1

I often saw the questions with tags arranged in order by the no. of posts per tag. ie, the tags with higher number of questions will be placed first.

Tag having more questions than and .

But in this question, iOS tag is placed after the other two tags.

While sorting the questions below the newest tab, the tags are placed by the order by which I stated above. But, If I switch to the votes tab, the tags are placed differently.

EDIT:

As it is mentioned here, the tags are placed based on their popularity, why is it not updated to the current popularity of the tag?

Improve this question
13
  • maybe back then when the question was asked (2011) the logic was similar but iphone had been tagged more times than ios? just a wild guess – user221081 Dec 5 '13 at 10:34
  • Not sure I understand the question. They're just shown in the order they're added to the post, surely? Like with your meta post here - you wrote questions before you wrote sorting so they're in that order. – JonW Dec 5 '13 at 10:34
  • @JonW afaik there is indeed a sorting order depending on the number of uses of the tag. – Bart Dec 5 '13 at 10:36
  • @Stijn How does that duplicate explain the sorting in this particular case? – Bart Dec 5 '13 at 10:37
  • @Bart: Hmm, can't say I've ever noticed myself. But I guess I may just not have been paying enough attention if that's the case! – JonW Dec 5 '13 at 10:37
  • @Bart perhaps the answer to that question is outdated, but this one is still a duplicate. The answer should either be edited appropriately or a new answer should be posted. – Stijn Dec 5 '13 at 10:38
  • @Stijn, edited to not to be a duplicate. – Azik Dec 5 '13 at 10:38
  • @Bart: the sorting is created at the time the question was posted. – Martijn Pieters Dec 5 '13 at 10:39
  • Emphasis or quote there @MartijnPieters? – Bart Dec 5 '13 at 10:40
  • If the sorting was updated every time someone merely looked at a question, the performance hit to the site would cripple it. – Martijn Pieters Dec 5 '13 at 10:40
  • @Bart: emphasis. The tags field is denormalized in the table; each post row has a tags text field that contains the tags in the order they were sorted at the time of the last tag edit. – Martijn Pieters Dec 5 '13 at 10:41
  • @MartijnPieters, if I retag an old question now, will it be sorted by the current tag popularity? – Azik Dec 5 '13 at 10:42
  • @Azik: Yes, it will be. – Martijn Pieters Dec 5 '13 at 10:43
3

Tags are sorted by popularity at the time of the last tag edit.

In other words, the ordering is cached; there is little point in reordering it each time a post is loaded from the database.

If you were to edit the tags on that post now, the tags would be resorted.

Improve this answer
1
  • Here's a source confirming this answer. (It's also mentioned in the possible duplicate) – Stijn Dec 5 '13 at 10:46

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .