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When I created the first puzzle-suffix tag during the private beta (), it was meant (at least in my mind, as other people created more of them as well) as part of a general classification system for all puzzle questions on the site, similar to the way all questions on the meta must be tagged with at least one of , , etc. The intention was that (almost) every puzzle would fall into one of these categories, any the tags without puzzle suffixes would denote features of a puzzle, such as involving graphics or outside information.

It's obvious that this isn't actually happening here. Specifically, I'm thinking of the case of itself, which has outlived its usefulness and should be renamed to , but should still be kept separate from as I mentioned in this question just now.

But while I'm at it, here's a list of all the puzzle-suffix tags that are currently in use on the site for actual puzzle questions, in order of usage:

These tags don't quite aim to cover all or even almost all categories of puzzles, and some of them (everything after "computer-puzzle") aren't even broad enough categories to deserve the -puzzle suffix.

I think we need some reorganization around this — either to remove the puzzle suffix altogether, or to redefine it well enough using some of the other, currently non-suffixed tags so that it can serve as a useful classification system.

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    $\begingroup$ The logic-puzzle tag is truly an attractive nuisance and could probably benefit, for starters, from having a more daunting description such as that of mathematics. Seems almost every puzzle involves logic in some form. $\endgroup$
    – humn
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 16:28
  • $\begingroup$ I think (at least some of) these tags are useful in their current form, because I suspect that many first-time posters, at a loss for how to tag their question, type "puzzle" into the tag box. If we have some broad categories for puzzles, and one of them fits the question, it helps them find the appropriate tag. If we have no tags containing "puzzle", it might be a lot more difficult to guess what an appropriate tag would be. t's a little different than SO, for example, where if your question is about Java, you add the java tag. A lot of our tags are a little less obvious to a newbie. $\endgroup$
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 15:20

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I feel that having "puzzle" in a tag is redundant. It would be like Math.SE using the tags "" or "".

My recommendations for all of these:

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  • $\begingroup$ The reason I feel like puzzle-suffix tags aren't completely redundant is that they distinguish puzzle questions from questions merely about puzzles. In your math.SE analogy, I'd be using the word "problem" instead of "math" as a suffix, to distinguish problems from other questions. $\endgroup$
    – user88
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 1:46
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    $\begingroup$ @JoeZ: We rarely get any questions about actual puzzles anymore though. We could make the tags puzzle-construction and puzzle-solving for questions about puzzles. I think that would be the best solution - after all, we already have puzzle-history for just that. $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi Mod
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 1:48
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    $\begingroup$ Excellent alchemy suggestions, one after another! Trying hard to find any quibble, the only super toughie I see is zeroing in on just what do with logic-* categories, which I've been whining about lately and again without offering a better solution. (And how ironic that *-puzzle tags probably began as special cases and are now pushing original * tags to become puzzle-* special cases. Makes sense, though, even as we hope for more posts like the Wise Ones made.) $\endgroup$
    – humn
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 5:05
  • $\begingroup$ As for the enigmatic puzzle tag, I might just rename it to "enigma". Questions about the Enigma cipher would have to be tagged enigma-cipher specifically. $\endgroup$
    – user88
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 13:55
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    $\begingroup$ I disagree with [age-puzzle] -> [arithmetic], we should do [age-puzzle] -> [age]. We don't have a lot of tags in PSE and we should not merge them all in a few main tags. Even if [age] is included in [arithmetic], think about SO where they have [python] and [python2.7], [python3.3]... $\endgroup$
    – Fabich
    Commented Jun 19, 2016 at 9:18

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