Wrong tag mapping approved

Question

I have been notified that python-3.x has been made synonymous to various non-interchangeably variants wrt python-3.x:

python-3.1, python-3.2, python-3.3, python3.2

Of that list, only python-3.2 and python3.2 is a subset of synonymous tag names and should probably get its own association. Merely the following are alternative spellings of python-3.x. (I'm not a python programmer; don't know whether py3k and python3k are something different.) These synonyms are fine:

python-3, python3, py3k, python3k

The first list of synonyms should be removed as they don't work.

Answer 1

I nuked the synonyms cause we never intended for the synonym system to be used as a tag hierarchy.

The synonym is clearly wrong, but as @MTibbits suggests, usage of the tags may also be wrong. I prefer that the tags be cleaned up on the few questions than have an incorrect synonym in the system.

Answer 2

I disagree. Looking through many of the questions tagged as python-3.1, python-3.2, python3.2, and python3.3, there aren't very many at all which are version specific.

Python 3.1

From python-3.1 currently has 18 questions. The following do not appear to be directly related to version 3.1:

• https://stackoverflow.com/q/6112910
• Transform bits into byte series
• Boost Python example failed twice
• Python Interactive Shell - SyntaxError with print
• python 3.1 boolean check with for loop
• Python Date Modified Wrong For Some Files
• Reading data files in python 3.1
• How come string.maketrans does not work in Python 3.1?
• https://stackoverflow.com/q/2634380
• https://stackoverflow.com/q/2626643
• telnetlib TypeError
• two conflicting meanings of builtins in python 3 (python 3.1, python 3k, python3000)

Several have 3.1 proudly displayed in their text, but the issues discussed are not version specific. These next few may be specific to version 3.1, but should they be python-3.1.2 or python-3.1.3?

• Python 3.2 extremely slow when compare to Python 3.1.x
• How can I install argparse in Python 3.1?
• Update version of Python in Emacs 22.2.1

And while I'm currently out of flags, these don't appear to fit the Q&A format:

• When will Django support Python 3.x?
• Python 3, Are there any known security holes in ast.literal_eval(node_or_string)?
• https://stackoverflow.com/q/1029917

Python 3.2

Without question, I think python3.2 (with 8 questions) -> python-3.2 (with 23 questions). These are quite similar to the 3.1 questions where only a few appear to really be version specific. In fact, I think only these three:

• Is there a GDAL build available for Python 3.2 Windows 7 64-bit?
• Alternative to execfile in Python 3?
• mod_wsgi on archlinux with python 3.2

are version specific. Perhaps this one too:

• installing PyQt4 cannot find -lpython3.1mu

but I would've preferred to see that on Ask Ubuntu.

Python 3.3

• Python 3.3 blueprints appears version specific
• https://stackoverflow.com/q/2284953 may be version specific, but it might also be a reasonable candidate for closing as NARQ.

Summary

If there are version specific issues to the bugs, errors, features, in Python 3.1, 3.2, or 3.3, then sure let's keep the tag(s). However, given that there are only about a dozen questions, is it really necessary to include the major version as well as the minor version? Personally, I think the correct premise is to use the python-3.x.

As a pragmatist, I'm seeing a ton of things misclassified and little added by including the major and minor release versions. For those interested in the most recent version, or the outstanding issues, I think this information could just as easily be obtained by searching for Python 3.3 or looking at unanswered python-3.x bugs, errors, etc without necessitating python-3.3.

Disclaimer

I'm not a huge Python programmer. I haven't done anything in Python 3 -- so I may very well be misclassifying the questions above. I didn't approve or suggest these synonym -- I'm not trying to get a badge or something, just tossing in my $0.02.