As a result of tagging guidelines and the long list of tags that are only used last (just go to the Tags list and jump to last page), I've started editing some of those out of existence.
Is it a good idea? Should I bother? When should I avoid removing the tag?
Just because a tag is rarely used does not mean it shouldn't be there. Typos are one thing, those should be deleted. But some tags really are uncommon. They don't really add noise, they might actually help when searching.
For instance, on the last page is the ripemd tag, with only 1 question. It's not a typo, it's not a duplicate, there's no alternative way of spelling it. There simply are no other questions tagged ripemd; it should not be deleted, because it either has or will have value. It's not always that easy to determine what's useful.
Probably not a good idea in general - if this always happened how would new tags ever stick around when technologies change (e.g. when Google's Go language was released recently)?
However, if you see tags that should be merged, or are inappropriate as tags, then it's not a bad idea.
IMO it's a good idea, especially when there are better tags available (i.e. same tag without a typo) or when it's hard to imagine a second question that might use the tag.
