Best use of the 'separation' and 'stage-separation' tags

Question

• separation 11 questions

• stage-separation 14 questions

• both tags: no questions at the moment

The meaning of stage-separation is probably straightforward, but what are all of the types of things for which separation would apply?

I can imagine booster and fuel-tank separations would count, but what about

• capsule separation as in Why does Blue Origin land the crew capsule separate from the booster? (stage, or no-stage?)
• use of the separation tag in the question What is the closest intentional separation achieved by two satellites?

Should a Wiki excerpt be added to make sure it is for non-stage-separation-based separations? What should it say exactly, and what to do about capsules?

Answer 1

Aside from the fact that you pointed out that not all separations may be considered related to staging, there is another implicit difference I see between these two terms--may not always be there but is definitely sometimes implied. "Stage separation" describes a process, whereas "separation" is a single event.

That said, I'm not clear on how we should define usage of these tags, but we do need to establish their usage guidelines and probably retag some questions.