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As of late there has been a lot of discussion in chat on how games in a series should be tagged, and it is a topic which has come up in the past. However, we have never been able to reach a consensus on how we should tag games in a series, and some games were discussed in the past and never decided on.

I'll use Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as an example. Should we tag it as:


or

or

Furthermore, if we did decide to tag it as , should questions be tagged a just or should they be tagged as and ?

How should we tag games in a series? For that matter are we even able to agree on a general rule, or should we decide on a case to case basis?

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  • Wow, thanks @Gnomeslice, now I have my own tag.
    – Wipqozn Mod
    Aug 12, 2011 at 20:39
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    ♪ And here we are again. It's always such a pleasure. ♪
    – badp
    Aug 12, 2011 at 20:57
  • Wouldn't an implicit tagging hierarchy finally make sense? The tag would be modern-warfare-2 being a subset of call-of-duty-series
    – Zommuter
    Aug 13, 2011 at 9:10
  • @Tobias: No, this is what tag wikis and their excerpts are meant for, rather than double tagging. Really, consider how long call-of-duty-series modern-warfare-2 and that it needs other tags too. We should use either tag but not both, it all depends whether the question is about the game edition or the game series. Aug 13, 2011 at 10:52
  • @Tom Yes, that I mean is one only tag would be modern-warfare-2 and ... uhm, yeah, actually tag-wiki is enough, why should call-of-dutie be mentioned at all in the tag?
    – Zommuter
    Aug 13, 2011 at 13:24
  • See my answer which says "The tag should not contain the series name if the tag represents the edition by itself."; this means, if most people can't seem to figure out what modern-warfare-2 is that people need to add call-of-duty to it. A good example of this is the Half Life 2 series... Aug 13, 2011 at 14:51

2 Answers 2

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Requirements

  1. One tag per game. Two tags for a game is not how SE rolls.
  2. The game name should be understandable/googleable when SE chooses to put it at the start of the question page title.
  3. We shouldn't shorten where we can help it.
  4. Tag radixes should be consistent (e.g. all tags for the same game series should have the same start.)

Conclusions

  1. The game series should be spelt in extended form: , not ; , not .
  2. Sequels/DLCs should keep the same radix as the parent game's tag, and add to it: from we should form , not .
  3. Questions about the over-arching series of the game should be tagged by adding -series to the tag name: , not .
  4. Deviate from this whenever it makes sense to (see requirement 2); if being consistent would result in a stretch, we can use synonyms to redirect things the way we want to. Mostly.
    For example, we have already decided that we should have instead of after all.
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  • Point 4 makes more sense than my method, +1. Aug 12, 2011 at 22:43
  • I don't know... When I search for a specific sequel I'm more likely to just spell out the episode name (if it's not just a number) and not the series title.
    – Zommuter
    Aug 13, 2011 at 9:11
  • @Tobias Synonyms...
    – badp
    Aug 13, 2011 at 9:14
  • @badp I know, but does a google search find questions based on tag synonyms as well?
    – Zommuter
    Aug 13, 2011 at 9:15
  • uhm, isn't need-for-speed-mw in contradiction to your previous statement of using wow-cataclysm? Yes, WoW is a well known abbreviation, but who decides which one is and which one isn't?
    – Zommuter
    Aug 13, 2011 at 9:16
  • @Tobias I probably picked the wrong example, as Need For Speed is one of those deviations; clarified. As for wow-cataclysm, I used the existing tag in that post as it is definitely better than world-of-warcraft + cataclysm.
    – badp
    Aug 13, 2011 at 11:04
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Simple rules can solve this:

  1. Don't use acronyms, they cause ambiguity!
    i.e. Is PoR Path of Radiance or Portrait of Ruin? Is SC StarCraft 2 or Supreme Commander 2? And so on...

  2. The series tag should only be used when the question is about the series.
    i.e.

  3. The tag should not contain the series name if the tag represents the edition by itself.
    i.e. Search for it on Google, it is pretty well known that Modern Warfare 2 is a CoD.

  4. If you do need the series name, make the series name long and not the edition.
    i.e. Don't go for a fish like cod. If you don't know what is on it's own, might not help make it clear. Google Call of Duty as it you will help you find the meaning of mw2. The other way around does not always do this. But in this case, should be just fine...

  5. Make sure that appropriate synonyms are made for auto-completion purposes.
    i.e. , , , , and so on...


Things to remember about tags:

  1. An user should be able to uniquely and unambiguously identify the topic the tag is about, thus Google by itself should be able to guide the user. But of course, the tag wiki is there to make the job easier and guide the users for in which cases the tag should be used.

  2. They should auto-complete well, use synonyms to help correct the common odd cases.

  3. They must be useful when searching, as that feature is used a lot.

    I don't want to be wandering in individual games when I want questions that apply to all games...

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    I don't understand why Tom's downvoted and Badp's upvotes. It seems like they're saying the same thing?
    – tzenes
    Aug 13, 2011 at 1:40
  • @tzenes: What concerns me more is the fact that they don't care to leave a comment. Aug 13, 2011 at 5:35
  • looking again, it looks like three people downvoted you and two for badp. You have one upvote to badp's five. I think this is an affect of which answer is seen first. Initially people may have seen your answer inline with badp's, but enough people only saw badp's that the old 'fastest gun in the west' problem has resurfaced. That said, there is at least one person who sought yours out to downvote over badps (or maybe at that point yours was on top?).
    – tzenes
    Aug 13, 2011 at 15:08
  • @tzenes: 0 -> -1 -> 1 -> -2 -> -1 is how I've seen my answer go over time. It seems that when someone got my answer back to 0 (in the 1 -> -2 step), badp's answer came on top and he got voted up. Pretty weird, but it's indeed sort of that problem... Aug 13, 2011 at 15:12
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    Your answer changed quite a bit as well. Who knows who voted for which version? Aug 13, 2011 at 17:23

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