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With the new migration features I believe the tags:

  • belongs-on-serverfault
  • belongs-on-superuser
  • belongs-on-meta
  • belongs-on-stackoverflow
  • not-programming-related

are no longer necessary. All they do is add useless clutter to the tagging system. We know a question belongs on superuser.com because it was migrated there. Let the close system handle this.

I used to believe these tags were necessary for those with less reputation to "alert" those with enough rep to close, but there are enough with close privileges to handle this now.

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  • 1
    I see how the tags are unnecessary, but I don't think the effort should be put into disabling them. Edit them out and shortly people should realize not to add them.
    – Ian Elliott
    Commented Jul 28, 2009 at 0:34
  • Almost a dupe of meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4128/….
    – crb
    Commented Jul 28, 2009 at 1:00
  • 8
    Issue comes with watchful users who have enough rep to re-tag, but not enough to vote to close / migrate.
    – Daniel F. Thornton
    Commented Jul 28, 2009 at 16:03
  • Somewhat related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6191/… Maybe not a good solution, but something ought to be done to prevent belongs-on-x, at least until it "dies out." Right now if someone tags it, five other people might be inspired to do the same thing next time.
    – Blixt
    Commented Jul 28, 2009 at 16:07
  • 2
    @pianoman: by design. These users can either flag the post, or wait until they have enough rep, rather than abusing the tagging system.
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 16, 2009 at 3:38
  • It sounds like there's two charges here -- one, that the tags are not necessary, and 2, that to use them constitutes 'abuse'. There are 832 'non-programing-related' questions on stackoverflow right now, so clearly, it's not adequate to simply let those with enough rep to 'close' them take care of things. One very nice feature of the 'not-programming-related' tag is that I can add it to my 'ignore' list if i want to avoid having to read through them -- this is very useful. I don't think it's rude or abusive to use this tag -- no bad words, no negative tone, just a very mundane message in it.
    – dave
    Commented Aug 13, 2010 at 23:36

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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+100

If you see a question with one of these newly-added, remove it, and flag the question for moderator review. Then leave a comment noting that the use of the flag feature is more useful.

Exception: if the question author added the tag themselves, then they will be unable to flag the question. Instead, also post a link to this question.

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5
  • I believe you can flag your own posts now.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Commented Jul 28, 2009 at 8:39
  • I guess I will try doing it this way. It doesn't seem the community cares much one way or the other about these tags
    – John Rasch
    Commented Jul 28, 2009 at 14:31
  • @ChrisF: Ah, so you can! Excellent...
    – Shog9
    Commented Jul 28, 2009 at 15:56
  • Why flag for moderator review if you've got 3K rep? I'd just vote to close.
    – David Thornley
    Commented Sep 11, 2009 at 15:24
  • @David: it takes 5 close votes - that's fine if you can get it, but if the question has "aged" a bit, a moderator might be better able to assist with the move as the question won't garner sufficient attention otherwise. More importantly, low-rep users (those mentioned in the question) can flag questions, while they cannot vote to close.
    – Shog9
    Commented Sep 11, 2009 at 15:40
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Add another to the list, namely, [not-a-question].

This one in particular smacks of rudeness and is extremely unhelpful.

If the question is not a valid question, then it should be flagged or at least a comment left to try and get the asker to reword and fix up their question. The tagging system should not be manhandled and rogered like this.

If they have enough rep to edit the tags, then they have enough rep to leave a comment pointing out that it is in need of serious rewording. Or, shiver their timbers, flag the question as invalid.

As it stands now, there are 67 questions abuse-tagged with this in particular. That means someone has won a Taxonimist badge for being a jerk on the back of this.

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I previously suggested a Tagging Black List here to manage this. I have now added a bounty to get a better idea of the viability of the idea.

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