It's true, a good amount of what's listed in popsci is also in these tags. However, this tag is certainly useful for questions like: What generates such a huge amount of gravitational attraction in a black hole? where it is clearly not a home-experiment (I hope!) nor a part of everyday life. The popsci tag is different from the other two because it is purely specific to science that the layman would have heard of. One could imagine asking a question about some part of everyday life that would be deeply complicated. For example: How can I stand on the ground? EM or/and Pauli? It isn't tagged as everyday-life, but I wouldn't argue if it were; I stand on the ground most days.

As for level filtering, it will always be a problem no matter what. If you aren't going to ban those types of questions and if you don't eliminate the tag system entirely, then there will have to be a way of identifying those questions as easy, no-brainers. I say "have to" because there will always be people like me that like to log on every so often and answer a couple easy questions. Tags like popsci help me do that. No matter what the tag indicating easy questions is, people will take advantage of it because each person defines what constitutes main-stream science or an "easy" question differently. Thus, no matter what, some people will love the tag and some people will hate the tag; this is just something that we must accept about layman science questions. Furthermore, if someone decides that they don't like an entire tag so much as to ignore all questions tagged by it, that is their loss more than ours. Personally, I don't ignore any tags; you never know where a great question might pop up and the extra 10 seconds I have to spend looking through ones I don't like is worth it if I know I'm not ignoring a potentially good question. But that's just me.

To summarize: I want my "this is an easy question and should take maybe 30 seconds to answer it" tag :)

Answer 3

As Manishearth said, popular-science is together with research-level and homework one of the three level tags needed to realize the by Jess Riedel suggested proposal to give people a method to filter not only the topics they are interested in, but to in addition choose the appropriate level too. The current audience of Physics SE has such a wide spread range of physics knowledge, ranging from almost none, to research-level, that this proposal is a good and needed help for people to order things in accordance with their needs and retrieve what they are interested in from the otherwise too chaotic mix of questions. Why I (and obviously others who expressed their opinion by corresponding upvotes of the level-filtering proposal, its answers and by comments) think this is a very good and helpful idea, I expressed already in my answer there.

So I disagree with the suggested burnication of popular-science, because it effectively shoots down the level-filtering proposal. Looking at the high number of upvotes the level-filtering proposal has obtained, it seems the community has reached consensus that this concept is helpful and a good thing to improve the site for everybody. So it should not be negatively affected or even prevented by burnicating one of the level tags needed to implement and maintain this idea.

I seriously doubt that people who belong to the SE stuff or team care for or would even bother to actively deny people here on physics SE the very helpful possibility to filter questions along an additional second "level dimension", just because for this a very small number of exactly 3 level tags (also called meta tags) is needed.

And as already explained elsewhere, I disagree with the point of view that ignore-filtering one of these level tags is equivalent to deleting questions tagged with it. Ignore-filtering any tag affects only the view of the main page of people who have explicitely set the corresponding preferences in their profile. For the large majority of the people this does not impact the view of the page. In addition, I think that any concerns that, due to level-filtering questions tagged with popular-science will not get enough views, votes, answers, or more generally love and appreciation by the community, are not substantiated by facts. Since quite some time now it is rather the case that nontechnical questions and their answers get higher votes and generally more positive attention than technical questions. I doubt that the level-filtering changes anything about this.

I dont think that the majority of people sees popular-science as a bad question tag. On the contraty, there are people who see it completely positive and very different from what Manishearth fears. I think some of these questions are really fun too. The agreement about what kind of questions should naturally have a certain tag, is natural and the intended way how appropriate tagging works, it is nothing specific or characteristic for level tags, so in my opinion it is therefore neutral and there is nothing bad going on.

For me personally, the definition of popular-science in Jess Riedel's proposal or the description in the tag-wiki are good enough for its purpose. But if anything should be done, I would rather suggest to adjust the definition of popular-science such that the most people in the community is happy or can at least live with it, than completely burnicate this tag.

Answer 4

After seeing a large amount of debate on this topic, I've decided to post another answer. Whereas my previous post was decidedly pro-popsci, I hope to present this post in a more neutral tone.

It is quite clear that there are two almost evenly populated and completely contrasting sides on this issue. Seeing as mutual collaboration is not possible, in determining the next course of action we need not continue the considering of reasons relevant to each side's point of view. Put another way, we are at a stalemate; however, I believe that if we can calm down and analyze this using the logical skills that we scientists are graciously stereotyped with having, we should be able to agree on what, inevitably, the correct action should be; at least, until a majority opinion can be established.

There have been many excellent points made on both sides of the debate. As such, arguing them will lead to nothing more than a bickering stalemate. I suggest ignoring them for now. Instead, let us consider the outcome of our actions. If we were to "burninate" the popsci tag, aside from making half of the people upset (either action inevitably will do that), it will add a slight to moderate inconvenience to the users who currently rely in part on the use of that tag. On the other hand, if we leave the tag in place, it has been argued that we would create the potential for a slight future inconvenience for some users (many of whom would identify in the other mentioned category).

When deciding the correct action in this case, I believe we can all agree that the action which produces the most net benefit for the population as a whole is the most correct. Keeping in mind that future actions can always be taken when and if the opinion of the majority shifts to one side or the other, I propose the following: Since removing the tag would definitely inconvenience some users now and in the future - whereas leaving it may or may not (there is a non-zero probability that it would cause no problems) inconvenience about the same number of users at a point in the future and since leaving the tag could not create any net negative effects in the present (as nothing would change from the immediate past until now), without any foreknowledge of the future, I am forced to conclude that removing the tag would carry less net benefit for the population of users as a whole than leaving the tag in place. Thus, if my premises and postulate are valid, I must conclude that at this time, the best course of action would be to allow the tag to remain.

You may now downvote me and pelt me with criticism.

Answer 5

When I look at the questions currently tagged as popular science, I think it is highly reasonable to apply this tag to questions like(how-can-i-explain-or-demonstrate-the-lorentz-force-to-a-12-year-old). I also notice that there have been instances of what can be called misuse of the tag(in my personal opinion), and questions like Why does a glass breaks when subject to very sharp sound like in opera? and physical difference between A and B are examples. In these questions I feel the the author wishes to see a technically precise answer and had not explicitly asked for a layman's answer.

There is a considerable ambiguity about where the popular science tag can be used, and this ambiguity is perhaps being exploited to tag questions which do not qualify for the tag. This is, perhaps seen by some as an effective way of keeping questions out of a main page.

Based on this I suggest we continue to use the tag for a few months, and use this period to define the tag in a way that is agreeable to a fair number of people in community. Even after this, if the tag is not being used responsibly, if there is consent from the community then it can be burniated.

Again I would like to point out that, this problem is only a manifestation of a larger problem, which is the site is getting too large for the current scheme of organization to work effectively.