Is there any point to the "cancellation" tag?

Question

There are currently two questions using cancellation, and one of them is barely relevant WRT this tag (which has now been fixed).

I'm wondering whether there's even a point to the tag in general: I doubt anyone is going to subscribe to it, since each cancellation of a TV show has its own reasons and anyone with knowledge about a particular case is most likely following the tag related to that TV show. Even more so when it comes to "cancelled movies".

Is "cancellation" really a topic that deserves a tag of its own? Sure, there are nearly 70 results that come up when you search for "cancelled" and 15 when searching for "cancellation". But I don't really see these questions as related to each other.

I feel this tag doesn't really add anything relevant, just like pilot or premiere or finale would. (Oh wait, pilot actually exists and has got two questions?)

Answer 1

Yes, there's a reason for it, even if it's potentially small.

You say:

I feel this tag doesn't really add anything relevant, just like pilot or premiere or finale would.

However, that couldn't be further from the truth. Cancellation denotes a specific reason as to why a show ended. Not all shows that end have been canceled.

Take LOST as an example. The writers intended for the show to end at a specific point, and only planned for it to run for 6 seasons.

Then you have shows like Firefly and Arrested Development that ended because their channels canceled further production due to low ratings.

Some shows manage to perform well for a season or two then peter off and are canceled (Futurama, which had it happen twice and had several direct-to-video "movies"), and others flop so horribly upon premiering that they're canceled and taken off the air before their first season is able to run its course (Drive). The finale tag wouldn't really be as relevant or accurate here because these shows didn't really have finales (save for the actual final episode of Futurama because it was announced) since they were just canceled and pulled off the air by their channels/studios.

Therefore, I'd say the cancellation tag is relevant as it denotes a specific reason for why a show ended.

Answer 2

I say we burn it.

Your argument about a tag only having value if someone would subscribe to it does not hold. There are such things as contextual tags that help you narrow down your search, e.g. if you are interested in all analysis question for Breaking Bad, you filter for analysis as well. That also does not have to mean that all analysis questions have to be related to each other (obviously they aren't across shows).

Contextual tags also help in giving a quick overview of the questions topic just by looking at the tags.

So contextual tags are fine in general, as long as they are not so narrow that you wouldn't ever use it more than once per show/movie. Because in that case, you can just search normally for that one question you want to find, you don't really need a tag to find all relevant questions.

But there is usually not more than one question per show/movie about it's cancellation, so I don't see how we would need that tag. The same goes for pilot and premiere, which I don't really think are useful either. finale might be an edge-case, but is probably not that useful either.

Answer 3

I don't think it's completely useless, particularly if you're answering a question about the cancellation of a show. Using the above (MattD) answer, we can look at Family Guy, which I think has been cancelled twice.

A tag with just Family Guy will draw plenty of eyes, whereas a 2nd tag of Cancellation will most likely draw in the eyes that actually know about the cancellations and reasons. The question won't get lost in the sea of Family Guy questions, and the Cancellation tag will help it stick out. Since the answer is going to be known by a smaller percentage of people, I think it's more helpful to use the tag.

I know people freak out about tags sometimes, but I look at them as Google words; when I google I pick 3 or 4 words that are the most important because I know if an article or webpage has those words, it's probably what I want. I weed out the chaffe that way. I look at tags somewhat similarly; a few pertinent tags can get right to the question you're looking for.

Keep in mind, after they pass by the "Hot Topic of the Day", they're still on the site and someone may come along 2 years later searching for an answer when that question is buried on Page 80.