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Intro

A while back, we talked about the -puzzle tags.. It seems like general consensus was that we should get rid of the suffixes, since they were redundant and no longer necessary - they originated from back when Puzzling was focused on questions about puzzles rather than puzzles themselves. Plus, many of these tags are misused by new users who focus on the -puzzle component rather than the actual puzzle type. (Especially !)

My answer to that question was at +7/-0, and now that I'm actually a mod, I can do something about that! But first I'd like to ask for your approval, and get suggestions for cleaning up other tags.

So my question to you is: What should we do with the problematic tags?

Purpose of this meta post

I'm posting some answers that each have a proposal for renaming, removing, merging, or otherwise changing a specific tag in a specific way. If you think it's a good idea, vote up; if not, vote down. For each of them that are obvious, or which the community thinks is generally good idea, I'll go through with it.

Feel free to add your own suggestions for tags to clean up, too! If we can get a lot of these out of the way at once, that'd be great.

(If you spot a bad tag with just one or two questions, feel free to just go ahead and remove it, though!)

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    $\begingroup$ I would encourage others to post answers as well, if they see tags that need cleanup, so that the community can vote. $\endgroup$
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Aug 3, 2016 at 13:46

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This is not a suggestion, more my opinion on some merge suggestions : we should not merge a sub-category tag into the a broad tag

This comment comes from these suggestions :
->
->
->

Why I think we should keep the subcategory tag :

  • It describe the puzzle very accurately (more than the broad tag)
  • There is nothing that stop you using both tags (the 5 tags limits is almost never reached on PSE)
  • They can be used when browsing puzzles (for example if I like language puzzles but I don't know anything about japanese I won't look at the japanese ones)
  • On StackOverflow there are a lot of subcategory tags (like python and python2.7)
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    $\begingroup$ I generally agree with your sentiment, however I think the three examples are all valid mergers. A sub-classing only makes sense if there is really a strongly discerning property and enough puzzles (or the expectation of enough puzzles.) I certainly would not want to see a tag for each language, f.e. ! I could, however, see benefit in a tag denoting languages with non-phonetic characters, if it is not the language but those symbols which are improtant. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Aug 4, 2016 at 15:24
  • $\begingroup$ It makes sense on other SE sites to have subcategories because there are enough questions both about the general language and about each version/type that require specific expertise, that they need to be considered separately. Language puzzles here? Not enough of them + not enough specialty required = no need to keep separate tags. $\endgroup$
    – Nij
    Aug 6, 2016 at 21:35
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Remove .

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    $\begingroup$ I'm unsure about this one. I'd love not seeing another semi-interactive puzzle, but it does describe a category of question on the site. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Aug 3, 2016 at 15:23
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    $\begingroup$ Don't remove it; make it off-topic immediately. $\endgroup$
    – EKons
    Aug 4, 2016 at 9:27
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    $\begingroup$ I think they were an experiment and overall "failed". There are better ways to achieve progressivly - linked puzzles, and the "will be added over time" aspect is completely opposing the overal quality standards we want to achieve. Somehow having the tag serves as an excuse for such puzzles. Kill it! $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Aug 4, 2016 at 15:26
  • $\begingroup$ I prefer that the tag be kept for historical reasons with a big warning sign that problems of this type are not very welcome here -- then make them off-topic and close retroactively. The actual tag does serve a classifying purpose; kill the actual problem (the puzzle type) instead. $\endgroup$
    – ffao
    Aug 5, 2016 at 3:26
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    $\begingroup$ @ffao The problem with the tag is, however, that not only puzzles of that kind are unwelcomed, but tags of this kind (i.e. meta-tags) as well! And warning or not, existing tags tend to get used. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Aug 5, 2016 at 15:58
  • $\begingroup$ @BmyGuest I'm pretty sure it would be basically impossible to come across this tag without coming across the warnings first, so I have to disagree with that point. But I sort of agree with deleting it as a meta-tag. $\endgroup$
    – ffao
    Aug 9, 2016 at 4:13
  • $\begingroup$ I've edited the tag wiki for now to clarify that this tag shouldn't be used. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Aug 10, 2016 at 23:59
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Merge into .

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    $\begingroup$ A puzzle can be in the form of a game using words, without relying on wordplay. Consider crosswords: they may be fact-based, synonym-based, or cryptic. The second is typically a word game, the third is almost invariably wordplay, and while sometimes the types overlap, they are still distinct enough. $\endgroup$
    – Nij
    Aug 6, 2016 at 21:31
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Remove : seems to have been created for only one question who has a total of two downvotes (and which is more trivia than puzzle).

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    $\begingroup$ I think it could be a useful tag like literature or movies, but there's just nothing that uses it yet. $\endgroup$
    – f''
    Aug 3, 2016 at 17:00
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    $\begingroup$ Hmm, "tv" is a medium not a content. If we have "movies" than what's "tv" about? If anything, it needs to be "tv-series" etc., but I think it is generally a very nondescriptive tag. After all, "tv" is differnt in every country. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Aug 4, 2016 at 15:29
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Maybe we should also reword some of the tag-descriptions.

The tag "riddle", for example, says:

"A riddle gives indirect clues about an unnamed object or concept to be identified. [...]"

Which, in my opinion, is a useless tag since we have "poem" and all the other kinds of riddles. Maybe there are other tags that are the same? I don't know all of them :P

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Merge into .

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    $\begingroup$ I think this should be merged the other way or possibly renamed to just "connections". The "pattern" is sometimes being used for questions that should be tagged with one of the "sequence" tags instead, and I think it's because the name is ambiguous. $\endgroup$
    – f''
    Aug 3, 2016 at 7:15
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    $\begingroup$ "Pattern" is vague enough that something tagged with it might go either way. Better to flat out erase the tag (and possibly retag them with one kd the other suggestions). $\endgroup$
    – Nij
    Aug 3, 2016 at 10:20
  • $\begingroup$ connections is not an instinctive term to use, I'm not sure people will think about it -> there is only 8 puzzles with this tag $\endgroup$
    – Fabich
    Aug 4, 2016 at 10:42
  • $\begingroup$ @Nij What do you mean by kd? $\endgroup$
    – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963
    Aug 4, 2016 at 20:09
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    $\begingroup$ @Peanut: Probably a typo for "of". $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi Mod
    Aug 4, 2016 at 20:44
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Merge into .

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    $\begingroup$ This one might be worth a review of calculation-puzzle to make sure people are using it in a way largely consistent with arithmetic - I'm not sure that's guaranteed as it is with the others. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Aug 3, 2016 at 5:14
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    $\begingroup$ @Emrakul: All of the cases I've looked at use it consistently with arithmetic. $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi Mod
    Aug 6, 2016 at 0:29
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I think we should remove . There are four questions tagged , two of which can be described by their other tags ( being the most relevent), and the other two of which are off topic for Puzzling.SE.

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    $\begingroup$ I think there is a disdinct difference between paper-folding and geometry. Geometry-problems most often are more mathematical and often either 2D or 3D, whereas paper-folding is a specific combination of 2D & 3D problems which very often require a reall "physical" solution (or a brighter mind than mine.) While there are only two question of that kind at the moment, I'd love to see more over time. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Aug 5, 2016 at 15:56

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