Should we avoid manufacturer prefixes in tags in general?

Question

This is a bit related to the question about prefixing tag names for equipment with manufacturer's name.

For example, currently we have such tags: cisco-nexus-1000v, cisco-ios-15, cisco-catalyst, cisco-asa and many more, already for this single manufacturer.

Should using the manufacturer name as prefix in tags be our best practice? Or should we better omit the manufacturer if the tag is expressive enough without it?

Answer 1

If this practice of prefixing with the manufacurer name would continue, we might soon have hundreds of tags starting with cisco, since there are a lot of technologies and model series of this manufacturer. Staying with this example:

• Adding a cisco tag would look very redundant.
• Not adding the cisco tag would make searching for cisco harder - I would combine searches with a manufacturer tag, when I prefer its technology, not test out all possibly prefixed tags.

So I suggest, we should rename those tags, at least don't create more such prefixed tags

• A series or a technology is often expressive enough, perhaps proprietary or even trademarked, so there could be no confusion.
• Even a tag which could be related to different manufactured would not be harmful but good, since more tech related and not bound to a manufacturer.
• We could add the (then) not redundant manufacturer tag to such questions, which is great for filtering.

To clarify, I mean questions about general topics, such as technology and series. A number-only tag such as 2812 or 5520 isn't nice either and might benefit from the prefix. However, this leads to the question if model numbers are beneficial as tags, or more specifically if closely model related questions would be on topic at all.

I don't mean immediate action on existing questions. Just to discuss how to proceed, as early as possible.

Answer 2

Having the MANUFAC- prefix on tags has benefits:

cisco-asa is clear and meaningful stand-alone. It also provides some context to alphabet soup; cisco-isr-g2 hints at cisco hardware while 'isr-g2' is all-or-nothing based on wether the reader knows what the acronym means.

...and I don't see any real drawbacks:

There's no critical tag string length limit. Tagging stuff cisco and cisco-asa enables people to follow the cisco universe or just ASA stuff. Ditto for the juniper universe. Also, looking at the current popular tags listing, it's not a sea of "cisco-".

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aside: I do agree that we don't want more tags than we need. So I think it should be cisco-nexxus sans the '-1000v' model information; Same with cisco-catalyst -- details about model series and specific model numbers can always be found within individual questions and answers.

Answer 3

I thought that earlier thread concluded that we liked the prefix to avoid collisions between vendors but that we didn't want to go to the level of tags for specific models.

I get that it looks redundant in some cases but as soon as we go to ios instead of cisco-ios we'll get someone with a BYOD question about iPads. I do agree that the cisco-isr is probably sufficient and the extra "-g2" isn't needed. So someone go make a cisco-isr tag and make cisco-isr-g2 a synonym for it.

When tagging questions you can start typing and it will match in mid-tag so it's not like you have to type "cisco-asa", just type "asa" and it will find it for you. The "cisco-" also keeps also the Cisco specific topics conveniently together in the alphabetic tag list and allows folks to follow cisco on cisco-asa as Craig mentioned.

I see more benefits and given the tag synonym feature, which I think will let us have "redundant" tags without cluttering things too badly, I'm really concerned about tag proliferation.