Revamping tags 2020

Question

Given the recent concerns raised about misuse of tags and incoherent naming of addons this is a tentative proposal to generally improve tag names in Blender Stack Exchange, and bring about some order and categorization.

The underlying idea is to rename existing tags and add either common prefixes or suffixes so related terms are aggregated and grouped together.

These add missing structure by providing semantics, so similar tags look related, they would visually appear more alike, and users will see suggested related terms in the autocomplete popup when typing some tags.

Some concerns have been raised about readability and whether we should use prefixes or suffixes.

Prefixes have the advantage of affecting sorting order, also when listing stuff together having a common first part makes them look visually related, sort together and easier to follow; where suffixes don't.

The tag search engine does supports fuzzy searching and non-contiguous matches however, so it shouldn't have a severe effect. I don't have a strong opinion here both would work fine.

I'd rather have shorter, rather than longer tag names, but I feel the added structure is worth the trade-off.

Pros:

• Semantic relationship between tags
• Similar tags are grouped together
• Hopefully reduces misuse of ambiguous tags like blender-render
• Increased chance users find appropriate tags

Cons:

• Longer tags names
• Potentially worse readability
• Some added maintenance work
• Dubious real benefit to users

Render Engines

All render engine related tags should receive a render-engine prefix

• render-engine-blender-internal synonym render-engine-blender-render (should reduce misuse of tag)
• render-engine-cycles
• render-engine-eevee
• render-engine-workbench
• render-engine-luxrender
• render-engine-renderman
• ...

Addons

Addons would receive similar treatment. Tagging a question add-on would make all specific addons pop up in suggestions, increasing the likelyhood of users finding the correct tags. For brevity I'd stick to "addon" rather than the official "add-on".

• addon-animation-nodes
• addon-spaling-tree-gen
• addon-sverchok
• addon-blend4web
• addon-node-wrangler
• ...

We could later expand to more areas like modifiers or nodes if we deem necessary

• modifier-data-transfer
• modifier-mesh-cache
• modifier-mesh-sequence-cache
• modifier-normal-edit
• modifier-uv-project
• modifier-uv-warp
• modifier-vertex-weight-edit
• modifier-vertex-weight-mix
• modifier-vertex-weight-proximity

• modifier-weighted-normal

• modifier-array

• modifier-bevel
• modifier-boolean
• modifier-build
• modifier-decimate
• modifier-edge-split
• modifier-mask
• modifier-mirror
• modifier-multiresolution
• modifier-remesh
• modifier-screw
• modifier-skin
• modifier-solidify
• modifier-subdivision-surface
• modifier-triangulate
• modifier-weld

• modifier-wireframe

• modifier-armature

• modifier-cast
• modifier-corrective-smooth
• modifier-curve
• modifier-displace
• modifier-hook
• modifier-laplacian-smooth
• modifier-laplacian-deform
• modifier-lattice
• modifier-mesh-deform
• modifier-shrinkwrap
• modifier-simple-deform
• modifier-smooth
• modifier-surface-deform
• modifier-warp

• modifier-wave

• modifier-explode

• modifier-ocean
• modifier-particle-instance

What do you guys think, is this worth the trouble? Any better naming schemes or different ideas?

Answer 1

Render Engines:

The renaming of the render engine tags is mainly related to reducing the misuse of the rather generically named blender-render tag. Whether all the other render engine tags need renaming because of this, I don't know. I'm certainly not against having all the tags be consistent, but if there's no ambiguity with the other tags, then maybe they don't need renaming and only the blender-render tag needs to be looked at (whether that's adding 'render-engine' to the tag or something else). I think this is my general opinion of the other tag categories as well.

Add-ons:

Again, I am pro-consistency, but at the minute it's only the sapling-addon that is the odd one out of the add-on tags and most of the add-on names are unique enough that they are not being confused with other tags very often. Maybe it will become an issue if there are more generically named add-ons in future.

(If we do go ahead of this I'm still not particularly convinced that it's worth saving a single character by omitting the '-' from 'add-ons', but I don't ultimately mind.)

Modifiers:

There is a lack of consistency here. For example, some tags have modifier in the name (screw-modifier and build-modifier) and some don't. 'build' would certainly be ambiguous without 'modifier' in the name. I actually think this makes the modifier tags the best use case for being consistently renamed.

However, there are some tags which relate to more than just the modifier, e.g. the mirror tag relates to all types of mirroring, not just the modifier. Same with bevel. In these instances will there be a mirror tag in addition to a mirror-modifier tag?

Prefixes vs Suffixes

I still don't understand the advantages you have put forward for prefixes vs the disadvantage of readability. What are the actual usage examples of prefixes helping with sorting order? What example of using the site will lead to it being useful to have tags listed together? I get that prefixes do make tags look visually related and it would make similar tags be sorted together, and it certainly looks neat, but when specifically will this be useful?

TLDR

To sum up, I think:

• Modifiers are the best use-case for having a suffix and it is less necessary for other tags. Other categories just need the odd tag fixed.
• Tags in a specific category should be consistent. If some tags in a specific category have a suffix, they all should.
• We should have suffixes as opposed to prefixes if it is decided tags need them.