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I just saw a question about version control, where an edit has been suggested changing the tag from to .

My gut reaction was the the tag was more about tracking changes to the data than changes to the DB structure and code.

A glance through the questions with that tag seems to indicate that most people who have used the tag would agree with me - but there are other questions that are more about version control than tracking changes to data.

The tag has no current usage guidance.

Does it make more sense to set the usage to "Questions about tracking changes to data in a database", and to remove the tag from questions that don't match?

Or, should the usage be "Questions about tracking changes, either to the data in the database, or to the database structure and code itself", which would match the current usage?

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"Questions about tracking changes to data in a database" is the better option.

My impression is that was originally created for the SQL Server feature described in the About Change Tracking (SQL Server) documentation.

A few questions have been tagged for other DBMSs in the more general sense of change tracking. This is the problem with creating tags without usage guidance. I wish people would stop this.

As things stand, it seems better to make cover the wider definition (not just the SQL Server feature).

We also have and without usage guidance. It seems to me these would work better for changes to the database structure. They might also be synonyms.

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    This makes me think version-control might be better served as a synonym of source-control as well, since, if anything, it could be more easily (and mistakenly) conflated with change-tracking if someone is not 100% clear on terminology and offers no real additional benefit over source-control as a term.
    – LowlyDBA - John M
    Commented Oct 30, 2018 at 21:05
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    Yeah you might be right about that.
    – Paul White Mod
    Commented Oct 31, 2018 at 5:50
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    I have added guidance to each tag, and have reviewed the questions currently tagged change-tracking. There are only a couple that focus on code/structure, and those seem to be tied to actual execution (for instance, involving DDL triggers), so I have left them alone.
    – RDFozz
    Commented Oct 31, 2018 at 16:55

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