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I suggested an edit (for the tag wiki and the tag excerpt) for the special tag [untagged], on the Super User site.

The first reviewer of both of these suggested edits approved my suggestion. But later on, a message in the suggested edit review report is shown like "This item is no longer reviewable.". Moreover, in the overview within "all actions", with subtab "suggestions", the two rows for each of these suggestion now display a rejected status, as shown here:

15h suggested rejected edit on

15h suggested rejected edit on

Moreover, as shown above, it doesn't show any more which tag these suggestion were about.

Here are my questions about all this:

  1. Why did this happen, i.e. what might be the reasons to actually delete that 'special' tag? Or should I rather say hide it for users with insufficient reputation (similar to posts that are marked deleted, but which are actually only hidden for anybody with less than 10K reputation)?
  2. I seem to understand this specific tag is 'special', because of what I learned about this tag on other sites also: the system 'needs' it, for cleanup purposes, etc., as also documented in the same tag in mostly every other site. How can this specific site now continue to perform these cleanup operations?
  3. Is it really the right thing to do to consider these two edits as "rejected" edits for me? There have only been approves for my suggested edits ... How nice ...

These questions seem to somehow be related, though I think they are not the same:

Here are some more updates to provide more details/background of my question (inspired by some of the answers/comments to it, before they get deleted again):

  • I did not create that untagged tag (it already existed). Moreover, creating a tag requires a 300 reputation. I only have like 100 on that site.

  • On that site, I have not asked any questions, answered anything or commented. So that, IMHO, proofs that the tag was already created before I suggested the edit. If not, how could I possibly have a link to "suggest an edit" for it?

  • I'd be interested to get some info where "I" can see anything related to the creation of that tag at 22:20:07. Because I really don't see how I can have "created" it.

  • About "they are both created the same time": I only "submitted" one single tag edit suggestion, which included both the "excerpt" and the "tag wiki".

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2 Answers 2

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Why did this happen, i.e. what might be the reasons to actually delete that 'special' tag?

Because it was no longer needed. That system tag is meant to be entirely temporary - it's not supposed to stick around on the site for any length of time. In fact, users themselves can't create or add the tag to questions - it's blocked from creation across the entire network. The tag only gets added to questions by the system in a couple scenarios.

  • A moderator migrates a question to the site and it has no tags that exist on the site. Note that if regular users had tried to migrate it, the migration would have been blocked by the system due to the lack of tags - only a moderator can do this.

  • Another tag gets burned and that was the only tag on the question (thus leaving the question with no tags). This can happen by the automated process at 03:00 UTC which kills off tags that have only one question after existing for six months, or by staff at Stack Exchange manually burning a tag.

How can this specific site now continue to perform these cleanup operations?

Easy - the site doesn't need the tag to do anything. The system does, and the system is not prevented from creating it again if it ever needs to be used in the future. The majority of sites on the network right now don't currently have an tag laying around.

Is it really the right thing to do to consider these 2 edits as "rejected" edits for me?

They only display as rejected, because we need to display them as something. They weren't approved, and you didn't receive 2 reputation for them. Pending would suggest that action can still be taken on them - but that's not true.

The default, go-to action for "something weird happened here" has always been using the Community user to reject it and let it fade away. Nothing else needs to happen with the suggestion, and automatically-rejected edits do not count against you as far as the edit ban is concerned.

If there's any bug here, it's that these still show up in your history at all. They really shouldn't. If you had suggested an edit on any normal post, it would have completely disappeared from your history altogether when the post was deleted. But tag wikis are kind of special. When their parent tag gets deleted, the tag wiki ceases to "exist" in a sense, but never gets deleted. That's why you see orphaned tag wiki entries in your profile, and that's why you don't lose the 2 reputation from tag wiki edits when tags get deleted. I'm pretty sure there was a feature request about this floating around somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

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  • Waw, that's a lot to digest. Thak you already for taking the time to write down this detailed answer! Give me some time to come back to it (probably not today). I first want to go "check a few things" that I also experienced in some of my other suggested edits for tags. There is at least 1 for sure that I seem to remember that cannot be explained (I think) from this answer here (it might even contradict it, let me first go find my case again). Apr 11, 2015 at 15:35
  • You mean this one? meta.stackexchange.com/q/148928/152859 Apr 11, 2015 at 19:45
  • @Pierre sorry, think you confuse me with animuson here, I was replying to his "I'm pretty sure there was a feature request about this floating around somewhere, but I can't seem to find it" statement with what I believe is that "lost" question, which he probably didn't find because it's tagged as a bug, and not feature request. :) Apr 11, 2015 at 20:06
  • @Pierre this is a "gray zone", sounds like a bug to me so my advice is simply having both tags, then if and when a dev will take a look, he/she will handle the tags as well. Apr 11, 2015 at 20:15
  • That's a great compromise! I just added the bug tag (I thought they were mutually exclusive). Extra question (may I?): how about the "untagged" tag would become a RED tag (like moderation use only or something). Wouldn't that at least prevent already less experienced users from (a) USING the tag in a question and (b) limit the edit of that tag to privileged users (who should be less likely to NOT know exactly how to use that tag, edit its description, etc). I'm thinking of posting that as another answer ... and put part of my (what SE calls) reputation at risk for getting downvoted. Apr 11, 2015 at 20:24
  • @Pierre.Vriens As I stated in my answer, no one can use the tag on a question. Only the system can add it to a question. Any time a user tries to edit a question with the tag on it, they must replace the tag in order to be able to submit the edit. Not even a moderator can bypass this restriction. Any questions with the tag on it are merely waiting for it to be updated.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Apr 11, 2015 at 20:27
  • I'm not sure what you mean in (b). Do you mean prevent users editing the tag wiki? Because on most sites the tag does not actually stick around long enough for anyone to edit it. Drupal is probably more of an exception, and I'm quite surprised that they have so many questions sitting around untagged. That should probably be brought up on their Meta so that they can get them cleaned up.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Apr 11, 2015 at 20:51
  • As for your second question, untagged is treated like any other tag in the system. If there are questions on it, it shows up in the list. Once they've all been retagged, it gets deleted. It doesn't show up here because it doesn't exist here.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Apr 11, 2015 at 20:51
  • @animuson : I'd be interested in knowing your viewpoints to the answer about my question at meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/296226/… ... Maybe you want to extend/refine your (great) explanation in the answer here in the context of what Patrick wrote there? Jun 6, 2015 at 7:38
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2 . The tag is used mostly for questions that have been migrated from other sites but the sites don't share the existing tags.

People then come along and edit the question to add proper tags for that question. The tag is then deleted every day (if there are no questions with it), as do all tags with no questions in it, automatically.

If a new question comes without a usable tag, is created again.

So, adding a wiki to this tag would be pretty pointless because it would be deleted in a few days anyway.

1 . As for why the edit became unreviewable - it could (I don't know for sure!) have been because the tag got deleted between Excell and another user seeing the edit.

3 . It isn't really right, but it can't exactly be stated as 'accepted' - the best the system could do is say 'unknown' - but this a rare case and I don't think there's much point changing the system to solve rare cases. The only other false rejection (afaik) is when another edit is posted at the same time as you and one cancels the other out.

Edit: It seems you created that tag by making a tag wiki suggestion at 22:20:07 yesterday... that might be why it happened. Sorry - you don't have the privilege to create tags - so that's not what happened. I'll stick to the explanation above and what @animuson said.

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    @Pierre.Vriens me, or any other user, can only assume what happened - I put the I don't know for sure in because I don't what it to sound like that's exactly what happened, when it may be different. Employees on the other hand might be able to get more data and give a more exact answer. Apr 11, 2015 at 14:06
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. Apr 11, 2015 at 16:51

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