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Well, I did. Because the tag was an awful mess, and is a poor tag to begin with. Related to this thread, of course.

Well, I did. Because the tag was an awful mess, and is a poor tag to begin with. Related to this thread, of course.

And awful tags is where I encountered hpsa. When I came across it for the first time, it was being used to mean 4 distinct things, so it was too ambiguous a topic, and it had around 20 questions in it, so each usage of the tag was too specific to be useful, with a handful of questions or so each. The four different things it was being used to mean were: hpsa, the Linux driver, hpsa the RAID controller (HP Smart Array, I guess), hpsa the HP Server Automation tool and hpsa, the HP Support Assistant (which looks like it's some web script/applet to help end-consumers navigate the abomination HP calls a website). The one thing those four distinct meaning had in common was hp, so that's what the mess got pushed into, in the interests of eliminating a bad category that was doing more harm than good (to the site in general). When I saw it again today, I didn't see one either, not withstanding the fact that you did create one, so I smacked it again, working on the assumption .

And awful tags is where I encountered hpsa. When I came across it for the first time, it was being used to mean 4 distinct things, so it was too ambiguous a topic, and it had around 20 questions in it, so each usage of the tag was too specific to be useful, with a handful of questions or so each. The four different things it was being used to mean were: hpsa, the Linux driver, hpsa the RAID controller (HP Smart Array, I guess), hpsa the HP Server Automation tool and hpsa, the HP Support Assistant (which looks like it's some web script/applet to help end-consumers navigate the abomination HP calls a website). The one thing those four distinct meaning had in common was hp, so that's what the mess got pushed into, in the interests of eliminating a bad category that was doing more harm than good (to the site in general). When I saw it again today, I didn't see one either, not withstanding the fact that you did create one, so I smacked it again, working on the assumption the connectivity glitches of the time had resurrected it, or saved it from my mighty modhammer, or whatever.

Think of the whole thing like putting physical items in boxes, if it helps. If you're organizing something in the physical world (the junk in your house, your desk, your office, whatever) and you use too many boxes to put things in, you don't really help organization, because instead of an unorganized pile of things, you have an unorganized pile of boxes that split things into groups that are too small to be meaningful or useful. On the other hand, if you use too few boxes, you also don't help organization, because instead of one pile of things, you have a bunch of piles of thing with categories that are too big to be be really useful.

So, the key to tagging, as in organizing, labeling, categorizing, etc. is moderation. You need to make your categories big enough to be useful in the task of collecting similar things, and small enough that you're not just grouping dissimilar things into bigger piles. For the purposes of a website, you could probably think of them as topic of conversation. Is cut (the *nix utility) really a category/topic/that's going to be useful to anyone on a generalist sysadmin site? What about data? What about copy? How about http-status-code-408? And yes, these are all real tags that existed as of whenever the hell I got into work this morning. And those aren't even the worst of it.

And awful tags is where hpsa comes in. When I came across it for the first time, it had between 20 and 30 questions, meaning it was probably too small/narrow a topic, and it was being used to mean 4 distinct things, meaning it was too ambiguous a topic. The four different things it was being used to mean were: hpsa, the Linux driver, hpsa the RAID controller (HP Smart Array, I guess), hpsa the HP Server Automation tool and hpsa, the HP Support Assistant (which looks like it's some web script/applet to help end-consumers navigate the abomination HP calls a website). The one thing those four distinct meaning had in common was hp, so that's what the mess got pushed into, in the interests of eliminating a bad category that was doing more harm than good (to the site in general). It had no wiki article or excerpt to explain what it was (and when I swatted it again today, it had no wiki article, or edits pending approval, despite having been around for over 20 minutes), so I smacked it again.

And, for what it's worth, I don't really think that HP Server Automation tool is a big enough topic to be useful as a tag. Looking at the documentation for it, I just don't see that it has any real depth, so not useful as a category. However, if you still really want it after considering this post (tags are site-wide categories for every visitor, not personal bookmarks), I will give it a chance, provided you do the following: (And this applies to all tags, really)

Do that, and I'll be happy to leave it alone, at least for a few months, while I concern myself with all the low-hanging fruit that's out there in terms of poor tags and tagging.

Think of the whole thing like putting physical items in boxes, if it helps. If you're organizing something in the physical world (the junk in your house, your desk, your office, whatever) and you use too many boxes to put things in, you don't really help organization, because instead of an unorganized pile of things, you have an unorganized pile of boxes, which is no improvement. On the other hand, if you use too few boxes, you also don't help organization, because instead of one pile of things, you have a bunch of piles of things with categories that are too big to be be really useful.

So, the key to tagging, as in organizing, labeling, categorizing, and most everything else, is striking a proper balance. You need to make your categories big enough that they aren't more specific than is useful, and small enough to be useful for the purpose collecting similar things. For the purposes of a website on IT or systems administration, you could probably think of them as topics of conversation. Is cut (the *nix utility) really a category/topic/that's going to be useful to anyone on a generalist sysadmin site? What about data? What about copy? How about http-status-code-408? And yes, these are all real tags that existed as of whenever the hell I got into work this morning. And those aren't even the worst of it.

And awful tags is where I encountered hpsa. When I came across it for the first time, it was being used to mean 4 distinct things, so it was too ambiguous a topic, and it had around 20 questions in it, so each usage of the tag was too specific to be useful, with a handful of questions or so each. The four different things it was being used to mean were: hpsa, the Linux driver, hpsa the RAID controller (HP Smart Array, I guess), hpsa the HP Server Automation tool and hpsa, the HP Support Assistant (which looks like it's some web script/applet to help end-consumers navigate the abomination HP calls a website). The one thing those four distinct meaning had in common was hp, so that's what the mess got pushed into, in the interests of eliminating a bad category that was doing more harm than good (to the site in general). When I saw it again today, I didn't see one either, not withstanding the fact that you did create one, so I smacked it again, working on the assumption .

And, for what it's worth, as a matter of personal opinion, I don't really think that HP Server Automation software is a big enough topic to be useful as a tag. I don't really see the distinction between a hardware platform and the vendor-supplied tools for administering that platform, in the context of this site. However, if you still really want it after considering this post (tags are site-wide categories for every visitor, not personal bookmarks), I will give it a chance, provided you do the following: (And this applies to all tags, really)

Do that, and I'll be happy to leave it alone, while I concern myself with all the low-hanging fruit that's out there in terms of poor tags and tagging. As of the time of this post, the median tag size is 23 or 24, so there are literally thousands of small tags, most of which have no wikis or even any justification for existing... so as long as you provide a good wiki, an unambiguous name and more than a handful of questions, your tag will survive my foreseeable retagging efforts.