Tag Info

I agree these should be synonyms. Washing machine is certainly the term most used in the US, hence the many more questions tagged with that. Typically that would mean clothes washer would be the synonym, though you make a good point that non-native speakers may be confused by this. I've updated the tag wiki to hopefully remove the confusion and approved the ...

I think a multiway-switch would be the most general tag, with synonyms three-way-switch and two-way-switch for discoverability. The Wikipedia article for multiway switching even describes the difference between the UK and US terms; the tag wiki could link to it and/or quote from it. I don't believe that we'd need individual tags for the different types of ...

Drain: A channel or pipe carrying off surplus liquid, esp. rainwater or liquid waste. Drainage: The means of removing surplus water or liquid waste; a system of drains. A drain would refer to a single pipe, channel, or path used to remove liquid. Whereas drainage, refers to the entire system made up of one or many drains.

Many other SE sites have identification tags for movies, shows, books, plants, etc. where physical/visual objects come into play. I could see tool-identification device-identification tags being useful. Just different point of view.

While DWV is very standard term (the Home Depot near me uses it on a big sign near the pipe), novice plumbers probably do not know it. Once the tag is on a question I don't think the abbreviation is too confusing since there is a detailed tool tip that describes it in detail. However, many plumbing drainage questions get the "drain" tag but never get the ...

I think they're all slightly different. A fire pit is a hole in the ground where you burn things, which is not a fireplace. A hearth is part of a fireplace, so maybe it could use the same tag. However, folks might want to ask questions specifically about a hearth, in which case the hearth tag is fitting.

I don't think circuit is a very useful tag, as I can't think of any time you'd use it as the only tag on a post. I also don't think many folks would use it to find questions they might be interested in. The tag should probably be removed.

Thanks for pointing this out. Looks like tester101 created it, and I just approved the synonym.

I believe it should be removed like other regional tags. If there's any value in tracking these as a sub category of another tag, I wouldn't be opposed to creating something like electrical-uk, but a situation like that should have a reason for the unique tag like local codes that do not apply to other countries. This would differ from plaster work in the UK,...

I'm worried that this would create a lot of management overhead, and still not solve the specific problem. I see two solutions to the "no country provided" issue: Everyone can answer in reference to countries they know and identify that country in their answer. This way, anyone searching for the question in the future can see their local solution among the ...

I think when it started, the tag was for questions that had to do with the electrical system beyond the service drop. Transformers, types of systems, etc. However, it's likely not used properly, and can probably be killed. The tag can be removed from any questions that are not asking about the distribution of electricity.

I think gas makes sense for many questioners/searchers. They often know they are dealing with gas, but may not know which type.

Good catch! I created a new tag, refinishing (because we have the other tags basement-refinishing and hardwood-refinishing this seemed like the logical choice for a name), and merged the typo tag refinsh into it, without creating a synonym. End result: all the questions that had the bad tag on them now have the new tag instead.

Thanks for the suggestion. I saw a few questions that used both, and nothing that stands out needing only a single tag. I've approved your proposed synonym. This can still be undone if others have a reason to disagree.

Upholstery is (almost) entirely used on furniture and other items that are not part of the house. This makes it decidedly off-topic here, as an arts & crafts type of question. Questions using the upholstery tag should be closed and/or retagged and the tag allowed to die.

I would not like to see the tag blacklisted, since as Chrisf says, there are situations where generic applies. I wouldn't oppose having regional based tags, however. Possibly some core region tags like US, UK, etc. and then synonyms for them like "electrical-uk", "electrical-us", "plumbing-us", "plumbing-uk", which would show up when they typed "elec..." ...

Done. I've made them synonyms for now, but there was only one dog-door question so I just changed it over manually.

I could talk a bunch about ideas on strictness of criteria and such when it comes to identification questions across the network, but I think that's a genuinely different problem than what we're looking at here. So let's take a different angle and divorce us from the general flock that is referred to as "identify-this questions", because we're not talking ...

Thank you for the suggestion. I've put in the requested synonym, but haven't merged it yet to give the community time to discuss it. For now, any new questions will only be tagged with septic.

An elegant way to handle recurring questions would be to write a generic Q/A on how to proceed if something may or may not be made from asbestos, that can serve as duplicate target. Roughly following this pattern: Q: I have found some building material that I suspect could be asbestos. How should I proceed to get an identification and to protect my ...

I came here to ask this exact question. I would like to note that as of this time there are 944 results when searching for "what is tool" on the site. This seems like more than enough content to warrant a tag, but to go further: it would help people that want to assist in identifying tools. Having a tag would let folks that are interested setup filters ...

I agree. I've merged them, and you should only see light-fixture in future.

That would be a vendor specific tag. I don't believe those are encouraged here, and I'm not a fan of adding them myself. In fact we've been cleaning up some questions that used trademarked names to refer to the more generic term for the product. Also, if the tag was created, the system should delete it automatically after a timeout if it is only used on a ...

I agree that this makes sense. I've created the new drain-waste-vent tag, auujay handled the tag wiki (thanks!), and the tags have now been merged with a synonym pointing anyone from dwv to the new tag.

I think you could try to retag some if its absolutely clear what they mean, but I would wager that most of them are not specific enough. Adding a more specific tag in to help future searchers is good, but I agree that the generic [gas] tag is required.

wire is only a good tag on questions that ask specifically about wire. For example: "Is there a difference between stranded and solid wire?", "What material is the insulation of THHN wire?", etc. If questions are tagged with the wire tag, but are not discussing wire. Then that tag should be removed from the post.

I'm not seeing an odor tag. If there was before, the questions with that tag have been retagged and the system will delete an empty tag automatically. The odors tag is already configured as a synonym of smell and has been for many years now. The only additional step we can take is to merge the tags so that very old questions with the odors tag get retagged.

Thanks for posting. I've approved the synonym from taps to faucet.

Thanks. I've added the synonym. There were a few questions in the structure that were not about structural. However, the ones I saw used it more as a meta tag that had no value.

Personally, I wouldn't find it rude. However, there are folks on here (this site especially), that work in the building trades. Some of these folks might find it a bit annoying, to get notifications while they're sleeping or working. I'd say it's a personal preference thing, and that it would depend on the situation. However, for the most part, that's ...