I recently encountered a difference of opinion with regards to how the `Usage guidance (excerpt)` section of the [Tag Wikis][1] should be used. So I was advised to consult the community to discuss, and hopefully, to resolve the issue.
We need to decide how to use this `Usage guidance (excerpt)` section in order to move forward and create consistent, professional-looking [tags pages][2]. At the moment there seems to be some confusion as to what it is meant to be used for.
**This is what we are discussing:**
[![Image of Tag Wiki page][3]][3]
<sup>*Image showing the `Usage guidance (excerpt)` section on the [Tag Wiki edit page][4]*</sup>
You would have seen these excerpts beneath the tags on the tags page, when hovering over tags and when adding tags to a question.
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##The Different Uses
*-Remember that we are part of a larger community and we have guides in-place and expectations to uphold. Your answer should reflect your interpretation of those guides and expectations.
I know it's a big post, but please try to read the whole thing before replying.*
**Should the** `Usage guidance (excerpt)` **section be used for;**
**A -** A short explanation of the concept to which the tag is referring.
i.e. our *current* `microphone` tag's `Usage guidance (excerpt)`:
> a device that converts a physical vibration (such as sound) into an
> electrical signal, that can be stored and/or processed
or
**B -** A short guide on usage of the tag in our community (plus a short explanation (equal to *'A'*) for *specialized tags*)
i.e. A *proposed* `Usage guidance (excerpt)` for the `microphone` tag:
> Indicates the question is directly or indirectly related to microphone
> usage, technique, issues and general advice. If it's possible, a more
> refined tag should also be added e.g. "microphone-technique",
> "microphone-stand" etc. "Do you like using the SM58?" or "What's your
> favorite mic?" are both Off-Topic. "Which mic do I need to capture low
> energy sounds?" is On-Topic.
**These are just two examples to apprise you of the two uses that are available.** ***'A'*** simply explains the concept, *any concept* to which the tag refers,
while ***'B'*** gives usage guidance for the tag and if the tag is *specialized*<sup>*(see bottom)*</sup>, a brief explanation too.
In case you aren't sure what is mean't by ***"usage guidance"***, It means *how the tag should be used in our community*, what is the *scope* of the tag? It's basically a guide to anybody thinking of using the tag, but it also tells users what the tag name means to *our community* in particular.
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##What Do the Help Guides Tell Us?
I have scrolled the help guides on this subject and have found some very useful guidance on the matter.
This is how the help is worded on the [actual edit page][4](above image):
> "What Are Tag Wikis?
>
> The usage guidance, or tag wiki excerpt, is a short blurb that
> describes when and why a tag should be used on this site specifically.
>
> The full tag wiki is a detailed introduction to the topic, suitable as
> a destination for those curious about it: ...
While scouting around, I found a blog which is actually linked in the help dialogue above. It's a blog called ["Redesigned Tags Page" By Jeff Atwood, Co-Founder (Emeritus)][5] and it seems to be the de-facto guide according to a few tag-related answers I have read on [Meta.SE][6]. I recommend you read this, but here are a few direct quotes;
> "The excerpt should define the shared quality of questions containing
> this tag — boiled down to a few short sentences."
>
> "**Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is
> highly specialized.** The “email” tag, for example, does not need to
> explain what email is. I think we can safely assume most internet
> users know what email is; there’s no value in a boilerplate
> explanation of email to anyone."
> "...if the tag is common knowledge — that is, if you walked up to any
> random person on the street and said the tag word to them, and they
> would know what you were talking about — then don’t bother explaining
> the tag at all. Stick to usage of the tag within your community in the
> excerpt."
>
>Jeff Atwood, Co-Founder (Emeritus)
From this it seems we should declare the usage for the tag only, unless the tag refers to something *"highly specialized"*, in which case a small explanation is suggested along with usage guidance.
_________________________________
##Other SE communities
For those of you who would like to see what other communities are doing, rather than interpreting the SE guides alone, I've looked into a few of them.
As the `email` tag is mentioned in that blog, I thought the real email tag would be relevant here.
So I checked on the 'mother site', [Stack Overflow][7] and on [Server Fault][8] too to see how they use the `Usage guidance (excerpt)` section.
[**SO - `email` tag:**][9]
> Email is a method of exchanging digital messages from a sender to one
> or more recipients. Posting to ask why the emails you send are marked
> as spam is off topic for StackOverflow
[**SF - `email` tag:**][10]
> The server configuration of email, including POP3, SMTP, IMAP, and
> popular server software packages that control email.
So SO appears to have done one of the things the blog said not to do, which was to explain a boilerplate explanation of what 'email' is, but they do also include question advice relating to the tag.
While SF on the other hand has explained in a short sentence what the email tag means to their community, listing the *server* protocols with regards to email, giving users a defined scope on which to base their use of the tag.
So I continued my common tag search on other popular SE sites and found that most `Usage guidance (excerpt)` dialogue starts with "use for" or words of a similar meaning:
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/tags
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/tags
https://android.stackexchange.com/tags
https://lifehacks.stackexchange.com/tags
https://parenting.stackexchange.com/tags
https://communitybuilding.stackexchange.com/tags
https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/tags
But there are communities who seem to use it as SO does:
https://photo.stackexchange.com/tags
https://video.stackexchange.com/tags
https://communitybuilding.stackexchange.com/tags
https://security.stackexchange.com/tags
Could it be, however, that these sites simply have more specialized tags that need explanation? *Take a look and see what you think.*
Strangely, our friends over in Video Production seem to explain not only specialized concepts, but *every* concept... even `video`:
> Video is the technology of electronically manipulating still images
> that represent motion.
__________________________
##Specialized Tag
I suppose one of the bigger questions here is *what constitutes a specialized tag?* Well, to make things easier, we will define a specialized tag as [Jeff Atwood's blog][5] does;
> **Specialized tag:**
> *"If you walked up to any random person on the street and said the tag word to them, and they would know what you were talking about"* [then the tag is **not** specialized]
_______________________
So I put it to *you*, fellow members, to help make this decision. We need to have a full understanding within the community of what the tag wiki `Usage Guidance (excerpt)` is for, so we can have professional, consistent tag pages.
[1]: https://sound.stackexchange.com/tags/microphone/info
[2]: https://sound.stackexchange.com/tags
[3]: https://i.sstatic.net/i4Wu4.png "Click to enlarge"
[4]: https://sound.stackexchange.com/edit-tag-wiki/416
[5]: https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/03/24/redesigned-tags-page/
[6]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/
[7]: https://stackoverflow.com/tags
[8]: https://serverfault.com/tags
[9]: https://stackoverflow.com/tags/email/info
[10]: https://serverfault.com/tags/email/info