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...but not just anybody.

My keen intuition and flawless deductive skills have informed me that this is not a very good tag. There're 15 questions on SO with the tag right now, of which only three seem to be legitimate uses.

What ought a humble vigilante janitor do in cases like this? Retag the invalid ones manually? Retag the valid ones to something else and wait for the offending tag to meet an incandescent demise, that we might dance around its funeral pyre?

Edit: Looks like someone helpful has started cleaning up manually. Still wondering about the situation involving bad tags being blacklisted though...

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  • It simply must be cleaned up again. Check out the old post.
    – M. Tibbits
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 5:26
  • @M. Tibbits: I was under the impression that bad tags were killed and couldn't be recreated. I guess this one was only mostly dead...
    – McCannot
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 5:34
  • The help's not dead yet? It will be soon... But help says it's not dead?!?
    – M. Tibbits
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 5:36
  • FYI: I too thought it was to be blacklisted -- see Jeff's comment
    – M. Tibbits
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 5:37
  • @M. Tibbits: Yep. That's why I decided to make the post here rather than just quietly clean up the mess. :?
    – McCannot
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 5:42
  • Deleting the tag is not the same thing as blacklisting it. The same thing recently happened with the error tag, which has now been both burninated and blacklisted.
    – Charles
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 6:01

1 Answer 1

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I scrubbed that tag from all but three questions (and did a bunch of edits to all fifteen). I'd suggest to other "vigilantes" out there, that when the numbers are so modest, just do the same.

As far as blacklisting the tag, I dunno... 20% of questions appear to be using the tag properly. But maybe that's too low to justify its existence.

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  • I saw! Good show. Your dedication to improving SO is an example to us all.
    – McCannot
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 5:45
  • It's (abused as) a pure meta tag, therefore there is no question using the tag "properly."
    – Charles
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 6:00
  • @Charles, did you look at the questions using that tag?
    – Michael Petrotta
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 6:00
  • 1
    @Charles: The ones using it properly are about "help" features in applications, help files, or related topics.
    – McCannot
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 6:01
  • 2
    @Michael, there are better terms that can be used for those specific questions than just "help." Two of them are about CHM, the other about Apple Help files. Creating specific tags just for those and banning the "help" tag will prevent it from being misused by the typical new user that doesn't understand how tags work.
    – Charles
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 6:04
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    @Charles, quite possibly. That's different than saying that there's no proper use for that tag.
    – Michael Petrotta
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 6:06
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    If people can't use it correctly even half the time, I'd be inclined to favor burnination. I mean, really.
    – McCannot
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 6:07
  • 1
    I've retagged the three remaining legitimate uses, and the one misuse that had already cropped up. Burninate it!
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 18:17

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