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I recently edited in a tag for a question, answered it, got an upvote on the answer, but the counter for "Illuminator" didn't go up. Tags are part of the question are they not? Hence you are editing the question. It seems like simple logic.

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    The count is heavily cached (maybe even hours), when did you retag and answered?
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 28, 2016 at 22:20
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    @ShadowWizard That and tag-only edits actually don't count towards the badge.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Jul 28, 2016 at 22:21
  • @animuson you mean tag edit isn't considered an edit toward any badges? Thought only for the actual edit badges.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 28, 2016 at 22:22
  • Yes I'm aware of the delay between updates but in this case I already researched a similar question which stated that tag edits don't count, which led me to make this question asking for reasoning meta.stackexchange.com/questions/186797/…
    – user335206
    Jul 28, 2016 at 22:23
  • @Shadow Wizard Chasing Stars There is an organizer badge for first retag.
    – convert
    Dec 25, 2022 at 17:22

1 Answer 1

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Strictly-speaking, tags are meta-data; they help to organize questions by extracting a few key topics or categories from it, but are generally separate from the question itself.

Contrast with the title (which can and should summarize the question) and the body (which should contain both the full question and whatever data is needed for context), which together can be said to make up the question as a whole.

That's not to say that editing tags isn't useful - it is - but from a practical perspective the purpose of these badges was to encourage folks to make much more substantive edits when answering questions, using their knowledge of the topic to flesh out the nature of the question, highlight key points, and generally just make the question more accessible to others who might come along and benefit from it (and the answer). As helpful as retagging can be, it can also be done by just about anyone; writing a good title or honing examples needs the expertise of someone familiar with the topic.

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    So maybe also not count trivial edits? (less than 6 characters, those that don't generate notification for the post author.)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 28, 2016 at 22:37
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    Might be beneficial, but currently not exposed anywhere besides the notifications (and only implicitly there) - so pretty hard to track much less explain.
    – Shog9
    Jul 28, 2016 at 22:38

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