-8

Really, most of this questions are about either:

  • xorg
  • xserver
  • mir
  • unity
  • other DM

Alone this tag doesn't tell what the question is about, and there are already tags that fit within that specific category.

BTW, and more importantly, nobody is answering those questions.

14
  • 6
    I'm really not sure I agree with you.. But I'm interested in people's opinions.
    – Seth
    Apr 20, 2014 at 1:02
  • what's in the case of questions about wireless mouse or keyboard? Apr 20, 2014 at 1:05
  • @AvinashRaj kernel, xorg, xserver, bluetooth, usb?
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 1:08
  • i think it comes under bluetooth tag. Apr 20, 2014 at 1:09
  • @Seth apparently nobody will opinionate since your comment has 2 upvotes already. Maybe you should made up your mind instead.
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 1:54
  • Are you out of your mind? How can you speak about an OS, and get rid of keyboard and mouse. Not all the people use touchscreens yet... And you assume things that are not true; soon I will have an keyboard badge - so there is somebody who's answering those questions. Not to say that your alternatives are foolish. Apr 20, 2014 at 9:13
  • @RaduRădeanu stop with that tone, I haven't been rude to anyone. Can you accurately ask a question about a keyboard only about the hardware keyboard in which xorg or any other per-existing tag doesn't already has it covered?
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 16:06
  • 1
    You can actually, I've even answered at least one where the problem was a stuck key on the keyboard. It had nothing at all to do with anything else, just the keyboard. The only applicable tag was keyboard or the very general hardware. No, it wasn't a very good question but yes, the only relevant tag was keyboard. Same goes for strange mice, gaming ones for example, that can have very specific issues. I see absolutely no benefit from removing these tags.
    – terdon
    Apr 20, 2014 at 17:57
  • @terdon yeah, ok I agree. You gave a reasonable question which was applicable, and maybe someone could argue is OT, but I wont. But when the question is about remapping a key using xorg do you think that anything outside xorg (and maybe keyboard layout) will apply?
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 18:02
  • 2
    Yes @Braiam, I think that keyboard would also apply. As I'm sure you must know by now, I like broad tags, I find them useful and I like the site organized in a hierarchical manner. I want as many tags as are applicable as the tagging faq states. Why should we remove the tag? If you don't like it, don't use it but I see no reason to stop others from doing so.
    – terdon
    Apr 20, 2014 at 18:07
  • @terdon we are traveling in circles. In SU it would make sense to have a keyboard tag since they deal with, well, general hardware. And that still doesn't solve the problem which is that nobody keeps answering those tags because they are experts. desuga which is the user with more score per answer in the tag, amusingly all his answer has other tag apart of keyboard. Can you explain that phenomenon?
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 18:11
  • Continuing with the previous argument, keyboard layout already implies something to do with keyboard. If a question is tagged with windows-7, why would you add windows if it's already implied? (and yeah, I know you like them but I think that you should use of a most efficient way of following tags since it takes just couple seconds adding ubuntu, centos, debian, and linux*.)
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 18:20
  • 1
    As you said, I like them and you linked to a relevant SU meta post that has 47 upvotes and my answer here already has 5, so I'm clearly not alone in this preference. I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that anyone other than you shares your opinion on these tags. Perhaps it's time you consider the possibility that your opinion is held only by you and whether it is "correct" or not, or "better" for the site or not, if the community disagrees with you, you need to back down.
    – terdon
    Apr 20, 2014 at 19:43
  • @terdon yeah, but you don't see anyone going back to retag all windows-7 questions with windows tag. I agree with your point of view there, but here you can't apply the same principle.
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 19:46

1 Answer 1

8

I really don't agree. The keyboard and mouse are specific pieces of hardware and have very specific and quite common problems associated with them. This is particularly true of which is a nice, broad tag that covers such subjects as different keyboard layouts, shortcuts, remapping keys etc. These are classic issues that many users have problems with and for which the tag is useful.

There are 1,220 questions tagged with and 1,705 questions tagged with . For both tags, more than half have been answered so I'm not sure I buy the "nobody's answering" them argument. In any case, even if it were true, I don't see how removing these tags would help get more questions answered. All it would do is further reduce their visibility.

Finally, both these tags clearly show what the question is about. Much more so than any of the alternatives you suggested (xorg, xserver, bluetooth, usb). If I tag a question with , then everyone understands that it is about, well, a mouse issue. If I tag with it could be about any number of things. So yeah, the tags could even stand alone (though of course they shouldn't).

In conclusion, I feel both these tags are useful and should be kept around.

12
  • Keyboard layout already have a tag. Keyboard shortcuts already have a tag. Remapping key are under xorg tag. If a tag already covers the topic, why have 2 or more tags for the same thing? There aren't users that continuously answer both tags and the ones that are answered have already other tags. Each have 19 and 9 followers. Can you ask a question where keyboard is the only tag, the issue is Ubuntu and another tag doesn't apply?
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 14:39
  • Also, check another relevant discussion about this. The consensus was that if there was more relevant tags for the same topic those should be used.
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 16:01
  • @Braiam I really don't see how a discussion about whether an extremely specific tag about a particular protocol should be created is relevant to a discussion about removing very general tags. The only relevance is to support my point of view that general tags should be kept. The consensus was no, don't create a new specific tag, use the general ones instead. So, OK, use the mouse and keyboard tags.
    – terdon
    Apr 20, 2014 at 18:01
  • sorry, but the tag is already created and correctly used. Why have 2 or more tags that means the same? Through there are extremely weird cases where it applies, it doesn't mean that each and every question about "broad with keys" should use the tag. I ask if I need to ask about "how to remap a key to do something in python using dbus" the keyboard tag wouldn't help to get my question answered since it's only incidental to my issue.
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 18:04
  • BTW, if we are talking about statistics, let me tell you some hard numbers: in the unanswered questions of keyboard most of them only have that only tag, the ones that has answers have more than only the keyboard tag. Same behavior can be seen with the mouse tag, answered questions have more than just the mouse tag and unanswered only that tag.
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 20:43
  • That will mean that we should favor those tags that has more probabilities of being answered. I would favor that the tag is cleaned up and only being used for "mouse" issues that has no other relationship with any other tag, or maybe something multilayer.
    – Braiam
    Apr 20, 2014 at 20:45
  • 1
    @Braiam: Actually, if you sort that second list by "relevance" rather than "votes" (your links for both keyboard and mouse go to "votes" for answered but "relevant" for unanswered, meaning single-tagged questions rise to the top there but not answered questions; I don't know whether this was intentional), you'll see plenty of questions tagged with only "keyboard" that have been answered. So simply saying "nobody is answering these" based on that metric is inherently flawed.
    – Jez W
    Apr 22, 2014 at 11:50
  • @Braiam For the record, there aren't really that many things tagged with just "keyboard" anyway - I count ~52 with a single "keyboard" tag without any answers, and ~84 with a single "keyboard" tag with answers. So neither is it a case of "most unanswered have only this tag", nor is it "most having only this tag are unanswered"...
    – Jez W
    Apr 22, 2014 at 11:55
  • @JezW the ordering was intentional to provide more impact, but if you order them by relevance you will notice that only 85 of questions with keyboard as only tag answered, while you have ~1k with more than keyboard tag and answered. A whooping 200/1 of efficiency with more than 1 tag vs tag alone.
    – Braiam
    Apr 22, 2014 at 14:05
  • 2
    @Braiam Iiiit's not significantly changing the efficiency though. I have no idea where you're getting 200 from, I really don't. (all 85/1080 tells you is that 1/12 of the answered questions have that tag alone, which has nothing to do with answer rate). (and as an aside: all showing these things in a different order does is make the stats kind of misleading.) To throw some numbers in: Single-tag questions: 84 answered, 52 unanswered. 84/(52+84) = ~62% answer rate. Multiple-tag questions: 996 answered (1080-84), 590 unanswered. 1080/(1080+590)= ~65% answer rate. 3% change is hardly a lot...
    – Jez W
    Apr 22, 2014 at 16:33
  • @JezW ok, what are you evaluation of the tag itself with that data? Do you think it can be improved?
    – Braiam
    Apr 22, 2014 at 17:02
  • 2
    @Braiam I don't know about improvements (just to note: I agree with those that think the broader tag isn't inherently a bad thing - many new users won't know their xorg from their elbow so "keyboard" is a useful tag to them), but what it does imply is that the premise that "nobody is answering these questions" is false. It lags behind the average answer rate, sure (~72% by the same reckoning, from searchers of answers:0 and answers:1) but a) not by all that much and b) not dependent on whether the tag is alone or with friends.
    – Jez W
    Apr 22, 2014 at 17:08

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