I don't think there's been any problems with this on Stack Overflow, really. It's easy to rename and merge tags there, and as the scale of that site is quite large, I'd say it's a good example. I don't think the downsides of allowing everyone to create tags, at least not for a Q/A section, will ever be large.

Andreas from the dark caverns‭ On SE network tags are more a list of keyword that a way to convey semantic information correctly. On EE.CD we almost reached consensus that our tag systems should not be used as a keyword system, but more as a "semantic field" infrastructure. This is also supported by the existance of synonyms and parent tags, features lacking on SE.

Lorenzo Donati‭ Tag synonyms exist on SO.

Andreas from the dark caverns‭ Oh, well. I didn't notice them. Maybe it is a relatively new feature? When I did janitorial work on SE network many years ago they didn't exist.

Lorenzo Donati‭ They have existed since at least 2010

I’m not sure why you would say that tags on SO are only keywords, and not a way to convey semantic information. The help page does say they exist for searching purposes, yes, but that’s not their only purpose. They are not meant to just describe the contents of the question, but to categorize it. For instance, information about the programming language(s) of a question, are supposed to be as a tag on the question, not in the title, nor questiol body. Automatic inference of programming language for syntax highlighting in code blocks on SO, is based on the tags of the question. Yes, SO doesn’t have a tag system, but that only means there’s no structure to the tag relations, not that there isn’t any relation between them at all. SO specifically does not want just «keywords» about the question content. That is wrong, and we edit the questions to fix that. I have been on forums, and specified such keywords. That is not it, on SO.

Andreas from the dark caverns‭ I didn't say SO, I said SE network. I mainly worked on EE.SE, and there tags sucks. It seems on SO there is more discipline. Anyway, I see there are a lot of very specific tags, like the specific version of dot-net framework. That is like using a tag for each part number we have in electronics. If we did that we would end up with literally hundreds of thousands of different tags. I wouldn't want that.

As I said elsewhere, for me tags are a way to organize information in a hierarchical-semantic way, it's not just another search tool.

Lorenzo Donati‭e No, you're exaggerating the situation on SO. We default to using tags without version numbers if the version of the framework is irrelevant. In most cases, that holds true. However, there are times when a framework may look substantially different between the major versions, or there are other reasons to specify something more specific. They exist for a reason. I can ensure you that they would've been purged long ago if they had no use there. For instance, GLFW is a framework. An answer for GLFW 2 will look considerably different to an answer for GLFW 3. These major versions of the frameworks are neither ABI compatible, nor API compatible. If this is what you consider "search tool", you have misunderstood it.

Lorenzo Donati‭ If you want an example of what it would look like to use "each part number we have in electronics" on SO, or CD's software site, that would be to tag each question with the CPU, motherboard, GPU, screen, keyboard model, mouse model, etc, for each question. That makes no sense, and we don't do that.

Andreas from the dark caverns‭ Sorry, I don't agree. Please, don't mix level of abstractions. If an application is made by hundreds of modules and libraries and you tag the version of each library (as it seems SO does, if I'm not mistaken), then the parallel in electronics is: you have a circuit and you tag every part number in the schematic.

Andreas from the dark caverns‭ But anyway, I'm not here to defend or object against SE network. I'm not in that ship any more and I'm not interested too much in that company shenanigans any longer.

In a way I pity those that still linger there, since I'm sure they will be sorely disappointed by the next trick SE company will play on them.

You know, "fool my once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". But Stockholm syndrome together with sunk cost fallacy is a combination hard to fight against. I was a victim of that combination too after the "Monica Cellio Affair", and I thought that maybe they weren't "evil". I was wrong, as the "AI affair" demonstrated.

The only thing about SE I'm interested in now is to avoid their mistakes here on Codidact.

Lorenzo Donati‭ I am making the point that SO manages to handle tag creations fairly well. That's not where the issue lays; rather, the issues with tag creation can be mitigated by better tag management.

Therefore, it's important that you don't misunderstand how it works, if you are to understand my argument, which relies on understanding the system on SO.

as it seems SO does

No, that's not how tagging works on SO. Questions on SO aren't even that broad. A question attempting to specify that much, likely would've been closed.

Examples: Vulkan; only 1 tag, despite there existing multiple major and minor versions of it. Because of the way that Vulkan is designed, it's pointless to specify tags with version numbers. Cocoa: designed with backwards-compatibility in mind. There are no version numbers. Should be co-tagged with an iOS or MacOS version if needed.

GTK tag info states:

This tag should be used for questions about GTK in general. For more specific questions regarding how a certain version works, use gtk2 or gtk3.

That is because GTK has breaking changes between each major version, and the API looks quite different. A question asking for the same, but for a different GTK version, may have completely different answers.

I believe we are describing different situations. Maybe the tags on SE EE are indeed horrible, and that the tagging system is abused by the users. I don't think that situation applies to SO. Do you have any idea why the situation is as it is on the EE site, considering that SO accomplishes good use of the tags?