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GNOME Shell is, ultimately, just one component in the GNOME DE. I can use it without many of the other trappings of GNOME, like GDM or Nautilus. It seems very weird that - a thing of distant past - is an independent tag, yet, is a synonym to . By whatever logic that makes a synonym of , one could synonymize practically every GNOME app tag to . , both by its wiki and what GNOME is, should really be for questions about the desktop environment or the GNOME project as a whole.

Failing that, rename to - if it is really for GNOME Shell the shell, then that should be reflected in the name. As it stands, gets involved in every question that mentions GNOME, especially if it is Ubuntu GNOME, in which case both and get involved. This is quite senseless.

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    Yes. What he said. Gnome-shell is also part of other DEs, it's not restricted to Gnome.
    – terdon
    Commented May 10, 2015 at 18:13
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    Good luck there, Please, fix the gnome* tags mess
    – Braiam
    Commented May 10, 2015 at 19:13
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    @Braiam saw that while writing this one. Figured it's time for a new question.
    – muru
    Commented May 10, 2015 at 19:15
  • I think most people here who say "gnome" mean "gnome-shell", the entire DE. IMO they use "unity" to refer to unity. I agree, "gnome" is a general term and parts of gnome or gnome apps can be installed independent of both unity and gnome-shell, in that case people usually use the name of the application. I have not seen gnome-shell, as a WM, used stand alone or on any other DE such as KDE or XFCE, but I suppose it is possible. For the general usage on this site.
    – Panther
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 0:29
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    @bodhi.zazen both MATE and cinnamon use gnome-shell AFAIK. The point here is that the general tag should be gnome and not gnome-shell. The "whole DE", as you put it, is gnome, and gnome-shell is only a small part of it. This synonym is like having car as a synonym of gear shaft. If I know my question is about the gear shaft, why do I have to instead tag it with car?
    – terdon
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 11:32
  • @terdon Cinnamon's ... thing ... can be considered a fork of GNOME Shell. MATE still has the panel+window manager separation (mate-panel + marco). In any case, I agree with you in the DE != panel+window-manager point.
    – muru
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 11:41
  • When people use mate or cinnamon they use the mate and cinnamon tags. While your analogy to a car works for cars perhaps, it does not work for language. The vast majority of people who use "gnome" are referring to gnome-shell, just a fluke of how most people the language / term "gnome". So while your semantics are correct, it is more an issue of how the language is used. You can also argue about what "linux" means. Just the kernel ? Kernel + gnu ? Kernel + gnu + X ? General term for "distributions" ? The use of the language is not as precise as you envision.
    – Panther
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 13:23
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    @bodhi.zazen "The vast majority of people who use "gnome" are referring to gnome-shell". No, they are not. Many questions tagged gnome have something to do with GNOME (usually some GNOME app), but often nothing or little to do with GNOME Shell.
    – muru
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 13:50
  • @bodhi.zazen please, provide examples of people doing so, I've semn by far many more people referring to "gnome" as the whole environment and not the shell (granted, that was before the whole synonym stuff took place, against community best wishes)
    – Braiam
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 14:50
  • There is a lot of noise, but if you search for the "gnome tag" these two come up - askubuntu.com/questions/621493/gnome-shell-3-16-3-19-update and askubuntu.com/questions/621456/… . Both using the gnome tag (no other tags) and asking about gnome-shell. A lot of questions is it unclear what they are asking about as they are using "gnome" as a non-specific term. That is about the extent of my interest in reviewing the gnome tags. It was rather trivial to find examples of people using "gnome" when them mean "gnome-shell"
    – Panther
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 16:20
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    @bodhi.zazen remember that gnome-shell is synonymized to gnome, so, recent questions trying to use gnome-shell tag would have gnome applied. There has been 157 renames in total, last one 2 days ago, which seems to fit in the newest proper gnome-shell question. All other newest questions are about gnome in general or some gnome app.
    – Braiam
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 13:03
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    @bodhi.zazen that's pretty much our point. We're saying that gnome-shell is useful for questions that are specifically about the shell and not the DE. People don't use gnome-shell as a synonym of gnome! They either know what it is and use it correctly, or as is more common, have no idea what it is and just use gnome. In any case, questions about the gnome shell should probably be tagged with both gnome and gnome-shell, but I see no benefit in having these two combined.
    – terdon
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 12:35
  • I am not the one you have to convince. "gnome" should refer to what the Gnome project ships by default, and that is gnome shell. Thus by definition, gnome == gnome-shell + libs + additional applications (NM, Nautilus, etc). Other DE or, IMO, have other tags, such as unity or mate or what not. If they are not referring to the DE no need for the gnome tag, use an application tag. Just because one makes use of gnome libs or apps != gnome. Also the gnome project will not maintain non-gnome apps or libs, such as mate. So IMO it is you who is confusing the definition of gnome.
    – Panther
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 13:09
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    @bodhi.zazen no. Gnome != gnome-shell. That's like saying that Gnome == gnome-terminal. The gnome-shell is a big part of the gnome DE but it has issues that are specific to it and we should be able to tag accordingly. Not all questions about gnome-shell are also about the gnome DE and the vast majority of questions about gnome are not about the shell at all. Most users don't even know the shell exists so why are these synonyms?
    – terdon
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 22:57

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The synonym has now been removed. The next time someone tries to add it will be created as a new tag.

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  • Tag and info created, thanks!
    – muru
    Commented Apr 5, 2017 at 11:38

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