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When a tag is created, the tag-info is available at https://meta.stackexchange.com/tags/[tagname]/info. (Or this url shows that it is currently empty.) After the tag is removed, then the above address no longer shows the original tag-info.

Recently in another discussion an experienced user mentioned in a comment that if a tag with the same name is created again, then also the tag-info is recreated:

I will not test this but IIRC if you recreate the tag, the previous tag-wiki gets re-instantiated. I remember I had seen such report but don't know if that was a fluke, a one-time incident or by-design.

However this contradicts my experience with a removed and recreated tag on one of the sites. (I will include details below.) This was in 2012, so it is possible that the behavior of removed tag-wikis changed since then.

TL;DR: So I am basically asking for some "official" info on this: If a tag with the same name as a previously removed tag is created again, does it automatically has the original tag-info?

On instance of this I remember is (algebra) tag on math.SE. This tag is currently blacklisted. However, before the blacklisting it was removed and created again.

At some point, the tag-wiki looked like this (as mentioned in this post):

DEPRECATED TAG! Please DO NOT use this. (algebra-precalculus) or (abstract-algebra) might be more appropriate tags. See tag wiki for details.

However, I was able to find a message in chat mentioning a new tag-excerpt after the tag was created again. You can see in the revision history that the original tag-info was lost. The fact that the old tag-info was removed after the deletion was also mentioned in this comment.

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    I just burninated a tag with tag wiki, we can try adding it tomorrow to sandbox to test this once and for all. :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 6, 2017 at 8:38
  • I don't know the answer for sure, but mods can see orphaned wikis (wikis from now-deleted tags) and I see a bunch of duplicate orphan wikis (for tags that keep being recreated), which implies the wikis needed to be recreated every time. This does mean if you want to recreate the wiki you can at least ask a mod to find the old one
    – Cai
    Commented Aug 6, 2017 at 9:00
  • Thanks for your comment @Cai. Maybe you'd like to repost (and perhaps expand) your comment (the part mentioning that the orhaned tag-wikis are accessible to mods) as an answer to this related question: Is it possible to find tag-info (tag-wiki and tag-excerpt) for the tag which was deleted? (I'll wait a bit - at least until the end of bounty period - but if no simple way for non-diamond users is suggested there, I might as well accept the answer suggesting to ask a moderator.)
    – Martin
    Commented Aug 6, 2017 at 9:08

1 Answer 1

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If a tag with the same name as a previously removed tag is created again, does it automatically has the original tag-info?

No.

I have performed a full scale test to prove this, by following those steps:

  • Found a tag that should not exist, but had wiki text. ()
  • Burninated the tag by removing it from all questions which had it.
  • Waited for a while to let the system delete it.
  • Created the tag again by adding it to the formatting sandbox.
  • Waited for over a full day.

No tag wiki was there.

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