10

First, let me be clear -- I am absolutely no fan of version tags. I think they're so dangerous that I am on the verge of banning them from the network on all SE 2.0 sites:

However, I do support version tags existing in the rare event that a question asker can make a legitimate case that their question is in fact specific to a version.

What I object to is the institutionalization of such tags, and the bogus 'requirement' that all new questions have a version tag. This is toxic. But the tags can exist.

So. Do you really want us to blacklist …

^wordpress-\d+.*$

as a tag?

This is basically wishing all the version tags into a cornfield. Once instituted, this blacklist means nobody can ever use or anything like it as a tag … ever!

Are you OK with this?

2
  • It seems a new breed of version tags is cropping up: wp3.2
    – scribu
    Aug 4, 2011 at 0:00
  • thanks for the heads up, I have renamed it to the numeric-only version. Aug 4, 2011 at 0:31

4 Answers 4

10

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Our main issue on this site is not existence of such tags, but that they are grossly misused because of auto-suggest and such.

I suppose proposed version-X tags for question that are really version specific will be allowed? Although I am not sure how viable those will be, but they are definitely less dangerous without wordpress in them.

9
  • 1
    I also support allowing [version-X] tags and banning [wordpress-X], so we can use version tags in the limited occasions we need it, but people won't stumble upon them when writing questions. Some of use can subscribe to the tag to weed out incorrect usages.
    – Jan Fabry
    May 25, 2011 at 10:55
  • @Jan what about just numbers? That seems the most elegant to me. May 25, 2011 at 11:30
  • @Jeff: Just [3.1]? It might be a bit confusing, and I think you won't be able to subscribe to that pattern to monitor them?
    – Jan Fabry
    May 25, 2011 at 11:37
  • @Jeff Atwood can auto-suggest be tweaked so it skips such tags? Otherwise it's self-fueling - people add them from auto-suggest and auto-suggest suggests because they are popular.
    – Rarst
    May 25, 2011 at 11:37
  • @Jan how would it be confusing? And who would subscribe to all versions? Surely at least one number must be present to have a meaningful subset. May 25, 2011 at 11:44
  • 1
    @rarst they won't be auto suggested unless someone types a number, which is far better than "wor...." May 25, 2011 at 11:45
  • @Jeff Atwood aren't some tags suggested in form field before you even start to type anything? I am not sure how are they selected
    – Rarst
    May 25, 2011 at 11:57
  • @Jeff: I was thinking about us, moderators and high-ranking users, who want to monitor usage of the tag to prevent new outbreaks of overzealous version tagging. Maybe it should be [version-but-dont-use-this-tag-X] :-)
    – Jan Fabry
    May 25, 2011 at 12:13
  • @jan see new comment on question Aug 4, 2011 at 0:23
4

Per new network policy:

  • is not allowed, but is. (This applies to all product-specific SE 2.0 sites, not just you.)

  • the form ^wordpress-?\d+.*$ is blacklisted as an intrinsic tag.

I have renamed all your existing version tags appropriately.

The acid test is to go to the ask question page, start typing wor... in the tags field and see if anything bad comes up.

Related, with a bit more about rationale:

0
3

I have never seen a question where the version tag was really useful, and I never searched for it. So, yes, they should be banned from WPSE.

But there may be edge cases if you ban them from all networks: In Python for example, there are some … interesting differences between v2 and v3, both version are used today and it is useful to know for which version a question was asked.

3

I absolutely support @toscho, but without the edge cases. WordPress gladly supports nothing than the current version and upgrading was (so far) painless and mostly successfull. Ex.: WP 2.7 will not be downloaded & used in a year and edge cases will only be old installs. Upgrading is mostly easier and even the codex gets rewritten with new versions, so imho it makes no sense for WP.

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