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There are lots of questions, especially about Unity that use incorrect terminology. For example, calling the launcher a dock. Should we edit these questions to use the proper terminology?

If we edit out the incorrect terminology, the asker will learn what they should call it in the future.

If we leave it as it is, search engine users will be more likely to find the answers they want because lots of them will use the same incorrect terminology.

Which of these should we prioritise / what compromise can we use?

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  • focus on getting the tags right first, then correct any terminology in the post.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Apr 28, 2011 at 4:01

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My opinion is that we should prioritize correct terminology. For one, I've learnt quite a bit here just because the correct terminology was used by those explaining concepts to me or others. It's a technical field.

I wonder how smart Google's algorithms are at picking up, say, 'Dock' vs 'Launcher' type errors. I suspect when 'Dock', 'Unity' & 'Ubuntu' are all grouped together Google will direct people to a page that uses 'Launcher' terminology all the same.

An important aspect here I suppose is to really focus on not letting tags become 'muddied' with incorrect terminology.

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Tags should always be corrected. Answers should always be corrected. Questions, maybe not always.

For the dock/launcher thing, it's obvious what the user is talking about. But, not all wrong terminology is so obvious. Better to work with the asker to clarify. This has the added benefit clearly educating everyone who sees the question.

If the majority of users are misusing a specific term, perhaps the problem is the UX design; then the misuse is valuable usability data.

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