56

Although I'm reasonably experienced on Stack Exchange (8+ years of activity, 40 sites with 500+ reputation, 247k total rep) and have been a diamond moderator on one site for some 5 years, today I saw a for the first time.

I have the impression this feature is used very, very little. Apparently, to get a tag warning, a Stack Exchange employee needs to act. That may explain why it's used so little. Stack Exchange employees are busy and many users, including moderators, will be unaware that tag warnings exist.

An example use I noticed on German Language Stack Exchange:

Screenshot of a tag warning

In this example, I guess the purpose of the tag warning is to get users to ask better questions. In the past, Earth Science accepted identification requests, and although the tag wiki contained detailed instructions on how to ask such questions, most users didn't see it and the instructions were rarely followed. In the end we banned such questions completely. Such a tag warning may have been useful to improve question quality, if effective. The only way to find out if they are effective is to try to use them, but then (1) I need to know they exist, and preferably (2) it should be little overhead to introduce them.

My feature request:

Please give diamond moderators the power to add tag warnings.

(Perhaps this power could even be reputation-earned, that could still be considered later.)

Improve this question
10
  • 2
    Duplicate with no answer: How do "we" get a custom warning when asking a question on a Stack Exchange site?, duped to another Q&A which says Mods must ask an employee.
    – Rob
    Nov 22, 2019 at 11:29
  • 3
    @Rob: It's not a dupe if the linked question is asking how to have a tag warning added whereas this one is specifically requesting that mods be given that power.
    – V2Blast
    Nov 22, 2019 at 12:24
  • @V2Blast Three people aren't wrong. The link (to a question from a high reputation user) asks for the ability, the above question suggests it could be reputation based. Both are sufficiently equal to constitute a dupe and be helpful information. The reason I didn't actually mark it as a duplicate is available in the FAQ.
    – Rob
    Nov 22, 2019 at 12:36
  • 1
    @Rob: Technically one of those three people was me, accidentally, and the site's not letting me remove my upvote for some reason. The linked question is by a non-mod, and asks how a tag warning can be implemented. (The question it's closed as a dupe of is actually a mod... on the same site as me.) Regardless, the question is certainly related but definitely not a duplicate.
    – V2Blast
    Nov 22, 2019 at 12:45
  • 6
    Received the request (red status tag), not planned, deferred or denied yet but just letting you know we got it and will discuss it.
    – Cesar M StaffMod
    Sep 1, 2020 at 14:37
  • @CesarM I appreciate the update that it's not ending up forgotten or otherwise in eternal limbo.
    – gerrit
    Sep 1, 2020 at 14:40
  • @Rob this is a rare case where same answer isn't suffice to mark it as duplicate. Meta is strange, even for the most experienced users.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Feb 9, 2021 at 12:41
  • @ShadowWizardisVaccinating, ignoring the answer isn't going to change it.
    – Rob
    Feb 9, 2021 at 13:09
  • @Rob of course, and that's why it's declined. The answer here repeats the answer in other question, but in different context.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Feb 9, 2021 at 14:46
  • @Sha, when it's a "Duplicate with no answer" that doesn't mean "answer in other question" when there isn't one.
    – Rob
    Feb 9, 2021 at 15:18

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
9

Currently there is a special field in the site settings where one needs to add a regex for the title, body or tags and specify the text that will be shown when the regex returns true. Only employees with dev access can change this site setting plus writing regexes is a special form of magic, there is no UI for that. In other words, the way it is currently implemented makes me add .

If you feel that your community can benefit from having some warnings, please start a discussion on your meta site. When the community comes to a consensus on the mechanics of a warning and a text to show, please add the tag and we will pass the request to our developers to set the regex on the site for you.

Improve this answer
1
  • Not the answer I had preferred to hear, but thank you for getting back to this issue and answering it.
    – gerrit
    Feb 9, 2021 at 20:04

You must log in to answer this question.

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