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  • The tag has 4 of 6 questions that are closed. Should this tag just be removed all together?
  • The tag has only 2 questions, of which I think both are very poor questions. Should it go away as well?
  • The tag probably wont ever get another question tagged and probably could just go away.
  • The and tags should be merged.
  • only has 1 closed question
  • and were determined to not be needed here, but are still around and have tons of questions under them.

And many many more, is there some easy way to do tag clean up?

And an additional related question

As far as I can tell tags are pretty much up to mods to handle. I know a synonym can be recommended, but the users who can recommend them are fairly narrow (2500 reputation and a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag).

Once the synonym is recommended it takes 4 other users to go up-vote the suggestion. Daniel Grillo recommended a few back in February and still only have 1 up-vote.

So how can users that actually want to help out, help out?

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    \$\begingroup\$ [power-factor] is the only one that I'd question. If we start getting more power guys, it will be more popular. Unlike the others, there's nothing wrong with the tag itself. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Jul 18, 2011 at 19:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ @KevinVermeer are there such things as tags that have no questions? I am not up on the nitty gritty of tags. I figured the tag would just be created when a real question was asked. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kellenjb
    Jul 18, 2011 at 19:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ I am also not up on that nitty gritty of tags. I didn't post that as an answer because I'm waiting for someone with more experience to post. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Jul 18, 2011 at 19:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ There are tags with no questions. In fact, there are 7 pages of them! \$\endgroup\$
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Jul 18, 2011 at 19:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ Right now I don't use tags at all because of how poorly organized they are. I think we could just remove and/or merge a bunch of them to get category of questions. At least I assume this was the original intention of SE. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kellenjb
    Jul 18, 2011 at 19:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ All of the ones I have clicked on have 1 or more. I am also confused as to how they order them. switches is on the last page but has 50 questions tagged. Guess it has something to do with it going to switch. Wonder if that is a bug. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kellenjb
    Jul 18, 2011 at 19:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ d-class and class-d should be synonyms, but I get some error about "Sorry, creating a tag synonym requires 5 score in this tag." \$\endgroup\$
    – endolith
    Jul 18, 2011 at 21:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ @endolith that is because you haven't received 5 up votes on answers with that tag. That was what the last edit of my question was for. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kellenjb
    Jul 19, 2011 at 2:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ Worth noting here that the system will delete tags that aren't used anywhere after 24 hours, and will eventually delete tags that are only used once... \$\endgroup\$
    – Shog9
    Jul 19, 2011 at 14:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Shog9 thanks for letting us know! Is there any magic to the eventually? \$\endgroup\$
    – Kellenjb
    Jul 19, 2011 at 14:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kellen: details can be found here: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/48417/… - it's definitely something you want to minimize if possible, but it should do a decent job of cleaning up some of the clutter without manual intervention. \$\endgroup\$
    – Shog9
    Jul 19, 2011 at 15:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @endolith only Thomas O and Brian Carlton and mods can create that synonym. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kellenjb
    Jul 19, 2011 at 15:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kellenjb: I put in the alias, but it is just a request at this point. \$\endgroup\$
    – Brian Carlton
    Jul 26, 2011 at 15:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Brian Since only you and Thomas have enough rep on that tag, there is no way to get it approved (it takes 4 votes plus the original request, meaning we have to have 5 people total, but we only have 2 that are even eligible) unless a mod does it. I flagged the mods awhile back to see how they want to handle tags, but still waiting for them. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kellenjb
    Jul 26, 2011 at 15:13

2 Answers 2

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With reference to this question and Kellen's comment there I just came to meta to ask about this! :-)

I don't see anything wrong with a tag which is used once and probably never will be again. Even for one question you can still use it for lookup. I see no harm in it just sitting there; it's in nobody's way.

I would clean up the ones which aren't used at all, however. If they would become relevant they can always be re-created.

And would also cleanup similar ones, like D-class and class-D can definitely be merged. Same for X10 and X-10. Nobody will question that. (You may have fierce wars over which one should go...)

Tags which are off-topic (consumer-electronics) should go IMO.

I read somewhere that the homework tag is deprecated, and since then I've removed it a number of times, but it still exists and gets used for new questions. What do we do with deprecated tags? Delete them and disallow them to be re-created?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Tags with 1 use will automatically be removed after a time period(i think 6 months), it has been a while since it was discussed though, so forgive a forgetful memory. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk
    Jul 19, 2011 at 14:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kortuk - Is that sentence correct, Kortuk? ("used"?) \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Jul 19, 2011 at 14:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ now it is, thanks for letting me know. Doing 5 things at once. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk
    Jul 19, 2011 at 14:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @kortuk is correct, a "single serving tag" that is used on only one question over a 6 month period will be culled at the end of that 6 month period. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jul 20, 2011 at 10:30
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  • The tag has 4 of 6 questions that are closed. Should this tag just be removed all together?

It's gone. Questions about designing and modifying consumer electronics are on-topic, but this would be a meta tag on those questions, and it validates off-topic questions.

  • The tag has only 2 questions, of which I think both are very poor questions. Should it go away as well?

It's gone. Not sure who killed it.

  • The tag probably wont ever get another question tagged and probably could just go away.

A tag for a proprietary technology from a bankrupt company? Removed from the question.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/tags/synonyms says a synonym was created by Brian Carlton. Thanks, Brian!

I've also merged these tags, turning 4 tags into .

It has two now, and we also had , but I merged both into .

  • and were determined to not be needed here, but are still around and have tons of questions under them.

was burninated, but still exists, that reference was posted before the scope redefinition, and there's been some new discussion about whether it's still useful.

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