First off, as a note, the AnswerSwarm contest that we're running includes this in its rules:
These Leagues and Achievements take place within the starcraft-2 tag. Only questions tagged starcraft-2 and answers to those questions that were posted during the contest count.
This was created based on the current logic that we are not creating a secondary tag to differentiate the two. Which we derived from both the current decision of the site to have such a synonym, and also the trend that the majority of other things with major expansions do not have a separate tag. For example, the first Starcraft, and also Diablo II, neither of them have a distinct separate tag for their expansions.
Rather relatable is the case of Lord of Destruction, which was not just an addition of content but also rebalancing of mechanics, not only on the initial release (for example, Mercenaries sticking around and levelling up), but also in later patches (most notably the introduction of skill synergy to vastly change skill strategy). Lord of Destruction is rather much a different game as a whole, yet it resides within the same tag. In the majority of questions, it is probably expected that people are all playing the latest version with all the expansions, so needing to qualify the expansion is often seen as excessive. So, the fact that Heart of the Swarm introduces not just new units and features but also includes rebalances and new upgrades for the old units, that doesn't feel like enough to split it. At least, from my personal understanding of the changes that were implemented.
I will bring up that, at the moment, Frozen Throne is a separate tag from Warcraft 3, which makes it anomalous and inconsistent. I'm of the mind that we should merge those two together, but it exists as a counterpoint to the current trend.
My expectation is that Heart of the Swarm will follow the same path that all these other expansions have - the latest is the greatest and consequently the norm that everyone expects. I think that seeing how the populace runs with the game would be the best metric - if we end up with an evenly divided population betwixt those who move on to Heart of the Swarm versus those who fervently stay alongside Wings of Liberty, then separate tags would make distinguishing them easier. But if going forward, we only really expect to see questions on Heart of the Swarm, and only occasionally (and identifiably within the question body) meet up with Wings of Liberty exclusive questions, then I think we can be serviced fine by a single tag. We'll just call it Starcraft 2.
