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I'm told the emergent folksonomy means "don't fix it if it's not broken," and I like that! I'm all for letting the garden grow wild until it needs pruning, but I can't figure out what constitutes "broken" for tags; what signals a need to prune? I've been searching, and haven't found much guidance about the principles behind evaluating whether to consider a tag for splitting, burninating, or any other active curation.

Am I missing the relevant meta post or blog? Or is tag curation an "I know it when I see it" sort of deal, left deliberately open for each site to work out according to its own context?

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is tag curation an "I know it when I see it" sort of deal, left deliberately open for each site to work out according to its own context?

That's pretty much it.

There are too many communities that each work in their own way and decide on what is and isn't acceptable for them - having an overreaching set of rules governing tags, tagging, synonyms, splitting and burnination will never work well for all of them.

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    I get that rules would be much less than useful, but are there, like, general principles or guidelines or anything similar which outlines how to diagnose a healthy or unhealthy tag? We have that sort of thing for GS/BS, for example.
    – BESW
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 9:59
  • GS/BS? I don't know what that means.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 10:04
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    The general principle - if you think there is an issue with tags, bring it up to the site child meta to find out the community consensus.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 10:05
  • Good subjective, bad subjective is treated as a primary document for principles and guidelines by a lot of the "softer" Stacks. Also, thank you for your response. I was hoping there's something I'd missed which would help clear up some confusion about curating tags on one of the Stacks I frequent, but it looks like we'll have to hash it out on our own.
    – BESW
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 10:07
  • @BESW The important point is to talk it on the child meta like Oded told, as for such action I already seen a mod getting in trouble. He just wanted to clean, but the mass cleaning of a tag without be backed by a meta post = bad idea. (and as a community, you will get help with the tag cleaning if you post before)
    – user276487
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 10:56
  • @yagmoth555 Actually, the problem tends to be meta posts about tags which semi-regularly reveal various site participants disagree strongly about what patterns of tag use require active curation.
    – BESW
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 10:59
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    @BESW - this suggests that the community needs to discuss that issue at large. A meta post on the site to gain a consensus on those patterns, something for everyone to follow.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 11:00
  • I've just asked something along those lines, so here's hoping.
    – BESW
    Commented May 18, 2016 at 11:00

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