Post History

Tag creation/deletion crieria

Because of recent discussions regarding whether vague terms like `voltage` and `ground` should be valid tag names or not, it is clear that we have no consistent rules here. These terms are about on-topic matters, but they are vauge and ambiguous and cannot "stand alone" without other tags.

In comparison, Stack Exchange and in particular Stack Overflow are super-strict about tags and particularly so when it comes to deletion of tags. They have a huge system error on the site where creating a tag is somewhat simple and can be done by a single person, but getting rid of a tag needs to involve some 10 to 50 people including moderators in a "burnination process". The criteria they use can be found [here](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/324070/what-is-the-process-for-tag-removal-burnination):

> 1. Does it describe the contents of the questions to which it is applied? and is it unambiguous?
> 2. Is the concept described even on-topic for the site?
> 3. Does the tag add any meaningful information to the post?
> 4. Does it mean the same thing in all common contexts?
> 
> A tag must fail ALL of those tests in order to be considered for burnination. _In any case, the ultimate criterion for burnination is whether the tag is actually causing harm_.

Codidact does probably not benefit from having as strict rules as SO - in particular it does definitely not benefit from making the same mistake as SO:

**Deleting/renaming a tag must be as effortlessly as creating that tag in the first place.**

Consequently, if we want a high bar for deleting/renaming tags, we should raise the bar for creating tags accordingly as well. Or otherwise the whole system will eventually collapse as it did on SO.

With that in mind, I think we can use the SO criteria as a basis and form new rules for tags here. I think perhaps the last sentence in the above quote is worth particular consideration - does the tag cause active harm, such as confusion or wrong use of the tag?