What's the policy on tags for specific versions of a piece of software? For example, the php tag has the most use, but php4 and php5 are also being used, and there's even php5.3. Should any of these be synonymed or deleted?
2 Answers
We kind of go back and forth on it, but version numbers do matter in some cases. This does lead to things being tagged multiply when they don't need to be. Witness all the questions tagged:
It matters, as I imagine it matters somewhat for things like php.
It's one of those battles where the nuance of where to use a version number and where the Community doesn't think they're needed is hard to express.
Where it falls down is minor point-revs. THAT we don't need.
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I'm not a PHP person so can't tell if there is enough different between 5.3 and 5.4 to merit different tags. Generally we don't need it, but there are exceptions.– sysadmin1138 ModCommented May 12, 2012 at 20:58
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It's worth noting that, especially in the case of PHP, that minor points can at times be critical. Commented May 14, 2012 at 3:16
There are questions which are very much version dependent and there are questions which apply to all versions. It follows therefore that the tags you referenced should all exist. This is no different to operating system tags. e.g. I may use the generic windows
tag on one questions and a version specific one elsewhere, depending entirely on context.