11

Related questions:

  1. Retag the [html] + [table] questions to [html-table]
  2. Conflicting tags (This led to founding of )

The tag has become cluttered with all kinds of questions ranging from sql tables (for all DBM systems, HTML tag <table>, outputting content in any language (PHP, C#, LaTeX to name a few) as a table and several plugins of various languages and/or IDEs (like jTable, tablesorters and the kind).

The current count stands at 18,315 questions having this ambiguous tag. A few of possible suggestions for cleaning process:

  1. + to | 5,011 questions
  2. + to | 47 questions
  3. + to | 2,567 questions
  4. + to | 99 questions
  5. + other-specific-DBM systems to whatever_DBM_it_is-table
  6. + to | 1,152 questions

Since I've no idea about other languages and their specific features regarding table, I'd ask the community for their input on this (such as C#+table, python+table, android+table and r+table). The other questions are either tagged with arrays or sql and similar tags, and in my opinion, just removing from such questions would be enough!

Improve this question
22
  • 2
    We could do this in a couple minutes with a fancy tag filter, but alas, the hard way is the only method we have. :(
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:07
  • So, tell me again why table + html (and all of the other variants) are bad? The tag is not ambiguous; table has a single meaning. If you want a specific type of table, add another tag to your search, just like you did in your question.
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:09
  • @animuson: Note that the example provided in that question was for the tag [activity], which can mean almost anything (including Android Activities). The cleanup for that was quite difficult.
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:21
  • 4
    @Robert How can you be an expert on "tables" when the term "tables" covers so many different things depending on what type of table you're actually referring to? Sure, you could be an expert on HTML tables and Lua tables, but both of those tables are different things that you can be an expert in, not one. According to the lua-table tag wiki, Lua tables aren't even remotely similar to standard tables and implement associative arrays.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:23
  • @animuson The only compelling argument I've ever heard for disambiguating tags this way is that it becomes possible to follow them. Searching for HTML tables is not all that difficult.
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:25
  • @RobertHarvey Then what would you call these ~2000 questions or rather, these 1500?
    – hjpotter92
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:27
  • @hjpotter92: OK, I see your point. Which disambiguated tag gets table as a synonym, so that it is never abused again?
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:29
  • 2
    We should probably not create database-specific "table" tags, using purely database-table. TBH I expect that the tag would be just noise on most of those questions anyway ("how can I select this from that table?" doesn't need a freaking *table tag)
    – Charles
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:29
  • 1
    @Charles Very true. Using any sort of database implies using a "database table" so any sort of table tag related to a database is useless. Just tag it with the database schema you're using and be done with it.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 20:34
  • 4
    By the same logic, can't you say we need to split list into java-list, c++-list, etc. and arrays into java-arrays, c++-arrays, etc., etc., etc., ETC!? (this would probably create a few hundred thousand tags, so no, I don't think it's a good idea) And PLEASE NOT mysql-table, postgresql-table or database-table as these would apply to roughly 99.99999% of the questions tagged mysql, postgresql or database respectively (table should just be removed from those questions).
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 0:51
  • 2
    I just looked through a couple of pages of the 'r'+'table' questions and they are all over the place. Some refer to the table() function or the various libraries that deal with tables, but many are about other r data structure (matrix, data frame) that are wrongly called tables in the question. Still others are are about reading or writing an html table or database table in R. Certainly many of these should be re-tagged. As for keeping table vs. breaking it up into dozens of tags - does anyone really just search on table? On its own it means very little. Is making many new tags so bad?
    – John Paul
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 2:41
  • 2
    It really has nothing to do with searching. It has to do with the purpose of tags. They're there to categorize things into a single topic that you can be an expert on. While tables may be a "single" yet very, very broad topic, it's impossible to be an expert on tables because there are so many different tables that require vastly different knowledge. If table meant the same thing everywhere, then there wouldn't be any problem, but database tables are extremely different from HTML tables, extremely different from Lua tables, and extremely different from Android table layouts.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 15:39
  • 2
    Shouldn't this be migrated back to MSO?
    – BartoszKP
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 14:52
  • 3
    Yes, why hasn't this been migrated back to MSO after 4 months??
    – smci
    Commented Dec 6, 2014 at 1:38
  • 2
    Could you repost this on the SO meta? An editor has been citing it for his tag edits, but it's kind of weird to point to a closed question with zero answers on the wrong site. stackoverflow.com/users/4370109/…
    – Frank
    Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 18:32

0

Reset to default

Browse other questions tagged .