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(Since there is no way to flag a tag for moderator attention, I'm posting this meta-question.)

The 'sts' tag (55 questions) has been used for two completely different things:

  • SpringSource Tool Suite
  • Security Token Service

Both uses seem to occur equally often. It looks like people just accepted this until now.

However, yesterday a tag description was added, describing the tag as 'SpringSource Tool Suite', so actually making a choice for one of the options.

Since there are currently 55 questions with the 'sts' tag, it seems doable to forbid the 'sts' tag, and use the existing tags 'securitytokenservice' and 'spring-tools-suite' instead. (Both alternatives are long, but clear).

Edit: What is the appropriate procedure for making this happen? (I'm willing to help. I tried to start the retagging myself, by proposing tag-changing edits for each of the 60-ish uses of 'sts'. But too many of those edits were apparently rejected, blocking my edit rights.)

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  • Anyone? I'm fairly new to (meta) Stack Overflow, so I don't know whether I reported this the right way, and what the process is for fixing/rejecting this, and how long it could take. I would appreciate some kind of response. Note that I'm willing to re-tag the existing questions, if the decision is made to forbid the 'sts' tag. Thanks! Feb 18, 2011 at 6:23
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    Silence. OK, if I don't hear anything within a couple of days, I plan to edit (propose an edit for) each 'sts' post (currently 61) to replace the 'sts' tag by either 'security-token-service' or 'springsource-tool-suite'. I will also edit the 'sts' wiki, pointing people to the other two tags. But I still cannot forbid people to use the 'sts' tag, of course. So I still would like to see some kind of response. Feb 23, 2011 at 5:43
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    @marmix. I agree with your proposal, and I think preventing the STS tag on its own is a very good idea. Although, not being familiar with meta, I don't know how to go about doing this either. Feb 27, 2011 at 3:30
  • you have to have 250 reputation to create a new tag. If you remove all existing uses, established users should (though often don't) know better and new users won't be able to use it. Mar 7, 2011 at 3:23

3 Answers 3

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+50

I went ahead and applied elbow (¿mouse?) grease and did the following:

  1. Retagged all questions to , , or , as appropriate.

    There are currently zero questions, so in a day or two, the system should start stopping users with less than tag-create privileges from using that tag.

    The new tag names are not ideal (see below), but the auto-complete should help users pick the right tag, once "STS" is cleared out of it.

  2. Fixed the Tag Info for all 4 of those tags (some edits may be pending).

  3. Retagged all questions to , and edited the Tag Info.


Still to do:

  1. DONE: Retag all questions to .

  2. DONE: Cross check "osCommerce" and "STS" (not necessarily in tags).

  3. See if we can get a moderator or developer to lockout the STS tag (they've done it for other tags).

  4. The tags: , , and
    really should be , , and . But they can't because of the 25-character tag-size limit.
    Open a "bug" question and see if this limit can be increased, and the tags renamed.

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Since people are likely to use "STS" in both contexts, perhaps it would be better to use 'sts-security-token-service' and 'sts-springsource-tools-suite' for retagging instead.

This way people start entering what they expect and the autocomplete helps them pick the right tag.

Some users of "STS" might not know what it stands for and some might not realize it needs to be spelled out when trying to tag their question.

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  • Thanks for that useful feedback. However, I didn't want to add to the confusion, therefore I started retagging using the existing spring-tools-suite and securitytokenservice tags. I imagine the tag rename can then be handled all at once. But I'm a newbie as regards to StackOverflow processes. Mar 3, 2011 at 19:53
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Start the retagging on your own! I will help.


Edit: Unfortunately, the existing tag is called spring-tools-suite, not springsource-tool-suite. This should be changed as well.

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    Bad suggestion. With no retagging privileges, his 60 suggested edits will only clog queue up. Mar 3, 2011 at 9:51
  • Oh. It is the only suggestion I received in 3 weeks time. So I started the retagging. And I'm doing it a couple at a time, so I'd expect no queue clogging. :-) What alternative do I have? Mar 3, 2011 at 19:51
  • When trying to propose a retag, I'm now receiving a message "Too many of your edits were rejected, try again in 7 days." OK, I'll just stop here. Please, could anyone offer me an alternative for getting rid of this ambiguous 'sts' tag? Mar 9, 2011 at 12:52

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