AFAIU the options are:
- Allow English only.
- Allow both English and Ukrainian tags and remap all of them to one language through tag synonyms. Which one should be primary?
- Allow Ukrainian only.
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1It's a setting that is enabled on a per-site basis. Feel free to discuss whether or not it should be in this post, and if the community decides to go ahead with it, we can flip it on.– Adam Lear StaffModFeb 7, 2017 at 22:53
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Thanks, I'll update the question with this info. Does the switch allow having bilingual tags to avoid duplicates?– int_uaFeb 7, 2017 at 23:17
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1That's typically handled through tag synonyms (where a tag will automatically get remapped to the "primary" tag in if someone tries to use it). Which language is going to be mainly used for tags is up to y'all to decide.– Adam Lear StaffModFeb 7, 2017 at 23:26
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1Maybe we should give some more time to users before choosing final variant? I.e. while I have an opinion, I am not sure whether it's 100%-correct, maybe somebody else's opinion will make things more clear. Another thing is that I currently don't understand how to create aliases.– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 0:19
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Sounds reasonable, unchecked the answer as accepted– int_uaFeb 8, 2017 at 0:21
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1Update: Yola noticed that it's technically impossible to create Cyrillic tag as for now. Probably, we should write a bug report into generic meta. IMHO, this discussion doesn't make sense until we'll get their answer about that bug (i.e. "we'll fix it tomorrow" VS "we'll fix it in 5 years/never") — let's fallback to English tags until then.– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 1:44
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@Sasha, tags in Cyrillic are technically possible. Proof.– Be Brave Be Like UkraineFeb 8, 2017 at 5:21
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@bytebuster, can you create it here? E.g. by adding Cyrillic tag into one of your questions? I actually haven't tried it in Ukr. Lang., but tried in Ukr. Lang. meta with no success.– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 5:27
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1@Sasha, technically possible. No, I can't. But I have reasons to think there must be some variable in a config file or so.– Be Brave Be Like UkraineFeb 8, 2017 at 5:52
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1Please explain me why does @br3t delete ukrainian tags? Do we have a decision already?– chizhFeb 12, 2017 at 19:19
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Sorry, @Chizh, I'm just trying to keep order here. But your question is right, so much time passed and we still haven't got solution. What should we do?– br3tFeb 13, 2017 at 21:45
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@br3t YAPTS!!. I suppose main discussion about tags is there– chizhFeb 13, 2017 at 21:52
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5 Answers
I prefer: Ukrainian tags with English aliases.
Worse ways are:
- English tags with Ukrainian aliases;
- purely Ukrainian tags.
The worst is: purely English tags.
I prefer Ukrainian tags to be primary, because I suppose majority of users of this site to be Ukrainians wanting to improve their literacy or to discuss non-trivial questions rather than foreigners. However, if some Stack Exchange rules/recommendations require/recommend English tags to be primary, I'd fallback to English tags with Ukrainian aliases.
I prefer Ukrainian tags with English aliases over purely Ukrainian tags (and over purely English tags), because I don't see a reason to deprive any part of the community (either native Ukrainian speakers, or hardly-speaking foreigners) from useful navigation mechanism.
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1I have an objection. This policy might help Ukrainians to improve their current language, but it makes life harder for primarily non-Ukrainians interested in our language to know what tags mean, or which are available. Moreover, tags will be discussed in Meta, and Meta is already avowedly English. Feb 8, 2017 at 0:06
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@IwillnotexistIdonotexist, on the other hand, I don't understand your point. How having English names as aliases would prevent non-Ukrainians to understand what tag means? I.e. when you create/edit a question, the tag field allows both primary name and alias to be used in auto-completion.– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 0:22
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1Yes, but the default version of the tag that would be presented to the casual browser is the canonicalized, desynonymized, Ukrainian version in your proposal. Feb 8, 2017 at 0:24
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@IwillnotexistIdonotexist, and how discussing tags in (English) meta would prevent them to be bilingual? I.e., if we accept "Ukrainian tags with English aliases" (or "English tags with Ukrainian aliases"), we can refer to smth like "Orthography/Орфографія" within meta-discussions (assuming that one is primary and other is alias).– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 0:26
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3This is the policy we follow on French Language. All visible tags should be in French, with a synonym in English. Moderators create the synonyms as we notice new tags. Spanish Language and Portuguese Language follow the same policy. I think the other language sites use English tags with other-language synonyms, or English-only tags. Feb 8, 2017 at 0:27
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@Gilles Fair enough. I guess Ukranian-with-English-synonyms has precedent. Feb 8, 2017 at 0:28
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@IwillnotexistIdonotexist, "yes, but the default version of the tag …" — sounds reasonable. Really, this would make tags less useful for non-Ukrainians.– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 0:29
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2@IwillnotexistIdonotexist Targeting primarily English audience is bad for this site, because we have an example of two russian sites here. The one targeting English audience is now 1700 days in beta and there is no signs that it will ever go to non-beta state (because English speakers rarely ask questions). It's counterpart targeting native speakers looks like it has beaten all the goals for the beta stage (it has no Area 51 stats page) - the only issue there is moderation.– Artemix ModFeb 8, 2017 at 11:27
Another idea (inspired by Yola, although I am not sure if he meant exactly that): to make the language of tags correspond the language of questions. I.e. question in Ukrainian — Ukrainian tags, question in English — English tags.
Pros:
- Tags are readable for a user not less than question itself. I.e. if user understand language X hardly, then he won't get upset that tags for questions Q1, Q2, …, Qn (in language X) are in language X — because he, probably, won't read read these question anyway.
- No need to create synonyms.
- This fits OK with keep both policy for identical questions in different languages. I.e. we consider questions in Ukrainian and questions in English to be absolutely separate (non-intersecting) zones.
Cons:
- Complex for users. If a users sees seemingly-appropriate tag (even in another language), he usually chooses it. I am not sure that the tags-language-matches-question-language is intuitive enough. Do some other language sites use such policy?
- What about mixed language questions? I.e. paradigm of two separate zones (Ukrainian and English — each with its own set of tags) is OK only if we assume they don't intersect. But what if they do? E.g. if user starts writing question in Ukrainian, but then realizes that his Ukrainian is not so good and he may be misunderstood — and ends his question explanation in English. Or if a question in language X produces a bilingual discussion within comments/answers.
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That's exactly that i meant! Matured users will need to help newcomers to understand this policy, it is not that hard;) For mixed questions, user can decide which tag is more appropriate or use both.– YolaFeb 8, 2017 at 9:06
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@Yola, sorry that I actually duplicated your answer. (When I started to type your answer was absent, when I finished it was present — but I decided to send mine anyway as we can potentially cover different aspects.) We can join them into one if they're really about the same thing (but I'm too tired now to do this intelligently).– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 11:34
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This wouldn't work. Once you have
noundefined as a synonym forіменник, all tagsnounwill be auto-replaced byіменник. OTOH, what you're suggesting is having tags unlinked. if you didn't set the synonym, everything falls apart, and questions' tags get de-synchronized. Feb 16, 2017 at 0:51 -
@bytebuster, yes. And that's exactly what Yola proposed. Not to create synonyms. Have two separate "namespaces": one for questions in English (with English tags) and one for questions in Ukrainian (with Ukrainian tags).– Sasha ModFeb 16, 2017 at 14:35
IMHO, for the purpose of the better search/unification, tags are probably better to be in English, however question itself may be in any language.
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Actually tag synonyms work for this. You find english tag, click on it and you are redirected to ukrainian tag with list of questions matching it. Synonyms are always correctly accepted by the site.– Artemix ModFeb 9, 2017 at 8:40
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1Sorry, but I think if you go to stackoverflow, you MUST know English to the some extent.– ivan.ukrFeb 11, 2017 at 0:04
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@ipx We are not Stackoverflow, and when we'll receive traffic from Google stackoverflow won't be the main source of users here.– Artemix ModFeb 15, 2017 at 10:09
PLEASE NOTE — I no longer consider this a good idea, but I'll leave it here for reference so it isn't repeated, or it may help someone come up with a better suggestion.
What about another solution:
to make every tag look like "orthography-орфографія" (or "орфографія-orthography" if we decide this way)? I mean not aliases, but a single tag with two translations within it. As word-completion (when choosing tags) works not only from beginning of the tag, but from midpoint to (typing "usa[…]" shows "word-usage" in completion list).
Pros:
- This makes tags to remain somehow-readable for both Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians when viewing an already-created answer (i.e. all aliases are already replaced with primary names).
- No need to create aliases (BTW, only users with more than 1250 reputation and a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag, can suggest tag synonyms).
Cons:
- Tags become longer.
- While such tags a somehow-readable for both categories, they are still less readable (than Ukrainian tags for mostly-Ukrainian-user; than English tags for mostly-English-user; than any tags for bilingual user).
- If we deal with aliases (of other origin) in future, their number will multiply. I.e. assuming orthography=spelling and орфографія=правопис, we'll need "orthography-орфографія", "orthography-правопис", "spelling-орфографія", "spelling-правопис". Or won't we?
- Update: Tag length is limited to 25 characters, this make the whole idea useless.
P.S.: Personally I prefer "<english>-<ukrainian>" variant (over "<ukrainian>-<english>"). Just for aesthetic reasons: our site is formally English (English interface, English meta, etc), then English should go first.
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1It kind of makes sense, since most interfaces provide completion when the user types partial tag names. But it would be visually busy. And the most damning problem is that tag names are limited to 25 characters, which would only allow some very short names. Stack Exchange has never accepted to raise the limit on any site, I suspect that it's more work than setting a parameter in a file somewhere. Feb 8, 2017 at 0:56
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@Gilles, thanks, I didn't know about 25 characters, it surely makes this idea useless.– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 1:09
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I love the
orthography-орфографіяidea. And <s>640kb</s> 25 characters Is Enough For Anyone. Being an I.T. guy, I'd suggest: let's start using it practically first. As soon as we prove the viability of the whole idea (on the shorter tags likenouns-іменникиand staying with synonyms for the longer ones), only then we can ask SE developers for further help. Make sense? Feb 8, 2017 at 4:29 -
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I think such tags too long for stackexchange interface, but the main problem is that i want to follow only ukrainian language questions, i will not be able to do it with such tag system or i will need to use a specific tag for a question's language, which seems wrong to me.– YolaFeb 8, 2017 at 6:06
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@Yola, sorry, don't understand your second argument. Do you suppose the language of tags to correspond the language of question?– Sasha ModFeb 8, 2017 at 6:19
There are only two allowed languages on this site English and Ukrainian.
As a user I would like to be able to track question in specific language. I may just not know another language.
So, I think tags terminology and термінологія should be considered as different ones. That's not to hard to follow both if you want, but if you want only one language then question in another language will just obstruct.
As a workaround we could just add two tags to label language, like english українська, but this will reduce number of allowed real tags to 4 per question, and as this two tags will be most used and that's will break stackexchange system which proposes similar questions. To summarize, i think tags such tags is abuse of SE tag system.
