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Yesterday, Someone removed the [Wii] tag from almost all many Wii questions.

I rolled-back is modification on the question I asked because I found those tag really useful; In my interesting tags, there's [Wii] and [DS] and I put [PS3], [XBox] and [XBox-360] in my ignored tags.

Is there any community consensus about those tags? Is that a good thing that he removed that tag or we should re-tag those questions back?

Update:

Someone else just put those tags back. Is that a good thing either? (I was expecting this, so that why I asked this question so we could discuss it before a Re-tagging war start.)

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    The actions of Jason were actually consistent with Oak's proposal here. There's technically been no actual consensus on that, nor on the genre tag.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Sep 1, 2010 at 12:55
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    "almost all"? - I removed it on all of them that were not specifically about the Wii console. :) I did it based on Oak's proposal as Grace Note noted (heh), and also based on the fact that I did not see any platform specific tags in any of the recent questions, only on older questions. My assumption was that there had been a consensus that the extra tags were not required. (Plus, I was compiling...) If there hasn't been any consensus, then I shall leave the tags alone.
    – au revoir
    Sep 1, 2010 at 13:47
  • @Jason Berkan So, if those platform Tags are useful and not Harmful, I don't get the goal of this action. Is there any "value" added by it? (I think "NO") Is there any "value" removed by it? (I think "YES") While I don't think those tags should be obligatory, I think they definitively add some useful information to the question.
    – DavRob60
    Sep 1, 2010 at 13:55
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    Sorry, I left out the point where my personal view matched the answer - I don't see any value in having Super Mario Galaxy 2 tagged with Wii, since that is the only platform you can play it on. And while I have a Wii, I don't have (or care) about all the games on that platform, so I would never add Wii to my interesting tags. Since my view matched what I thought the consensus was, I figured I would clean up some older questions.
    – au revoir
    Sep 1, 2010 at 14:02
  • I agree with you that adding the Tag of the consoles I got to my interesting tag is don't give a big productivity gain, but adding the Tag of the console I don't have to the ignored tag did help me a lot. That why I support this idea.
    – DavRob60
    Sep 1, 2010 at 14:11
  • @DavRob60 for a cross platform game, though, doesn't the ignore tag hurt you? If a game on a console you like is also on a console you ignore now you'll never see that game...
    – tzenes
    Sep 1, 2010 at 18:02
  • @tzenes Yes, but that why I added a The console I own in my interested tags. Also, I did not check the "Hide Ignored Tags", That way, those games are both blurred AND highlighted. Note that I don't think that There should be and obligatory console for every question, I think they are specifically useful for game that are console exclusive. If they are tagged as [multi-platform] there is no hiding problems, but I think those game shouldn't have a console Tag anyway.
    – DavRob60
    Sep 1, 2010 at 20:25
  • Regarding your edit, I don't think there will be a retagging war (at least, I won't participate). It looks like the current consensus is to leave it alone - if people tag with the console it is OK, but if they don't, that is also OK. I can live with that.
    – au revoir
    Sep 1, 2010 at 21:10
  • @Jason Berkan I agree, but it's a good thing to clarify this, since your where assuming that "there had been a consensus that the extra tags were not required."
    – DavRob60
    Sep 1, 2010 at 22:50

2 Answers 2

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According to this question and this question, platform tags should not be mandatory. Whether the tag should be allowed or not is a different matter; personally I think that using these tags in that manner should be allowed, because

  1. There's no harm in these tags
  2. They might be useful for some users (see here)
  3. Many new questions are bound to appear with their platforms as an additional tag, and enforcing that platform tags will only appear in a small subset of these questions will require a lot of maintenance.

So while I don't think that user did anything wrong, I do not support retagging questions to remove platform tags when it is not deemed as necessary.

I am a bit hesitant about this, though, because it can lead to tagging inconsistency; is it okay for some questions will be platform-tagged and some not? I don't like it but I can live with it.

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  • If you consider badges though, tacking on console tags would gain you extra badges for each console. If i tag XBOX360GAME with [xbox360game] and [xbox360] then it makes me get the [xbox360] badge that much faster.
    – Jesse Dorsey
    Sep 1, 2010 at 14:24
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    @Noctrine How does this differ from a scenario where someone were to get a tag badge on Stack Overflow for [c#] and all they ever looked at was [c#3.0]?
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Sep 1, 2010 at 14:29
  • "I don't like it but I can live with it." Excellent quote.
    – tzenes
    Sep 1, 2010 at 15:01
  • @Noctrine If people are so concerned with tag badges that they want to tag everything [xbox360] then I'd say they've missed the point of this site. Badges are a nice reward for doing good things, but if someone is trying to "game" the system, then why bother? Not that I'm accusing you of this behavior.
    – tzenes
    Sep 1, 2010 at 15:03
  • @tzenes & @gracenote, I was just thinking of a potential harmful case. My personal view is like Oak's, I don't like it because it can lead to inconsistency but it really doesn't matter to me.
    – Jesse Dorsey
    Sep 2, 2010 at 14:00
  • @Noctrine I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, I'm merely suggesting its symptomatic of a larger problem. This is not a hill I'm willing to die on either.
    – tzenes
    Sep 3, 2010 at 0:38
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The way I see this, is that console tags are actually mandatory, but due to technical difficulties, and the problems with maintaining an exhaustive list, not enforced using technical measures.

A comparison can be made with the coding language tags for coding questions on Stack Overflow; while not enforced in code, it is basically mandatory to add a tag describing the language used.

Pro

  • Allows for filtering/following/ignoring questions based on console.
  • Better for SEO.

Cons

  • No way to differentiate questions about the console itself (this can be done by adding the [hardware] tag to the question, in addition to the console)
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  • I actually struggle with the comparison to SO language tags. Those are required because it is often impossible to answer the question without knowing what language / framework the problem is in. For games, the game's tag gives you enough information to know what platform is being referred (with the exception of multi-platform games).
    – au revoir
    Sep 2, 2010 at 2:05
  • I don't think it is that hard to answer an untagged coding question, it just requires a lot more work; Also it allows people not familiar with a certain game, but familiar with the console it runs on in general, to answer the question anyways (with some google-fu); without the console tag, they never even looked at the question.
    – alexanderpas
    Sep 2, 2010 at 2:29
  • somethings might also be diffrent between fallout nv on xbox360 vs PC, since the xbox version doesn't allow using the console for excample.
    – Andy
    Feb 9, 2011 at 12:45

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