Let's Ban the [ASP] Tag on StackOverflow! [closed]

Question

• If the question is about ASP.NET, then it should say asp.net
• If the question is about Classic ASP, then it should say asp-classic

I can think of no valid reason to tag a question with asp. Let's get rid of it entirely.

Answer 1

It's a trap!

The problem is that asp is a trap tag for ASP.Net. We'll never be able to stop clueless users from tagging asp.net questions asp. It sucks for those still using the original asp, but the only way we can have a clear, unambiguous tag devoted to that technology is to give it an unambiguous name. Thus, asp-classic exists.

However, we now have a mess on our hands in the asp tag: over 3000 questions, about half of which are for asp.net and half for classic asp. That's way too many, too closely spread, to deal with automatically.

I agree, then, that the best possible result here is to restrict using the asp tag in new questions. This will force users to make an unambiguous tag choice. This will at least prevent the problem from getting worse.

At this point we need to work the existing questions, and there is a choice about how to do that: we could work to remove the tag entirely, or we could work to merely clean up the ASP.Net questions, and when that is done restore the asp tag as a synonym of asp-classic. Of those, I think the latter is ideal option, but it will be hard to implement as it will get increasingly hard to know which questions have been worked. Thus I propose we do both: clean up all the questions in the asp tag, but when done set it up as a synonym for asp-classic.

Update
This has now happened. I spent a good bit of time on this over the holidays and cleaned up every single question with the old asp tag by hand — all 3000+. It went much faster than you might think. At this time, the tag no longer exists, and a mod was kind enough to create an synonym to asp-classic. Hopefully users intending it to mean asp.net will now spot the (much more obvious) error and correct their questions.

Answer 2

I disagree.

Before ASP.NET was here, the framework was called 'ASP', not 'ASP classic'. Will we have to rename each language/technology to "classic" "classicer" "classicest" each time a new version appears?

Answer 3

This makes sense, but how would a person looking for ASP classic know to use the asp-classic tag?

Answer 4

I agree that something should be done as the [ASP] tag is almost always used in the wrong way, and as it says DONT use this tag and people still do so remove it is my view.

Answer 5

I agree. The same thing should be done for Visual Basic and all other language-version dependent tags.

Edit: OK, to clarify, I mention VB and C in my comment to John below.

I think a solution would be: if you add a question with tags VB, ASP, C, etc., you should be prompted by a new page; "Please if possible select proper version for your tags" encouraging people to fill in C89 or C99 if they know they want it (everyone should if it's not marked homework).

This will also be good for, say, SQL. You would be prompted about what SQL standard you want or what database you are using. Almost all SQL questions I see starts with comments asking for what database (and version) is being used.