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Please ensure cross-site uniformity for the basics of tagging
I've noticed that the photography.codidact meta tagging system differs from what seems more conventional. For example, it appears that there no tags are mandatory (here at least one of [bug] [feature-request] [discussion] [support] appears to be) and that the colour of [status-completed] there is not pink. Here most status tags are pink, I think to indicate that they may only be applied by moderators or others with special privileges.
I appreciate that each site is being granted as much discretion as is achievable without greatly enhancing complexity and that if the software is to be used outside of Codidact versatility in such matters may be desired. However, the 'rules' (or guidelines) across Codidact are presently very complicated and poorly documented (as yet) if at all. Furthermore there has not really been enough time so far deeply to establish conventions.
I am not bothered by how photography.codidact manages its own community but I am concerned at the possible impact of inconsistency across sites of features that might reasonably be expected to be uniform. Hence this post here rather than on photography.codidact's meta.
Where users are involved in several communities within the Codidact family, and some already are, there are bound to be mistakes made due to confusion, if rules that might reasonably be expected to be uniform actually differ across sites. Mistakes that will add to moderation demands and very probably generate ill will in the process. This is a high price to pay for what seems, for the examples, at best a paltry increase in flexibility.
Please ensure cross-site uniformity for the basics of tagging unless there are very significant benefits (which I think do not exist for the examples provided from photography.codidact) from tailoring tagging for specific sites. Specifically mandatory and 'mod only' tags but also, for example: lower case, character number limit, tag number limit, no spaces, and disallowed characters.
(I'd also suggest preference for plural forms.)
1 answer
One of the benefits of Codidact is that each community can use tags in the way that best supports their community. For example, Judaism supports hierarchical tagging for references, different tagsets are available for different categories, etc.
Meta's tags are mainly used as a way for the site builders and administrators to keep track of what is completed or not, thus the required tags in some cases. Other sites may not want mod-only tags, and we do not wish to force a particular schema upon the users of those sites.
- Mandatory - May not be relevant for a community at all (no mandatory tags exist)
- Mod only - The singular moderator role is in the process of being replaced by the trust level system, and some tagging privileges may be tied to that eventually. Otherwise this is relatively unusual.
- Lower case - I think we have proper nouns for some tags, this may not be ideal
- Character number limit - I believe this is already limited
- Tag number limit - Why? The languages supersite proposal, for example, may have hundreds of tags for different languages; I don't think there is any benefit to cross-site limits based on currently existing use cases
- No spaces - already enforced, you get an error
- Disallowed characters - already disallowed by definition, I don't think we have any reason to forbid the use of symbols.
If you wish to see the tags used in a particular community you can check the "Tags" button below the category ribbon. We will likely add additional help topics in the future and possibly change some of the ways that tags are assigned, but for the moment any inconsistencies between sites do not appear to be causing harm (though please bring examples otherwise to our attention).
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