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I was noticing that the tag is out there with a lot of tagged questions, but it's not very useful, since you generally need to know which variant is being used, , or . There are thousands of questions that would have to be looked at manually to fix their tags. I was thinking that it would be good to put a tag on hold, where it was still out there, not synonymed (since this is a superset tag, it can't really be synonymed), but not usable. That way over time it could be edited out of existing questions (most of which probably have one of the subset tags anyway).

Note: While having a Tag Hold status is the topic of this feature request, two things about my specific case:

  1. A batch script could be run by the Team to eliminate on any question where one of the subset tags is used, that would get most cases.

  2. Versions of VB earlier than 6 also have their own subset tags already, so everything is already covered.

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  • why not make vb synonymous to all? – Brian Sep 28 '11 at 16:08
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    @0A0D, they are all VERY different and need to be separated out. – Lance Roberts Sep 28 '11 at 16:11
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    We're struggling with a similar problem on Programmers with our [career] and [jobs] tags. – Adam Lear♦ Sep 28 '11 at 16:17
  • @AnnaLear: Well in that case, the distinction is easy to make. Jobs can make up Careers, but VBA does not make up VB or the other way around. – Brian Sep 28 '11 at 16:24
  • What's a batch script? – user1228 Sep 28 '11 at 16:24
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    @0A0D Sorry, the tags I mentioned are both problem tags, not one is a problem and the other a solution. We have more specific tags that we'd rather use, but trying to edit 1000+ questions while people are adding [career] and [jobs] to new posts is difficult. Freezing a tag/putting it on hold is something we'd be very interested in. – Adam Lear♦ Sep 28 '11 at 16:26
  • @Won, my very generic term for SQL magic. – Lance Roberts Sep 28 '11 at 16:31
  • Analogous to the issue mentioned in this question for Java. – Pops Sep 28 '11 at 16:42
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    @AnnaLear: There used to be the ability to block certain tags. I'm sure if they can do it for status-completed etc type tags, they can do it for any tag. – Brian Sep 28 '11 at 16:43
  • @0A0D I just came here to voice support for this request. I'm aware of the existing options available to developers, but they are not accessible otherwise. – Adam Lear♦ Sep 28 '11 at 16:44
  • @LanceRoberts: I don't like magic. – user1228 Sep 28 '11 at 16:51
  • VB? People still use that?? :-D – Adam Rackis Sep 28 '11 at 18:44
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+50

This actually exists already: tag blacklisting only prevents new questions from being added to a tag, it doesn't remove the tag from the existing questions. Removing it from existing questions is a separate action.

However, when requesting the use of it for the and tags on Programmers, it was declined for being a poor user experience:

Unfortunately, we cannot simply "lock" the tags from future use without obliterating them. It causes ruckus and befuddlement as a person will see that not only is a tag quite voluminous, but it is also available on the tag suggestion list, and yet if they try to use it, they are barred.

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  • Thanks for the input, I hope they reconsider. – Lance Roberts Oct 1 '11 at 16:59

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