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When asking database questions, new users often forget to tag their question both with and any of , , , , or whatever. People then always need to ask "What database is this about?", e.g:

Split one VARCHAR field that contains some double quotes

Often, some clever users then start to guess SQL dialects before the actual dialect is supplied, which will then render their answers invalid.

Very few questions are really SQL-dialect-agnostic, and thus "pure" SQL questions. Wouldn't it be interesting if a warning would pop up next to the "Post Your Question" button or next to the tags field, indicating that the current set of tags might not be complete or precise enough? I would imagine that other "general" tags with related "specific" tags may exist. In this example, if the tag is present, any of the related , , , , or whatever tags might be useful to add.

Another example: With it might be useful to also specify any of , , , , , whatever.

In fact, this goes along the lines of "Is your tag-set complete? Because users who tagged their questions with often also tagged their questions with..."

A similar request has been made before, although I do not think that tags need that much structuring: A proposal for tag hierarchy on Stack Exchange sites

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    A significant minority of the users who guess SQL dialects are not what I would call "clever". Blind might be nearer the truth... Jun 10, 2013 at 11:38
  • Still, all that discussion about what the dialect is, is just noise. Specifically because new users do not yet react quickly to such comments. Why not help them get it "right" right away
    – Lukas Eder
    Jun 10, 2013 at 11:40

1 Answer 1

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This is very similar to a request I wanted to make but didn't because I thought it was already implemented.

When asking a question it would be easy to take the five most common tags that are related to the tags you have on your own question, i.e. they've been used on the same question, and suggest these to the user as a possible addition to their own.

This appears to have already been implemented on MSO but it's never happened for me on Stack Overflow.

tags

The information is already stored and updated daily for Related Tags section to the right of the page so should be fairly easy to implement.

This may already be implemented on other sites but I can't get it to work anywhere else, no matter my reputation :-(.

If this were to be rolled out, and made slightly more obvious that you might want to consider adding these tags if they're relevant, and only if they're relevant, it would go a significant way to completing this request.

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  • Great if that already exists. Yes that would help adding more relevant tags to questions by new users.
    – Lukas Eder
    Jun 10, 2013 at 11:59

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