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In the SO main page you can add/remove your own 'Interesting Tags' and 'Ignored Tags'. Well, I navigate fairly often by the 'Interesting Tags' to find questions of interest. I've arranged the 'Interesting Tags' according a specific order so that I can quickly find them. But very sometimes (often during page load while the (x) delete icons are still not appeared) I accidently click at the delete icon. There goes the tag.

True, I could add the tag again and then remove and re-add all other tags so that the deleted one reappears at the place where it belongs (because I can't seem to find a way to arrange them). I have them a bit grouped and ordered on the actual interest and subject. For example, server-side stuff like Java/JSF/JSP/JSTL and so on the top, the tools like Tomcat and Eclipse in the middle and then the client side stuff like HTML/CSS/jQuery on the bottom. All just for the easy and intuitive navigation.

Shouldn't the delete icon better to be supplied with a return confirm('Are you sure?') in its click event or so? It's also much better for UX. The 'delete comment' button also has a confirm dialog.

Update: as it still annoys me and a confirmation dialog is likely not going to come, I created a userstyle. One may find it useful as well: http://userstyles.org/styles/24524

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    This has been brought up before: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/29350/…
    – random
    Nov 25, 2009 at 1:52
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    I wouldn't call this question a dupe of that one. This seems to want a confirmation dialog; 29350 wants the user-selectable ability to lock that section so that deletion isn't possible. Of the two, I like 29350, and dislike the confirmation dialog. (But I am biased against confirmation dialogs in general.)
    – John Rudy
    Nov 25, 2009 at 2:10
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    Locking the tags is a much better idea, yes. We could move the maintenance to the profile page. I.e. only show the delete icons over there.
    – user138231
    Nov 25, 2009 at 2:43
  • It's a shame nothing ever came from this. I don't have much of a problem with this on the computer, but I delete my tags all the time when browsing from my iPad.
    – Mick MacCallum
    Oct 27, 2012 at 13:08
  • Yes, please. I deleted a tag from my favorites accidentally and still can't figure out what it was.
    – ThinkingStiff
    Mar 1, 2013 at 19:24

4 Answers 4

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Instead of proposing a dialog box, a much better idea would be to allow them to be dragged and re-ordered, so everyone is happy.

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  • That's a good point.
    – Jarrod Dixon
    Jan 25, 2010 at 2:17
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It would be nice to have the confirm dialog as an option in our profile that we could enable/disable, and/or toggle the delete behavior on tags.

Maybe have the default not to have it enabled, but for those of us that find it annoyingly too easy to accidentally delete our favorite tags, it would be nice to have something to help prevent it from happening.

Meantime, I guess maybe this is a good candidate for a GreaseMonkey script...

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  • Unfortunately, StackOverflow subscribes to the Apple mindset that options are entirely evil. Just use AdBlock+ to hide the delete icon.
    – Lawrence Dol
    Aug 28, 2012 at 20:57
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Although the solution is not the same as requested, the concrete problem has finally been solved! The delete icon appears now only when you're in "edit" mode. See also the comment of Jeremy Tunnell.

This is now live on meta. We ended up going with an edit link instead of a modify favorites link.

See also this video demo.

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To be honest, I think the situation having your interesting / ignored tags ordered is probably an edge case. For most users, the process of re-adding the interesting tag won't be as labor-intensive as it is for you.

In my mind, because the process to undo this is fairly painless for the vast majority of users, adding a confirm dialog box would be noise -- noise that many of us would quickly be trained to ignore.

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    I don't worry about ignored tags. I have currently 13 interesting tags, a bit grouped and ordered on the actual interest and subject. For example, Java, JSP and more on the top, the tools like Tomcat and Eclipse in the middle and then the client side stuff like HTML/CSS/jQuery on the bottom. By the way, the 'delete comment' button actually do have a confirmation box. Why the tags not?
    – user138231
    Nov 25, 2009 at 2:32
  • Because "delete comment" is permanently destructive; it's considerably harder to undo for the vast majority of use cases. For the interesting/ignored, it's very easy to undo by simply re-adding the interesting/ignored tag -- except for the edge case of someone like you who keeps them grouped.
    – John Rudy
    Nov 25, 2009 at 3:40
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    I disagree. I am one of the edge case users that prefers my tags in a particular order. I get used to the position of the tags and prefer them grouped. Every time one of them gets removed, it screws up my ability to quickly jump to that tag(memorized motor movement, etc).
    – Mads Hansen
    Jun 11, 2011 at 16:02
  • I agree with Mads... but gave up trying to keep them in order because I so often accidentally deleted some, especially the 1 or 2 letter ones like C, D etc.
    – Lawrence Dol
    Aug 28, 2012 at 20:56

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