Okay, let's say we have a tag. I'll call it heat.

Heat can mean:

• in heat
• heat (temperature)
• heat (magazine)

(similar tags: lyra* and bonbon*)

Many of you have probably come across a tag like this. Usually the names get changed around, aliased, or sometimes just invalidated in order to prevent mixups. However in cases like these, there really isn’t one clear answer what to do, so the common tag serves as the dump pile for "to-be-sorted" tags. Some of us keep a few of these tags stashed aside for when we are in the mood to sort them into their proper bucket.

Okay, but what’s the issue with this?

• They have to be kept track of manually.
• Many just get forgotten about. Some of them become a tagging project (such as grip).
• There is no quick (obvious) way to know whether a particular tag is problematic.

What do you have in mind?

• Alias: heat -> heat_(disambiguation)
• Alias: bonbon -> bonbon_(disambiguation)
• Alias: lyra -> lyra_(disambiguation)

Why would we do this?

• It’s extremely easy to gather and retag all of these with a simple *_(disambiguation) search.
• It can serve as the first obvious place to look for a disambiguation page
• The tag looks like it needs to be changed from the moment someone uses it.

What are your thoughts on this?

This... could actually work. +1

I like the idea. A lot :D

I like the idea, but the only thing I can think of is the cluster of aliases may be something problematic. I wonder if having a specific tag type and colour for disambiguation tags could work better, though that seems like a whole lot of effort.

Alija_Izetbegović said:
I like the idea, but the only thing I can think of is the cluster of aliases may be something problematic. I wonder if having a specific tag type and colour for disambiguation tags could work better, though that seems like a whole lot of effort.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "cluster of aliases", can you describe more about this?

This seems like a very good idea.

parasprite said:
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "cluster of aliases", can you describe more about this?

The disambiguation page for color, for example, would end up having so many different colors--and what parts it could be referring to--attached to it.

Furrin_Gok said:
The disambiguation page for color, for example, would end up having so many different colors--and what parts it could be referring to--attached to it.

That makes sense. I never intended on this covering color, but blue_(disambiguation) would definitely have a lot less on the page than color, that's for sure. Even if it would still be rather unhelpful in practice.

parasprite said:
That makes sense. I never intended on this covering color, but blue_(disambiguation) would definitely have a lot less on the page than color, that's for sure. Even if it would still be rather unhelpful in practice.

Colors already have disambiguation tag which is calles invalid_color.

Granberia said:
Colors already have disambiguation tag which is calles invalid_color.

If everything was listed out as individual tags I mean. I forgot about Invalid_color and was just thinking about invalid_tag (I need coffee).

Yeah. I like this idea, and I think it's a good one. I approved the boa to --> boa_(disambiguation) alias so that we can see if it works as well in practice as it does in theory before doing too many of them. That way we can work out any potential problems before trying to implement it on a bigger scale.

Also, it is somewhat similar to both invalid_color and invalid_background. Both of which function fairly well for catching invalid uses of a set of tags, while providing more of a clue about what tag needed correcting. The truth is invalid_tag worked better when it was much smaller. Currently it's almost impossible to guess what tag went wrong and how to fix it. Something like this disambiguation idea might be a better solution for some of them as the site continues to grow, since it makes it easier to get the correct tag added eventually while still preventing the wrong tag from being used. It could be genius even. But we'll have to see how well it works before we can be sure.