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Should we be able to tag answers?
On some of our communities, it would be helpful to be able to label answers systematically:
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On Code Golf, by language.
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On Software Development, Power Users, or Linux Systems, by specific version/platform/library -- for example, if the answer to a C++ question is different for C++11 than C++14, or a browser answer is different for Firefox and Chrome, or a front-end question is different for pure Javascript or jQuery.
In some cases perhaps the question should be more specific, but it seems like in some cases it'd be better to have the answers all together. And, of course, on Code Golf, varied answer languages are expected.
It's sometimes useful to be able to just tell at a glance what an answer applies to. There are probably people still using (or maintaining code in) Java 7, so you don't want to nuke those answers, but you want the person who's looking for a current solution to a Java problem to be able to tell at a glance that this answer is for an older version.
Would it make sense to be able to add tags to answers, in addition to the tags on the question?
In addition to making answer scoping more visible, answer tags could support sorting. I'm imagining another sort option at the top of the answers alongside "Score" and Activity", and maybe also showing answer tags in the table of contents. I'm also imagining that this would be something communities would opt into, since it doesn't make sense on every community.
I think tag hierarchies are orthogonal; while (if they exist, which I haven't checked) C++11 and C++14 should be children of C++, a challenge on Code Golf doesn't have any question-level language tags at all.
This isn't a bad idea. I'd like the tag system to have some more features. Why tags on answers could be useful Sys …
1y ago
This seems like a good idea from a programming or computer hardware and software perspective. Choosing the version of …
3y ago
Examining precedent The Stack Exchange network has the core of this feature: you can write `[tag:tag-name]` in the bo …
1y ago
This should probably be per-community configurable. Since even on Code Golf, not all tags are meaningful on answers, one …
3y ago
It sounds like a feature of very limited use. I agree that it would be neat for Code Golf, where different answers are p …
3y ago
5 answers
You are accessing this answer with a direct link, so it's being shown above all other answers regardless of its score. You can return to the normal view.
This seems like a good idea from a programming or computer hardware and software perspective.
Choosing the version of the proglang you're using helps to somewhat distinguish what version of the language is being used so you can get the answer you want from the version you have, and you can apply which version of the OS you're using so you can get answers you want from what you're using.
This works for a good portion of sites, like what's already specified in the question and maybe even Photography & Video CD by which device you're using for edits or capturing media. I agree with the idea!
An example for Software Development CD would be the use of Python, since its a pretty common language. The most used versions are either 2 or 3, so choosing whichever version you used in your answer by a tag helps.
As for Power Users CD, we can take the most common operating system, which is Megahard Doors Microsoft Windows. There are a good bunch of changes in every version or build in Windows, so tagging answers, once again, helps.
0 comment threads
This isn't a bad idea. I'd like the tag system to have some more features.
Why tags on answers could be useful
Systems and programming languages can have a lot of versions. For example, consider the previous discussion on Power Users, which is about whether this question should be tagged to indicate a more specific version of Windows. The consensus was not to do so. But suppose I were using an older version of Windows, and could easily solve the problem in that version. Knowing that OP uses Windows 10 21H1, it could happen that my answer doesn't solve the problem - since Windows updates system settings with most version updates.
Similarly with programming langauges. I asked a question on Unix.SE about trying to install Tensorflow in Python. Some people were saying to use
pip3 install tensorflow, but it turned out that Tensorflow was not supported by my Python version (3.9). After doing a bit of research I found an accurate answer - I needed to run pip3 install tf-nightly instead. If the answerer had added a version tag, I could have understood why the answer wasn't helpful for me. Instead, I downvoted the answer.
Why tags on answers might not help
Tags on answers for Meta sites seem nearly meaningless.
For example, suppose I were to add tags to this answer. I might use some code like
<a class="badge is-tag " href="/categories/3/tags/4964">answers</a>
<a class="badge is-tag " href="categories/3/tags/968">tags</a>
But the question already has these tags, so they aren't necessary on the answer.
Similarly, consider this question from the Languages & Linguistics community. The answer would again only have the same tags as the question (to indicate the language that the question is about).
The same would apply to these communities:
- Judaism
- Language & Linguistic
- Christianity
- Mathematics (for some questions)
- Physics (for some questions)
I would like a tag system for answers to have these features as well:
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It should be possible to post an answer without any tags (although a tag is required for questions). (On reflection, answers for questions like this one seem like they should "need" tags. So perhaps it would be better to allow the person asking the question to choose whether answers will be tagged.)
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User profiles (such as Monica's) mix questions and answers together. This makes it hard to find specific answers (to edit them or for any other reason). If answers have tags, then the same mixing would naturally happen to per-tag post lists such as this one. The system should separate tags for questions and answers to avoid this.
Examining precedent
The Stack Exchange network has the core of this feature: you can write [tag:tag-name] in the body of a question or answer to get a button (really an a tag, just like here) that works just like the tags underneath a post.
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Tags that are specially marked on the site, still get marked that way. Tags that haven't been created, show up all the same anyway, and just link to a "tag" with zero questions.
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Questions and answers do not show up in a tag search because of tag markup used within them, only based on actual tags applied to the question.
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It doesn't support sorting. I don't think sorting makes sense here anyway; the value-add would be filtering, to hide answers that do (or don't) include a particular tag.
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It doesn't show up in a table of contents, because there is no table of contents.
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It gets used very actively on some network sites (such as the Law one) and practically never anywhere else.
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Where it does get used, it's a huge value-add: it allows the Law site to have people ask general questions about legal practice, and get answers that are specific to a legal jurisdiction - which allows everyone to compare and contrast how the law works in different parts of the world.
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There is no restriction at the technical level on which tags can be specified where. It's purely the social convention of each individual site.
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Full endorsement
I strongly recommend embracing and extending this feature, based on what I've seen. The upsides are clear and the downsides have proven themselves irrelevant in practice.
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We don't need or want to make such a feature configurable by community.
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In communities that don't already use the feature (or have meta discussions about it), it won't be discoverable. People who don't see it won't think of using it.
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Abuse also isn't a problem: while the necessary Markdown could appear anywhere in a post (and any additional features that care about them, probably should search the post for them), in practice we see that everyone on Law uses it only at the top of an answer, and not at all in questions.
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Similarly, in practice people don't post off-topic answers on questions that already specified a jurisdiction in the tags, because it's already well understood what the purpose is. Again - communities come to consensus through the normal means, and prominent members lead by example. (This is the main reason we don't see the feature used on Stack Overflow, even though I think there are definitely cases where it would be useful for Software.)
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On the other hand, related to that, there could be cases where it's useful to broaden a question, anyway. For example, on Software, suppose a confused beginner asked about a logic error related to De Morgan's laws, and tagged it with the language that was actually used. The community might decide it's better to remove or replace the language tag, collaborate on a "main" language-agnostic answer, and then add language-tagged answers with more specific examples of the syntax.
Contrary to a previous suggestion, I don't think it would be particularly useful to tag version-specific answers on Software for Python. Of course, that would be up to a later Software Meta discussion, but my main argument is that we don't have minor-version tags (and they have proven mostly useless and counterproductive on Stack Overflow), and 2.x is a long-enough-dead parrot that special justification should be required to post any new content related to it (i.e., explicitly examining a historical perspective). If anything, we should tag according to Python features added in new minor versions, like [python-fstring] or [python-match-case].
On the other hand, there are a ton of common tasks where Numpy might be able to help or offer something that's more efficient or elegant, but it's also perfectly possible to do, say, with ordinary Python lists. For future readers, it would often work better to collect the "vanilla" and Numpy-specific answers in the same place, even if OP specifically wanted one or the other. This is a great reason for supporting filtering and for a TOC to summarize tags that were applied to answers. The filter could even be persistent and user-specific, so that e.g. someone who doesn't have any interest in Numpy could filter answers using it by default, and browse Python Q&A at leisure.
This should probably be per-community configurable. Since even on Code Golf, not all tags are meaningful on answers, one might say that only tags derived from question tags are allowed, but a site can define “category implied tags” that cannot actually be used, but are treated as if they were used on all questions of the category they were defined for.
For example, on the Code Golf category Challenges, there would be an implied “language” tag which has all languages as subcategories, enabling all answers to a challenge to use language tags, but not tags like code-golf or alternative-scoring which don't make sense for answers.
0 comment threads
It sounds like a feature of very limited use. I agree that it would be neat for Code Golf, where different answers are per definition of "different kinds". I don't really see any use for it on any other of the existing sites though.
Regarding the specific example of C++ on Software Development, the tag policy is this:
Unless the question explicitly mentions which version of the C++ standard that is uses, the current active version of ISO 14882 is assumed (C++17).
And very same "latest version unless you said anything else" policy can likely be assumed to apply for other languages too. This policy comes from SO where there was a very broad consensus in favour for it.
This means that:
- If a question is tagged C++ you are assumed to give an answer which will at least work in C++17 (even though it might not be optimal). In particular, it shouldn't use obsolete/withdrawn language features.
- If the question is tagged C++ and C++11, you are required to give an answer that works in C++11. Giving one that only works in C++98 or C++17 etc would be off-topic.
One might need to prompt the OP for details in case it matters. Generally, a good question is specific and unambiguous enough that there can't be multiple types of answers.
I am particularly concerned for such an answer tag encouraging off-topic posts. Suppose you have a Q&A tagged C++. Then someone pops up out of the blue and posts "this is how you would do it in Java" and puts on a Java tag on their blatantly off-topic answer. We know from experience that this occasionally happens even without such a tag feature.
0 comment threads