76

There is a tag on SO called . Just to be clear, this is not an official burninate request, this is simply an inquisition and a discussion question.

Currently there is no usage guidance for this tag, and so my questions are these:

  1. What exactly does this tag mean, what is it, and what does it apply to?
  2. If a tag (such as this one) exists and has no questions, votes, or content, is it worth burninating?

Currently the tag has 91 followers, which is impressive when the tag has no content whatsoever associated with it.

Any discussion and information on situations such as this one would be much appreciated.

Image of the followers.

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  • Also, this is my first meta post. So if there is an obvious reason, please just comment why and I will promptly delete the post. – SalvadorVayshun Dec 13 '16 at 21:41
  • 1
    Worth noting that the tag bar in the new nav has the tag underlined with a tooltip of "Invalid Tag". However, it does appear in the "Tags" page. I don't think the system even knows what to do with three. – Kendra Dec 13 '16 at 21:49
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    You're requesting that people go around removing questions from a tag that has no quesitons? Burnination done I guess wipes hands. – Servy Dec 13 '16 at 21:50
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    Pro tip: You don't have to add "Edit" to your edits, or post a comment mentioning you edited. The "edited x" link at the bottom of the post and to the left of your username does all that for you. :) – Kendra Dec 13 '16 at 21:50
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    As I said, this isn't an official burnination request, it's simply me trying to understand why these types of tags still exist in the system at all. It isn't about burninating, more about understand, consolidating and, more importantly, removing future confusion. – SalvadorVayshun Dec 13 '16 at 21:51
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    I wasn't expecting some sort of inquiry. – Andrew Grimm Dec 13 '16 at 23:26
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    So the premise of your question is incorrect. There is no tag named "3" with 91 followers. There are 91 people following a non-existent tag. Your question should be "Why are 91 people following a non-existent tag?" The answer to which is "Haven't the faintest", or it could be "How are 91 people following a non-existent tag?", the answer to which would be "Because people are weird, and the system allows such weirdness." – user4639281 Dec 13 '16 at 23:28
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    -1 because my favorite tag has been deleted due to your request. – Thomas Weller Dec 14 '16 at 13:14
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    Where did 3 go? I was prepared to write the exhaustive wiki. – jacknad Dec 14 '16 at 13:26
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    It is the number of the counting! The number of the counting shall be three! Thou shall not count 4 or 2 except on the way to three. Five is right out. – Thom Dec 14 '16 at 13:32
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    @jacknad: It was blown up with the holy hand grenade. – kjhughes Dec 14 '16 at 13:56
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    [3], 2, 1, Burn! – Fᴀʀʜᴀɴ Aɴᴀᴍ Dec 15 '16 at 17:32
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    "this is simply an inquisition" lol +20 lightness points – Lightness Races in Orbit Dec 16 '16 at 13:22
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    I wish I had moderator status so I could add a "3" tag to this question. Maybe that's why I don't have moderator status... – Mark K Cowan Dec 16 '16 at 13:30
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    That was an unexpected edit. – Lundin Dec 16 '16 at 13:45
35

If a tag has no questions in it, then it will automatically removed by the system. This is actually the goal of most burninate requests: clear all questions with it so that it gets automatically removed when the job runs. I'm not quite sure when it runs, though.

New tags with no questions typically mean that a 1.5K user created it and was met by a 2K user rolling their eyes, taking off the tag, and glaring at the tag's creator ominously.

I'm not quite sure how it got 91 followers, though I suspect sockpuppets because that's about 5.35 followers per hour. That's essentially impossible.

As explained by Gothdo and yellowphantil in comments:

  • Things like CSS3 and Actionscript 3 can be typed with a space, e.g. CSS[space]3.
  • The Favorite Tags input accepts spaces and interprets them as breaks between 2 tags.
  • A tag does not need to exist to be followed.
| |
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    Why would someone create sockpuppets to follow a tag? – Michał Perłakowski Dec 13 '16 at 22:11
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    @Gothdo care to offer a different explanation for a pointless tag getting 91 followers in 17 hours? – Nissa Dec 13 '16 at 22:12
  • @yellowantphil how many lexicographically similar tags can you think of that are that popular? – Nissa Dec 13 '16 at 22:17
  • @StephenLeppik Why 17 hours? – Michał Perłakowski Dec 13 '16 at 22:20
  • @Gothdo because that's how old the tag is. – Nissa Dec 13 '16 at 22:31
  • @yellowantphil the largest of those tags gets ~20 followers per day on average, though. – Nissa Dec 13 '16 at 22:48
  • Thanks for those helpful explanations; I've updated the post. – Nissa Dec 13 '16 at 23:20
  • Perhaps from asp.net-mvc 3, which would be asp.net-mvc 3, when typing in the ask questions tags field. – Travis J Dec 14 '16 at 4:20
  • Ah "A tag does not need to exist to be followed" I get it now. So this tag was not set up or sanctioned by SO, so much as it was created by accidental typos by users, and has been kept alive by the continuous typos. So literally the only reason I found it is because one person typed "css 3" once, and the only reason it wasn't deleted is because others kept doing something similar. Thanks for the info! – SalvadorVayshun Dec 14 '16 at 13:32
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    @SalvadorVayshun no, it was created because somebody added it to a question, and had 91 followers from typos over the years. – Nissa Dec 14 '16 at 13:45
  • @StephenLeppik Got it, but it was because someone mistyped, then it was mistyped over the years. – SalvadorVayshun Dec 14 '16 at 14:06
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    I'm going to subscribe to fnord. – Robert Columbia Dec 15 '16 at 4:30
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    "A tag does not need to exist to be followed." Hmm. That maybe should be changed... – Trilarion Dec 15 '16 at 14:20
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    A triangle has 3 sides, Illuminatti symbol is a triangle, is this a way of they trying to infiltrate SO ? – Gustavo Gabriel Dec 15 '16 at 18:01
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    @GustavoGabriel No, it just means half life [3] confirmed! – Angew is no longer proud of SO Dec 16 '16 at 10:30

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