Ok, someone might remember in chat that I asked what is the [tag:tiling] useful for? I still don't find any use but being merged/changed to window management (don't confuse with window managers, which are tools to do window management). But my question is not about that but is what set in motion the next I will say.

While I was reading the [tagging help page][1] I found something interesting: Tags that doesn't carry a meaning for themself should not be used (so called meta-tags). Meta-tags (at least how I interpret them) are tags that whenever they are alone in a question, they don't rise the value of the question. That remembered me a discussion about questions that **only** have version tags.

If we leave a version tag in a question, by itself doesn't help to organize the site (in fact it needs several or more tags), and since either way in the question the version of Ubuntu should be pointed out whenever is relevant, for **me** it falls in the category of a meta-tag.

But then, I found http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/1514/when-should-we-use-the-versions-tags and reading the reason it made me think:

> It could be used for determining the age and relevancy of the question.

For that is the "asked" and "active" section at the right.

> Tags can be used for searching: http://askubuntu.com/questions/tagged/11.04+upgrade

For that we could use: [http://askubuntu.com/search?q=11.04+\[upgrade\]][2] and it gives even more relevant results since answers can not be tagged and some questions are not properly tagged either.

> I find the version tag more useful to questions related to upgrades, bugs, drivers and the use of new software like Unity.

Upgrades question normally (if not always) includes the versions from/target in the question itself, so it's redundant. Bugs are off-topic on the site. If a driver installation answer don't work for an specific version of Ubuntu, either the answer should be expanded or another answer be made and specify for what version of Ubuntu it works.

[Jeff seems to share in great part my vision][3], and he predicted that it could be actually dangerous (I've seen suggested edits just to add a version tag,, and as I said before, questions with only version tags).

I have found answers that, through they have a 12.04 tag attached those apply for 12.10 and 13.04 too, and in some cases if they don't work, someone adds another answer for another version of Ubuntu.

Another problem with these tags (not only the version specific) is that they don't say anything about the questions with the tag.

As part of organizing tags, which list I'm still compiling for tags that require some love (love = (disambiguation | change | merge | synonymize | wiki/excerpt | nuke)) the version tags should also follow.

We could follow [the guide identifying meta tags][4]:

> - **If the tag can’t work as the only tag on a question, it’s probably a meta-tag.** Every tag you use should be able to work, more or less, as the only tag on a question. Meta-tags, like [beginner], [subjective], and [best-practices], are useless by themselves — they tell you nothing at all about the content of the question. 
> - **If the tag commonly means different things to different people, it’s probably a meta-tag.** In a cruel, ironic twist, the meaning of the tag [subjective] itself … is actually subjective. Ditto for [best-practices] and [beginner]. Best practices to whom? Beginner by what criteria? These tags are impossible to define by anything remotely resembling an objective metric. In comparison, the the meaning of tags like [java], [c#], and [javascript] are crystal clear to all but the nuttiest of nutbags. 

*I'm tagging this question as discussion. I believe that sometimes my words has some imperative tone, but believe me, I like to hear people opinions more than express my very own (unless you ask for my opinion expressly).*

BTW, the meta-tag [meta:tags] has in its excerpt that "Questions about tag and tagging" but there is also the [meta:tagging] tag. -_-


  [1]: http://askubuntu.com/help/tagging
  [2]: http://askubuntu.com/search?q=11.04%20%5Bupgrade%5D
  [3]: http://meta.askubuntu.com/a/1521/169736
  [4]: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags/