Should [profession] be killed before it snowballs?

profession seems like it's a bad tag. I can't see how it would be useful or beneficial in classifying a question. Should it be killed before it gains traction and ends up on every question asked about the profession of being a librarian?

MDMarra

• discussion
• tags

Comments

• 1. Alan Thomas II: After a week, you've got four votes in favor of the tag and none against other than your own. Neither has the tag snowballed thus far; there's just the one question. (A better reason for getting rid of it than overuse is!) Can we accept an answer and move on?
• MDMarra: Uh, in case you missed it, my question is +7. Meta votes don't give rep, and are ment as agree/disagree. That means that there are 7 people that agree.
• 1. Alan Thomas II: It's not clear to me how many of those indicate agreement with the point being made and how many indicate that people think that this is a positive discussion to be having (i.e., agreement with the nature of the discussion). I think that this is an important discussion to be having and raises a point that should be addressed, I'd just rather do it in a different way. Should I be up-voting you or down-voting you?
• MDMarra: I'm suggesting that the tag be destroyed. If you disagree, you should be downvoting my answer. That's how metas work. All votes are free and there is no rep change on meta because of this.
• 1. Alan Thomas II: You don't have an answer, you only have a question. If what you say is how it works at other sites and should therefore work here, I've misunderstood the FAQ and been doing Metas wrong since this site started. (Oh, and I know there's no rep change here. I really don't care; I'm a gnome, not a rep-monger.)
• MDMarra: That was a question. I meant to say "If you disagree, then you should be downvoting my question." On sites where I'm 10k+ and active, I wouldn't accept an answer that has one or two upvotes. I'd accept an answer from a Mod or SE employee on the topic, or an answer from a community member that has a substantial amount of votes. Two votes isn't enough to get a check box on this topic. Sorry :)
• 1. Alan Thomas II: Well, too late; votes are locked unless you edit it. If you think you have a quorum, either summon a mod or just untag all 1 "profession" questions to destroy the tag yourself.
• MDMarra: Maybe take a peak at the What does voting mean here section.
• 1. Alan Thomas II: let us continue this discussion in chat
• MDMarra: @M.AlanThomasII And how exactly does one "summon a mod" on a site that doesn't have mods yet? :) Just be patient, not sure why you're so concerned about this right now.
• MDMarra: This, for example, is a good model for how tag requests/concerns are typically handled on a meta. A user asks a question with the suggestion. People vote, then when a decision is made, a mod/employee (Jeff in this case) answers with the decision which is then marked as accepted. There's no point in accepting an answer that doesn't have **overwhelming** agreement if it's not from someone in a position to enforce it.
• 1. Alan Thomas II: Please switch to the chat linked above; this thread is going to need cleanup at some point, and I'd like to keep that reasonably sane.
• 1. Alan Thomas II: There. Added [tag:tag-deletion], so now people can change their votes, whatever it was they were voting on.
• MDMarra: Why would this need to be cleaned up? Meta questions frequently have extended discussion and it should only be removed if it isn't topical. Take a look at meta.stackoverflow, the governing body for the whole network, they're are frequently extremely long comment threads involving community members, mods, and employees.

Answer by Peter Murray

I added that tag because I thought there should be a tag for questions about the profession versus tags for library operations or equipment or policies. I'm happy to have the discussion here in meta, though.

Comments

• Deborah Mould: Initially I thought that this tag should be removed; but after re-reading the related question and this comment, this is the most appropriate tag. And you asked the question @M.AlanThomasII - although I don't think that this would be a common tag.

Answer by M. Alan Thomas II

That's a valid concern, but I think in this case it depends on how it's defined. For example, I saw a question about Cutter numbers the other day, and while librarians do use them professionally, I don't see how the question is in any way about the profession of being a librarian or information scientist; it's about cataloging, not the profession. You see the difference? I'll see about making a tag wiki entry to clarify this and promote proper usage. If it turns out to be a problem, we can discuss removing it at that time.

Comments

• 1. Alan Thomas II: Incidentally, the tag wiki's been up since the 3rd or so if anyone wants to check my work.