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I was gonna create this post only for , but then noticed this other post that asks for the same for . As such, I'll make this about both (also because the other post is almost a year old, and got very little attention).

We have so that users with low rep that want to ask a question about a series which has no tag yet can use it, and wait for somebody with enough rep to create it for them.
And we have for when users want to have a series or image identified.

However, many new users seem to either use completely random tags for either of the above, or to recur to many times.

I propose that these two tags be suggested by default here
tag box in the main site
in order to have something more like what happens in meta
tag box in meta
where the tags suggested are fixed (I think the ones suggested on the main site are random, but if not, at least these two tags should be there by default).

Or maybe have some warning, like the one that shows up if you use :
id-request warning
That could read something like "Can't find the tag you're looking for? Try 'retag' for a new series or 'identification-request' if you want help identifying a series".

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    Good idea, I've retagged several id requests that used bizarre tags like japanese-language or the tag of some series that was similar to the series the OP was looking for.
    – Torisuda
    Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 22:13
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    I think a lot of users use anime-production because it is the first thing they see when they type anime
    – Toshinou Kyouko
    Commented Jan 13, 2015 at 7:42

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Update: I liked Hakase's suggestion the best, so...

The way I see it, y'all are caught between a rock and a hard place. Jon's right: retag is a crappy tag. Of course, that's the whole point: to exist just long enough for someone with tag-creation privileges to see it, get all sick and disgusted about it, and replace it with something better.

is a necessary evil - ya definitely don't want folks using it any more than they need to, but when they're actually asking an identification question... They better use the right tag.

The problem is, it's not really possible to convey any of that in that little bit of tag suggestion text. All you can really say is "these are examples of tags". And then... You'd be giving them the two worst possible examples. Without any guidance on how/why they should be used.

Yeah. Your lives suck. Tagging-wise. You have my sympathy...

But! There may be hope...

However, many new users seem to either use completely random tags for either of the above, or to recur to anime-production many times.

And why would they do that? Well, because the most obvious tag is - and that's not available. So the next best thing is any ol' tag that starts with anime, right? Well, no. But that's what they go with given no other options

So, what if we just attached a bit of guidance to ? Like we already did for identification, but without the ability to actually submit the question that way - something like, "if you can't find the right tag, use and we'll make one for you!" I'm just thinking out loud; come up with some better guidance for lost and I'll wire it up to and ... Then we can see if it works.

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    Maybe something like: "That's not the tag you're looking for! Use identification-request if you want help identifying a series; or retag if you need us to create a new tag for you." showing up whenever someone types "anime"?
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:48
  • Is there any reason, why you used code and not tag formatting for most tags in the new help blurb?
    – Wrzlprmft
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 14:25
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I don't think it a good idea to encourage the use of or .

To tackle retagging first: it's not unusual for authors to miss-tag their questions. There's not a site on the network that doesn't have tags that are misused frequently. We have an escalation process to remove bad tags and we make it as easy as possible for high-reputation users to edit question tags. So the usual path is for authors to do their best to tag correctly and editors to fix their mistakes. I consider to be a harmful meta tag.

While I think identification questions are less than ideal, I do think they have a place on many sites. But I don't think encouraging such questions is a great idea. People already jump to those sorts of questions on many sites and prompting more hurts the overall usefulness of this site.

I completely missed Shog's meta post so I'm taking back my snap advice for the wiki.

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  • The idea behind the creation and usage of retag is explained here. Of course, it can be revised, but at the time it seemed that the general consensus was that it could be a useful tag (I think a lot of the debate about this was also held in chat, 'cause I can't seem to find anything else on it here, but remember it being talked over).
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Oct 29, 2014 at 21:18
  • In any case, my problem is that new users don't seem to be able to find both of the tags in most of the cases. So it's not a problem with mistagging questions in general, but more of a problem with finding these two tags in particular.
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Oct 29, 2014 at 21:19
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    We have been talking about this internally and I think we agree with the problem y'all are having but not the solution this question proposes. (Shog notified me that my first revision was, uh, unresearched.) The problem of people not being able to find a tag and therefore not asking is real and pervasive. We're just trying to find better solutions.
    – Jon Ericson Staff
    Commented Oct 29, 2014 at 21:31
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After a bit of thinking I noticed that there is a huge stupid hint that doesn't provide a lot of help to new users. Just look at the original text. The first paragraph doesn't even answer the question "how to tag". This is what I came up with (some more editing and it could be a lot more helpful):

enter image description here

Special tags are , , , , or any other tag that is not about any one specific anime or manga work.

There's no need to add new functionality or anything. We just need to edit that horribly unhelpful hint box that takes up so much space and helps so little right now.

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    My biggest concern is that people never read stuff anyway. Realistically, I think we can expect less than 10% of people to even notice that bar on the side, and 10% of those to actually read it.
    – Cattua
    Commented Nov 1, 2014 at 18:40
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    We shouldn't just go "nobody ever reads anything anyway" and not improve what clearly needs improvement. Let's do the best we can and let the 10% who read have a better user experience.
    – Hakase
    Commented Nov 1, 2014 at 18:54
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    Also people stop reading precisely because hints are useless. I remember the first time I read everything because most things seemed useful. When the majority of hints and popups feels useful, people read more, just like if it's mostly useless, people stop reading anything. So if we make this, the percentage of people reading should rise.
    – Hakase
    Commented Nov 1, 2014 at 19:07

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