6

Let's say you have a question about something rather rare.

There are only one or two tags you could use but they have a very low number of questions associated with it.

Should you just post it or figure out some more high profile tags you could add?

Do enough people browse the unfiltered list of questions to see questions with low tags?

Improve this question
6
  • Do you have an example? I think almost all questions can fit into one of the bigger, more general tags
    – Cruncher
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 13:52
  • Imagine you're posting the question on Twitter. What would you hashtag it with? Then use those tags.
    – JonW
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 13:56
  • I agree with Cruncher. Moreover, adding an higher level tag can help users to explore and find solutions they were not aware of (and that could explain the low number of tagged entries). Posting something that no one will ever read doesn't look much useful to me
    – domokun
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 13:56
  • Pretty sure that algorithm could be used on just about any question (dealing with programming languages, at least). (This is a joke... please don't actually tag all of your questions with "algorithm".)
    – JDB
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 14:28
  • smells like asking for a way to get more views.
    – user221081
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 14:47
  • Indeed. What's the point asking a question if the people who might know don't see it? Besides after a few hours in a popular tag usually a question gets so far back nobody sees it before unless they look for it. Thus no chance of getting so many views to earn badges if that's what you're implying.
    – transilvlad
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 14:57

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

Getting views doesn't help you unless they are views from people who can help. Say you have a question - if you tag it millions of people will see it, but none of them will help you at all. They might even randomly downvote you in anger.

Take the time to think about all the relevant tags for your question. That includes your programming language, the kind of problem you're trying to solve, and other technology that's involved (are you talking to a database? calling a web service? parsing xml or json?), and possibly the OS if that matters (eg you're calling some API of the OS.)

If you add irrelevant tags there's a good chance someone else will just remove them, so don't bother.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .