11

I will shamelesly copy the same argument of derobet in UL:

Questions can indeed be about (as Gilles mentions) deleting something. But that's not about "deleting" because they're all different. "Deleting" means very different things across different somethings.

Take some examples, from the current list of things tagged delete:

  • Deleting files/ directories.
  • Preventing deleting of files/directories.
  • Un-deleting files.
  • Deleting email messages from an IMAP server.
  • Delete empty comments with sed

I submit that:

  • The expert in deleting files is someone who is an expert in file management. We have a tag that fully covers that already. . You could conceivably have an expert in . Preventing those files from being deleted is probably similar, but also adds in experts in backups, Samba (if applicable), and also even UX and training.

  • The expert in un-deleting files is the expert in . Or backups, but OP probably didn't have any.

  • The expert in deleting mail is the expert, or maybe the expert, etc.

  • The expert in deleting comments with sed is the expert.

None of these people are the expert. The expertise in one doesn't carry over to the other; a person could know a ton about IMAP, but be a novice at Unix file management (huge IMAP servers often do not use file storage directly or at all; they use other data stores) or recovering deleted files.

I take it as a given that when you go through the effort of retagging a question, you ought to make an effort to fix all tag problems, not just remove the one tag you're looking at.

And here applies the same. Who can be an expert of removing or deleting? You can be expert in something, a tool, method, that causes the destruction of something, but you can't be an expert on deleting or removing, unless you are a cleaner or hitman. In those cases, yeah, you are one!

BTW, delete has only 1 follower.

3
  • 1
    tl;dr but removing delete and deleting remove doesn't sound like a bad idea in general. Are there any special connotations I missed?
    – Seth
    May 20, 2014 at 1:44
  • 3
    supernice title +1
    – don.joey
    Jul 21, 2014 at 20:35
  • I guess I would say remove the delete tag or delete the remove tag.
    – retrixe
    Sep 29, 2014 at 14:56

2 Answers 2

1

I think the current practice of remove being a synonym of uninstall makes sense. As far as the delete tag goes, I have to concur with your assessment. There are at this moment 99 unanswered questions tagged delete that have little to nothing to do with each other. I have to agree that the delete tag makes no sense for those who choose to specialize to follow.

-2

When it comes to a computer, it is simple. (Maybe) However, DEL and RM are the same, and do not require much thought. Now knowing the commands under TERM is different, but most people know how to do this in the GUI part. Un-installing should be a tag under removal. In which, again should not be much of an expert thing.

Tagging should really be more for letting people know what the subject is about instead of having experts behind it unless there is a certain REP Cap to obtain.

2
  • I really don't know what you are talking about...
    – Braiam
    May 21, 2014 at 17:36
  • Keep remove tag get rid of Delete tag.
    – Virusboy
    May 21, 2014 at 17:50

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