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Can anyone think of a solution to the problem of the, to me, general tag being adopted by the specific (which also has , , and ) ?

Here is an example. It is not a good one because of mistagging, but it is recent, and illustrates the point.

EDIT: The above is an even worse example than I thought.

The tags are:
With a comment by Mitch Wheat: "question states MySQL, tag says SQL Server"

This is by no means an uncommon interpretation and is leading, I believe, to SQL Server answers being given to any question tagged , even where another tag would suggest that the question requires a different flavour of SQL.

EDIT: Here is a better example, which I think illustrates the point I am trying to make.

The tags are sql ms-access and one respondent breaks his/her answer down into two parts, one answer for ms-access, one for sql, which use SQL Server syntax.

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  • Once again, this was intended as an example of something I have observed, and that is SQL Server answers where an additional tag means that it is inappropriate. It should not be seen as the focus of the question, which is concerned with a general tag being interpreted as belonging to a more (most?) vigorous branch.
    – Remou
    Dec 29, 2010 at 23:50

2 Answers 2

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If you look in the edit history, that question was originally tagged sql-server also, which is the cause of that comment, I presume.

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  • This was an even worse example than I though, I will see if I can find a better one.
    – Remou
    Dec 29, 2010 at 13:58
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I believe Mitch Wheat's confusion might be somewhat common, but it looks like he just misread and imagined "server" on the end of the tag. However, sql does not always mean sql-server, just like the linux tag doesn't always mean ubuntu.

My suggestion would be to leave the tags as is, and inform users like Mitch that the tag does not mean sql-server.

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