8

Oracle tagging was already discussed here and I like the solution that we are using syntactically, namely oracle, oracle-11g, oracle-11g-r2, etc. I bring this up again because I'm reconsidering whether it was a good idea to go against the established formats on StackOverflow and ServerFault. Both of these sites use a format that does not include the dashes.

On the one hand the distinction between versions is more important here and should be highlighted. It also does not seem like a bad thing to allow the site to adopt a somewhat different nomenclature given the different user base.

On the other hand any time a question is migrated to or from these other sites it will have to be re-tagged. People who use both sites will also have to remember the tagging format for the site they are on. There are currently three questions using the incorrect format; two were migrated from StackOverflow.

Options:

  1. Do nothing.
  2. Switch to the format the other sites are using.
  3. Keep our versions the same but create synonyms for the styles the other sites are using.

I'm leaning toward the third option. Will it completely solve the problem? Other options?

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
6

Keep our versions the same but create synonyms for the styles the other sites are using.

I vote for the 3. option too.

8
  • I'm not very familiar with synonyms. Will this work for when the question is migrated?
    – Leigh Riffel
    Apr 3, 2011 at 3:55
  • @leigh If the tag doesn't exist on migration, it gets dropped. If you want to reapply a tag and cannot, flag for a mod, we can do that.
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Apr 4, 2011 at 16:07
  • @drachenstern What if the tag exists on migration? We already have three questions without the dash. Are you saying that even with the synonym something tagged without the dash will not get the dashed version when it is migrated to this site?
    – Leigh Riffel
    Apr 4, 2011 at 17:03
  • @Leigh no no no. If the tag exists is one question, if the synonym exists is another question. On import if the tag exists it will be maintained, else it will be stripped. When looking for [oracle-11g] and [oracle11g] is defined, they will show "as one". Two separate cases, two separate things. As to if it gets replaced on import, that I'm not aware of happening. That's the whole point to a tag synonym, so we don't have to replace the "old" tags.
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Apr 4, 2011 at 17:06
  • @drachenstern So it sounds like we should 1. Keep both tags so that imports don't loose tagging information. 2. Create synonyms so that we don't have to re-tag oracle10g as oracle-10g, and possibly 3. Maintain identical tag wikis for both.
    – Leigh Riffel
    Apr 4, 2011 at 18:02
  • @Leigh I think the tag synonym references back to the original parent for tag-wiki, but yes, that sounds about right. Can you create the tags and tag wikis or does it need to be one of us diamonds? I can do it this evening if need be. Make a separate answer here and we'll go from there if so.
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Apr 4, 2011 at 18:11
  • @drachenstern I created an answer. Please edit it as necessary. I can create some of the synonyms if the tag exists. I can edit most of the tag wikis, but I'm not sure about creating the tags and I synonyms I create have to be voted up. I'll do what I can if you like, but it will take several days.
    – Leigh Riffel
    Apr 4, 2011 at 18:58
  • @Leigh ~ I'll look at it this evening as well
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Apr 4, 2011 at 19:13
4

You should favor tag names that best match the way these phrases are searched for on the web.

In other words:

How many search results are there for "oracle11g" versus "oracle 11g"?

Dashes are treated as spaces by almost every search engine, so it's easiest to think of them that way.

edit: searching for...

  • "oracle11g" with the quotes: ~323,000 results
  • "oracle 11g" with the quotes: ~2,090,000 results

So the distinction is clear.

2
  • So based on my brief informal searches this principle would mean that we should keep our dashes and possibly implies that the other sites should change their tags. Am I reading too much into this? What about synonyms?
    – Leigh Riffel
    Apr 3, 2011 at 12:18
  • @leigh yes, that's exactly what it means. See my edit.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Apr 3, 2011 at 21:35
2
  1. For tags with dashes create the same tag without dashes if it is used by one of the sites that might have questions migrated here so that the answers are not lost.
  2. Create tag synonyms so that the non-dashed versions point to the dashed versions which are more popularly searched for.
  3. Duplicate the tag wiki if necessary.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .