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I noticed this question today. The question is apparently about workspaces, but is a bit unclear on that. In any case, it used the "windows" tag with a different meaning than the other questions using that tag.

All the other questions so tagged refer to the operating system but the question in discussion does not. I'm not sure what the solution is, but it seems incorrect to have questions use the same tag but apparently using different definitions.

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

The word means both things. Let it lie.

If you attempt to split it to windows and ms-windows you have two side-effects:

  • You spend more time retagging things than directly helping people.

  • You make it harder for people to search things externally. Who is going to put "ms-windows" into Google when they mean Windows?

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  • Sounds reasonable. I just wanted to see if overlapping tags (there are a few different ones) was an issue for anyone else and I thought "windows" was a good choice to hang a discussion on.
    – moberley
    Commented Aug 13, 2010 at 14:59
  • 1
    well.. a window in a GUI is automatically a widget. I would call ms-windows windows, and the UI window a widget if that is even necessary to tag at all.
    – txwikinger
    Commented Aug 13, 2010 at 15:15
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    what about Microsoft to replace Windows and windows to be, well windows. It's unfair that a corporation has taken a common word out of vocabulary because it's a product.
    – Marco Ceppi
    Commented Aug 13, 2010 at 15:20
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    @txwikinger When you say widget, I think of micro-applications, applets, desktop widgets et al. A window is a window because it's a definite space in a window manager.
    – Oli Mod
    Commented Aug 13, 2010 at 16:04
  • Searching Google for "windows" will match "ms-windows". Also I imagine the main text of the question would mention "Windows" as well as perhaps the title.
    – 8128
    Commented Jul 12, 2011 at 19:29
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Let's blacklist the tag (prevent anyone from using it) because it's too ambiguous. Instead:

  1. Use for the 'GUI object' (instead of and )

  2. Use the already heavily used , and and don't let anyone tag with the generic "windows"

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  • Why to not just use windows-os and window-management?
    – Rodrigo Oliveira
    Commented Jul 14, 2011 at 3:24
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    I don't have major objections to windows-os - but there's no need to get people to tag windows-os and also tag vista - the former tag is just redundant.
    – 8128
    Commented Jul 14, 2011 at 5:40
  • I see, it's realy better use just the windows version as a tag, nice. +1
    – Rodrigo Oliveira
    Commented Jul 14, 2011 at 16:00
  • Does AU have so many Windows-related question that there's a need to distinguish between Windows versions? On U&L we just have the one windows tag and we've never felt the need to split. Version tags should only be used if the issue is specific to that version (e.g. don't use the windows-vista tag if XP or 7 have the same issue), are all the questions with these tags really specific?
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 9:45
  • @Gilles U&L has 44 windows questions. We have 118 tagged Windows 7 alone. People like being specific, might as well let them. (And in this case it's a handy way to get rid of the ambiguous plain 'windows')
    – 8128
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 20:07
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Use for all issues related to interoperability with Microsoft Windows. (That's what we do on Unix & Linux, where the problematic is the same.)

I don't think it's a good idea to have a completely different meaning for the same tag. I recommend window-NOUN tags, such as . There's even (U&L), which I consider a good name in principle but a bad name in practice because of the potential for confusion. (echo "think of a better name for the window tag" >>TODO)

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