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There are currently 259 questions tagged maven . As most of the users will likely use Maven 2.x , as Maven 1.x has been long retired, I suggest that we map maven to maven-2 and leave only the maven-1 tag for Maven 1.x .

There is no point in allocating questions for a deprecated version to the main tag.

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    and what if there is [maven-3] one day?
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 11:43
  • 2
    There already is a maven-3 . Alternatively, we can simply retire the maven tag and discourage its usage.
    – Robert Munteanu
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 11:46
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    hm, the tag-wiki states [maven] is A tag for questions related to the legacy Maven 1 (not maven 2.x or 3.x)., but maybe the [maven]-tag should only be used when the question is not version specific?
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 11:56
  • @Tobias: out of my knowledge, it's hard to have a question not specific to a version. Maven 2.x and 3.x are quite similar, but Maven 1.x is a completely different animal.
    – Robert Munteanu
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 11:58
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    I must admit I don't know much about Maven, but since the newer version are less different (as far as the two of us know...) your suggestion is probably good, assuming [maven-4] will not throw up the same problem again...
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 12:10
  • just search for maven 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 1 zillion
    – abel
    Commented Oct 11, 2010 at 12:31

2 Answers 2

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Please, stop the madness. Don't make synonyms from name+majorversion to name. It is all kinds of wrong, and will only get more wrong as future versions are released and old versions fall by the wayside.

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    Right now maven is not a synonym but practically equivalent to maven-1. How would you suggest this fixed, as most of the questions - if not all - tagged maven in fact relate to Maven 2?
    – Robert Munteanu
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 13:18
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    @Robert: blacklisting [maven], forcing people to pick the version-specific tag?
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 13:25
  • @Tobias While almost probable and this is the traditional solution to ambiguous tags, I think there will be a lot of confusion when someone tries to post a question and is told "You can't tag a question with [maven]", as that produces an implication that maven questions aren't allowed.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 14:15
  • @Grace: right, I didn't see it that way. The blacklisting message would have to be individualised then. I guess it's best to rely on those with the necessary experience to retag things correctly.
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 14:38
  • @Robert: What is it that you think needs fixed? You're not articulating a practical problem or difficulty that's arising. You seem somehow concerned about the ambiguity of simply tagging a question with [maven], but making [maven-2] a synonym of [maven] doesn't really alleviate that ambiguity in practice, it merely adds to it.
    – Nicholas Knight
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 15:08
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    @Robert: I'd also add that if, as you say, Maven 1 is rarely used, and Maven 2 and 3 are very close, wouldn't the people answering questions about Maven realize that? Presumably they could infer from the generic [maven] tag and the date the question was posted which version is most likely being referred to. If they find it too ambiguous, they should either answer for the most likely version(s) and state that they're doing so, or just leave a comment asking the questioner to specify a version.
    – Nicholas Knight
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 15:10
  • @Nicolas: I'm worried about the fact that we have both maven, and maven-2. Moreover, maven-2 questions are - incorrectly, as we stand - tagged as maven. As a matter of fact, I recall that all maven questions should've been retagged either maven-1 or maven-2. But that does not work in practice, so I think we need another solution.
    – Robert Munteanu
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 15:18
  • @Robert: We have exactly the same situation with most technologies. All the major programming languages, like C#, Python, or PHP, have version-specific tags that are sometimes used, as well as a generic tag that is even more widely used, and could probably be replaced with a version-specific tag, but usually isn't. How is Maven different? And what are you planning to do when Maven 4 is out/popular? Are you going to make [maven-4] a synonym for [maven]? What happens to earlier questions then? What if the maven 2/3 answers are still valid for 4? What if not? You're just making a bigger mess.
    – Nicholas Knight
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 16:43
  • @Nicholas : Obviously my interest is not in making a mess. But the current situation is far from optimal. What solution do you see?
    – Robert Munteanu
    Commented Sep 15, 2010 at 7:28
  • @Robert: None. Tagging is sub-optimal in this regard, and the only convincing solution anyone has come up with is a tag hierarchy-ish system, which has been rejected multiple times and in multiple forms by Jeff. Until someone comes up with an alternative Jeff likes, there is no solution.
    – Nicholas Knight
    Commented Sep 15, 2010 at 8:39
  • @Nicholas: Maybe rewording the maven tag to be related to general Maven questions and recommend using the more precise tags would help. What do you think about that?
    – Robert Munteanu
    Commented Sep 16, 2010 at 7:01
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While having a [maven-1] specific tag for Maven 1.x question could make sense (that's just not how thing evolved), I'm personally totally against making [maven] a synonym of [maven-2], I don't see any reason to do so:

  • Most [maven] questions are Maven 1.x specific (or are at least supposed to be), not Maven 2.x

  • Even if a [maven-1] tag was introduced for Maven 1.x specific questions, I don't see why [maven] should become a synonym of [maven-2]

  • Yes, Maven 3.x supports Maven 2.x projects but the inverse is not true and we'll have Maven 3.x specific questions and I hope users will use the existing [maven-3] for them.

So please, don't make [maven] a synonym of [maven-2] (I'd prefer to blacklist it rather than making it a synonym).

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