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The issue of too many tags has been brought up before (Should tags for individual movies be encouraged) with the general opinion (from what I read) being that unused tags get removed automatically. However there can still be a large amount of tags created and we already at this time have 17 pages worth of tags. I think Sci-Fi/Fantasy has 25 pages.

I suggest creating decade tags such as and to cut down on naming every movie or TV show out there. I think franchises or stand out movies should still get independent tags. For example: Instead of a "Who's the Boss" tag it would have and . However "Happy Days" would have a tag since it's a sitcom from the 70's about the 50's. "Inception" is a standout movie and deserves a tag all its own as there are many questions it inspires, but "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" although a great movie and classic comedy could be covered with the tags and .

So what does everyone think?

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No. Part of the point of tags is to be able to identify what the question is about. Under this system I would have to know what genre a movie/show was and when it aired/was released. Sorry, but I don't want to play a guessing game when I want to look at questions about Donnie Darko.

I'm really not that worried about tags. As long as there aren't duplicates abound I think we're fine.

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I asked that original question as, like you, I was concerned we might have too many tags.

However your proposal would be rather difficult to apply objectively, Lawrence of Arabia ... one person's classic movie, another person's boring old historical drama.

I have since revised my opinion to think that as long as the SE software can cope with it, we might as well tag everything individually, and can add genre tags as we see fit. Its not like creating a new tag takes a lot of effort.

If we were ending up with poor tag coverage, I would completely change my mind back - but I do not think that is the case - we are pretty good at adding tags when required.

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  • It would be difficult except if there is only one or a few questions on one tag it would be easier to simplify. I do agree as long as the SE software can cope it's not a real problem. However I thought we were encouraged to try not to make a new tag but rather find an existing tag. I think it would pretty well regulate itself with moderators making the changes after a certain amount of time.
    – Kevin Howell
    Jun 6, 2012 at 21:38
  • @KevinHowell - You are right, many movie tags have small numbers of questions attached, but for some that may change over time. Your point about finding a different tag is most relevant on technology sites, where lots of people filter in/out questions based on them. Here it doesn't quite work like that.
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Jun 6, 2012 at 21:41
  • @KevinHowell - However your question and the comment above is making me think .... in the fullness of time will we be big enough so that people will just want to see Comedy, or Classics .... in which case should we be classifying all questions now?
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Jun 6, 2012 at 21:47
  • I think so. I already look at tags to see if there are certain questions I might have a better chance of answering. I definitely look for certain tags before asking a question. Also when looking for a movie in an index I may look for genre tags to narrow a search.
    – Kevin Howell
    Jun 6, 2012 at 21:54
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    @KevinHowell - I think we would have to use genre tags in addition to the movie-name tags, as as DFork42 says, it is a bit of a pain working out what the genre of a movie is if you are editing someone else's question - so we might not have complete coverage. I guess we could use what IMDB declares the genre as.
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Jun 6, 2012 at 22:56
  • @KevinHowell - so then I go and look at what IMDB declares a few movies as ... and for example "The Avengers" is "Action", "Adventure" and "SciFi" ... genre might be a pain to apply here.
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Jun 6, 2012 at 22:58
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    Honeslty, genre is useless. THe tags aren't meant for sorting but for explaining what the question is about. Decade tags are for asking about that time era in movies, genre tags would be asking about that genre. Just because spider-man is action doesn't mean a question on it needs the action tag, unless that question is talking about action films in general.
    – Tablemaker
    Jun 6, 2012 at 23:42

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