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I've been using SE for years now. As a long-term user, I always try to search for existing questions instead of immediately asking a new one, as is expected.

Now that I'm learning Blender 2.8, I find it very difficult to find questions that are relevant because the majority of relevant answers are for 2.7 and before. As a simple example, when searching vertex weights, the first 5 answers are for the older version before I get a relevant answer for 2.8. However, if I were allowed to specify with a tag: [2.8] vertex weights, I would only get answers for the version I'm looking for. That's the point of having tags, correct? After all, tags are defined as:

"Tags are used to categorize questions so that it's easier to search or browse through all the questions on the website"

I'm not advocating for small incremental tags for every minor release. I'm not asking for tags for 2.8.1, 2.8.2, 2.8.3... that would be cumbersome and inefficient, as mentioned before. However, the difference in the software between pre- and post-2.8 is extensive. The new version is an entire new monster, and the answers that applied to one version no longer apply to the other.

StackExchange allows a distinction between windows-7 and windows-10. Why can't we? I hope the phrase "version tag" doesn't automatically get shut down without consideration. I know this has been discussed before, but these discussions took place before the program experienced such a radical update. As you can see here, the accepted answer of not allowing 2.8 tag has been gradually losing traction now that 2.8 is in its stable release.

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  • $\begingroup$ blender.meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=2.8+tags $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Feb 1 at 0:16
  • $\begingroup$ @DuarteFarrajotaRamos Not sure what the link to those search results is supposed to mean. Out of those 9 results, only 3 are relevant questions on the matter (the rest are answers), and I purposely discussed and linked to each one of those 3 in my question above. To reiterate my concern: "I hope the phrase 'version tag' doesn't automatically get shut down without consideration." $\endgroup$ – Marquizzo Feb 1 at 0:33
  • $\begingroup$ Just pointing out that it has been discussed several times already with no conclusive decision so far, veering towards not having that tag $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Feb 1 at 0:45
  • $\begingroup$ Correction: "the answers that applied to one version sometimes no longer apply to the other". $\endgroup$ – Ray Mairlot Feb 3 at 16:15
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I agree with you, lets do it.

The main arguments I'm aware of against having a version tags are:

Yes, perhaps having the same tag on nearly every question from now until 2.9 releases sometime in 2 or 4 years seems silly, but I think the improved search-ability is worth it. Tags are used for SEO, so there's a good chance it'd benefit outside searchers as well as power users searching on SE.

It may be unrealistic to expect to re-tag all our existing questions overnight, but as we've definitely learned by now, updating every 2.7 specific answer to have a 2.8 section also isn't happening any time soon. Version tagging definitely sounds like more realistic way to handle this kind of transition.

Before we eagerly start creating tags and editing, we should discuss convention once again.

Some ideas:

  • Very short and clean, but leaves room for users to assume there are/should be tags as well. Also not necessarily obvious it is referring to blender's version number.

  • Unambiguously about all versions from 2.70 to 2.79. Fairly clearly a version tag given the context (the description can help) but not totally unambiguous in that respect.

  • Messy and unsightly, but most definitely a version tag.

  • Clearly a blender version tag, but long (considering this tag will likely be added to so many questions and will be sorted first a lot of the time, shortness is probably a virtue worth prioritizing).

Personally I'm inclined to go with but I'd like to have some consensus before charging ahead.

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    $\begingroup$ Here I would like to say that 2.8 would be the best as now most questions are being asked with this version, the largest changes were made with 2.8 and 2.79 is vastly different from 2.8. $\endgroup$ – Yohello 1 Feb 2 at 20:24
  • $\begingroup$ I wonder if using something like 2.8* or 2.8# would help search engines understand the version semantics would cover all 2.81 , 2.82 etc. $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Feb 3 at 17:14
  • $\begingroup$ Is it really helpful to differentiate between 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7? See my answer for further explanation. $\endgroup$ – Ray Mairlot Feb 3 at 17:47
  • $\begingroup$ As @RayMairlot said, I don't think we should go back and start categorizing previous versions with 2.7, 2.6, 2.5, ... that sounds like a burdensome task that nobody would want to take on, and it might change expected search results. I was suggesting a simple 2.8 from now onward to filter out "old" answers. This would give us just two easy categories: [2.8] and [everything else as it always was]. $\endgroup$ – Marquizzo Feb 3 at 19:06
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    $\begingroup$ @Marquizzo I could get behind only having a 2.8 tag (though I still think that will encourage users to create their own tags if they're using other versions of blender) but I would still like to emphasise that there are plenty of pre 2.8 answers that it would be disadvantageous to filter out because they would answer the question. $\endgroup$ – Ray Mairlot Feb 3 at 21:13
  • $\begingroup$ Something like 2.8x or 1.x or 2.82x (for a, b, c) is common parlance for version releases. I would be more comfortable with that, since it follows the standards that everyone else does. $\endgroup$ – AlexanderESmith yesterday
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The purpose of a version tag may be to help with searching, but I think one of the downsides is that this will filter out perfectly good answers. If someone is using 2.6, but doesn't see any results for a specific query with that tag, they may presume their question hasn't been asked and either ask their question or leave the site, but the question may have been asked and answered, but tagged .

Will this help new users or limit them? Will they know that questions tagged and will be just as suitable to them or presume that because there are version tags that there are major differences between those versions? Will we get a mass of duplicate questions because people presume that other questions aren't applicable to them even though they are?

So, ok, we limit the tags to:

  • 2.4 era
  • 2.5 - 2.7 era
  • 2.8+ era

But how do we do that? We either have tags that are unnecessary (2.5, 2.6 and 2.7 will all refer to the same 'era') or... what? A convoluted tag? And as gandalf3 pointed out, how do we make tags unambiguous enough that users aren't constantly making new version tags?

While there are plenty plenty of 2.8 specific questions, there are also plenty that refer to more general topics that have been already answered or answers that contain instructions for 2.79 and 2.8.

I'm not completely against this, but I'm also not entirely convinced that this will be as useful as people think.

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    $\begingroup$ Maybe tag synonyms could be used to enforce only 2.4 , 2.5 and 2.8 tags, though it will still certainly confuse users trying to tag questions $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Feb 3 at 17:13
  • $\begingroup$ @DuarteFarrajotaRamos Synonyms could be the answer, but seeing '2.5' when looking for '2.7' would definitely confuse people. $\endgroup$ – Ray Mairlot Feb 3 at 17:31
  • $\begingroup$ It probably would. We´d have to resort to those "ugly" 2.5-2.61 (I think its when Cycles was introduced) style tags. May be your three categories are enough pre 2.4 era, 2.5 to 2.79 and 2.8* $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Feb 3 at 17:36
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    $\begingroup$ My original thought was to simply allow the 2.8 tag, not to introduce a comprehensive tagging system for previous versions. That way if you search with no version tags as usual, you'll get all results as usual (so as to not change behavior or expectations), but if you specify [2.8], then you'll get more tailored results. Nobody is going to go back and organize thousands of pre-2.8 questions. $\endgroup$ – Marquizzo Feb 3 at 18:55

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