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This was touched on in another meta, but I think it deserves a more in-depth discussion. It's also something we should straightened out now, because the current usage of these tags are already getting a bit out of control.

As of now people just seem to be tossing the and tags onto a question based on whether they are reading the manga, or watching the anime. I don't see what purpose this serves, since the question will apply to both the manga and the anime, and the answers will often be the same. In the situations where they aren't users can indicate this in their answers, stating whether this answer applies to the anime or the manga (and, ideally, could answer for both). Having two separate, yet identical questions, one for the manga and another for the anime is just redundant (and messy).

There are some exceptions to the "small difference" of course, where the anime and manga are significantly different (The first Full Metal Alchemist (FMA) anime and Manga are a perfect example of this), but in these situations having a separate tag for the manga and the anime makes more sense (i.e. something like and ). It's much easier for a user to only need to search one tag, rather than two, and it also allows users to ignore questions from one work and not the other. Continuing on my FMA example, if I've watched the anime but I haven't read the manga I'd want to be able to ignore all of the manga questions to avoid spoilers, but would still like to be able to see questions about the 2003 anime.

Furthermore, if they anime and manga are that different, then I'd consider them independent yet related bodies of work anyways, and thus both deserving of their own tag.

It also fails to be useful as a filter. Considering the entire site is about anime and manga, then every question is going to be relevant to either an anime or a manga. It would be akin to tagging questions with on Stack Overflow. Performing a searching with just isn't going to help, I'll always need to use another tag for it to be useful. The same applies to and with their currant usage.

With that said, when should we use the and tags?

My first thought would be to state that the and tags should only be used when it's specifically about topic of manga and/or anime, and not about a specific work. However, I feel like this needs to be fleshed out more through community discussion.

An example of the above usage would be What is the difference between doujinshi and manga? This isn't about a specific work, but manga as a whole. In this question the tag clearly indicate what the question is about: manga terminology.

When should we use the anime and manga tags?

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I don't think you should have these tags at all.

As you've already seen, users will continue to use these tags in lieu of good tagging practices. They're too general, which is why we typically block them on the outset… to say "no, no... what is your question really about?"

I understand that and were never designed to be general, catch-all tags… but that's how they are going to be used. Users are never going to understand that an or tag is only for questions that are specific to the anime-version of a series that exists as both anime and manga. So those tags will applied to a completely random assortment of questions without reason.

If you have a question that is about an anime-specific version of the work, describe that in your question; not with tags. You don't need tags to narrow down your question to that degree. It's too confusing and misleading to the vast, vast majority of your users, and I can all-but-guarantee you it will become the most-overused and abused tags on the site.

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    +1 Honestly, I'd much rather just get rid of the tags all together. We've had similiar problems with platform and genre tags over at Arqade. It's just a huge pain to deal with.
    – Wipqozn
    Dec 12 '12 at 17:22
  • This indeed appears to be happening (and as you pointed out elsewhere, tag wiki edits indicate some tagging veering dangerously in the direction of pervasive meta-tagging).
    – Shog9
    Dec 14 '12 at 2:29
  • I agree. The intention is good, but implementation would be catastrophic.
    – Madara's Ghost
    Dec 14 '12 at 9:42
  • Is it just me or the tag in this answer is really "menga"? isnt it should be "Manga"?
    – ᙈnlḭ๓ḭtḕᕍ Ᏸᙈᖇຮt
    Dec 10 '15 at 3:39
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I agree that and tags are just too general. Why not instead have or type tags. This removes the ambiguity of the general tags and makes their use very obvious.

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I've started to retag some questions and primarily removing anime and manga tags from some questions otherwise we'll have too many questions tagged with manga and anime.

When I know for a fact that the question is valid for both the manga and anime I'll remove the tag.

These tags should essentially be used when the question is specific enough and aimed to either the manga or anime of a series.

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  • It might even be reasonable to say that the anime-version and manga-version tags are only appropriate when the medium choice is an essential part of the question.
    – Kiruwa
    Dec 12 '12 at 17:14

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