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Should post tags go above the post content, rather than below it?
Consider, strictly as an example, the question updating a function within a struct on Software Development.
There's a reasonable number of programming languages where something like that might be possible, even when restricting that set to only those that use those terms.
The person who asked that question, quite rightfully, considered tags to be information about the post, and thus did not repeat in the title that their question is about Rust. The fact that the post creation interface puts the title and tags right next to each other probably only serves to reinforce this feeling.
However, that presents a problem to anyone reading the question, especially someone not navigating to it through the questions list, because there is nothing until the very bottom that indicates what specific programming language is being asked about.
While the issue might perhaps be most pronounced on technical sites such as Software Development, I can easily see the same issue cropping up on sites about other subjects. Consider for example if we start a tabletop role playing games site; it's not unreasonable for a question to be accurately and adequately summarized with a title that doesn't identify the specific game, yet could describe several different games with different rules, where the specific-game tag carries critical information.
Because I know that tags often encode this type of information about a question, it was easy enough to scroll down to look at the tags and see the, in that particular case, rust tag. However, I can easily see how someone who lacks that background knowledge would be very confused, wondering what was being asked for (and, when searching for an answer, whether this applies to them).
Some Other site kind of addresses this by placing one of the tags in the page title, but that has the problem of artificially inflating the importance of one of the tags which may or may not be the one that is most relevant to judging whether one can answer the question. On Software Development, for instance, it's not unreasonable for someone asking about calling a Win32 API function from C++ to tag their question c++ win32; but the more specific tag in such a case would likely be win32, not c++, unless the problem is with C++ syntax rather than the fact that it's about a Win32 API call (in which case, the question can probably be simplified without loss of usefulness by removing all references to Win32).
All that to say: Should perhaps the list of tags go above the post they are attached to, instead of below?
1 answer
Tags should be at the top
In addition to the possibility of navigating to the question from somewhere other than the questions list (which means I haven't seen the tags), I'd also find it useful to see the tags at the top of the question when I have navigated from the questions list. I don't necessarily memorise everything about the question before navigating to it. I might not realise that a particular tag is critical to my understanding until after I start reading the question. I also don't have a perfect memory.
Tags should be at the bottom
When I finish reading a question, I need to see the tags as a last minute reminder before I start writing my answer. There may be tags that I only realise are important after having read the question. If I have to scroll all the way back to the top of the question to double check what the tags were, I may forget, or be put off looking.
Why not both?
Since tags are all on one line and do not add a significant height to the page, is there any reason not to show them both above and below a question?
I'd like to see the tags in both places for the same reason that I like to see page number links at both the top and bottom of paginated lists. Both places are useful, so why not make both available?
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