Does the [unreadable] tag make sense?

Question

The unreadable tag makes very little sense in my opinion, as it encapsulates multiple, technically unrelated concepts. The usage guide reads as follows:

This can describe a file or any output that is not readable by the user or a program.

This can mean the following:

• A text is too small for the user to read
• A font is missing (example)
• A user doesn't know what format a file is (example)
• There is a permission problem with a file (example)
• A version mismatch prevents a program from reading a file created with a different version of said program
• Hardware failure renders a storage medium unreadable (example)
• A user doesn't know how to open a file (example)

There are many many more examples of what could prevent a user or program from reading a file or output, but the examples illustrate that none of these have anything in common. If we look at the first burnination criteria (even if this is not a burnination request), we can see that the tag does not describe the contents of the questions to which it is applied.

I believe that unreadable does not add any value to the questions to which it is applied. Or is there any deeper meaning behind the tag, which I don't know about?

Answer 1

Every now and then, somebody will go and type parts of some error they're seeing into the tag box, and if the have more than 300 reputation, the tag system will gladly create tags out of each individual word typed into the box. I have seen this happen multiple times, and I'd guess this is the result of one such instance early in AU's history. (The earliest posts were all from low-rep users, so I'd guess the actual post that created this is now deleted ... or this tag was created when we were in beta and the reputation thresholds lower.)

In any case, I'd say this is one useless tag, and should be removed. It's only on 29 posts, so it won't be that much of a trouble to remove.