The French Stack Exchange site has a nice tag anglais to mark questions that refer to the English language (such as “how do you translate this English phrase?”). It also has other tags for German, Italian etc.
I think this is something people might want to follow. For example, a German speaker might want to follow the German questions and jump in when a question is asked about a German expression.
Should we create these tags and then retrospectively add them to all of the appropriate questions?
There is no need for a tag, in this case. As long as the language is specified in the title, the search engine is able to find all the questions referring a language in the title. For example, I can find all the questions containing Esperanto in the title.
I like this idea. Such tags can add useful information to questions.
Let's see how such a tag (say, german) would fare w.r.t. the criteria for burnination:
- Does it describe the contents of the questions to which it is applied? and is it unambiguous?
- Is the concept described even on-topic for the site?
- Does the tag add any meaningful information to the post?
- Does it mean the same thing in all common contexts?
Let's look at them one by one:
- Does it describe the contents of the questions to which it is applied?
Well, this depends on how we use these language tags.
Should one use german only for questions that refer to the German language? Or should one use it also to tag questions that have been asked in German but don't refer to the German language in their content? (Questions like that might be rare, as a question in German will probably ask how to translate something from or to German or compare German grammar to the Esperanto grammar. But as German-language questions that aren't in any way about German are conceivable, the tag definition should be clear whether this tag should also be used for those.)
and is it unambiguous?
If it's only for questions that (in whatever way) refer to the German language context-wise, then yes.
If we allow the tag also for questions in German, even when they aren't about German, then the uniqueness of the meaning maybe wouldn't be warranted anymore, or would at least be questionable.
- Is the concept described even on-topic for the site?
The German language in and of itself is off-topic. There's German Language Beta Stack Exchange for that.
But the German language in its relation to Esperanto (translations in either direction, comparisons of grammar, vocabulary, accompanying culture and what-have-you between German and Esperanto) are in my opinion clearly on-topic and that's how I'd understand such a tag.
- Does the tag add any meaningful information to the post?
I do think so, yes.
- Does it mean the same thing in all common contexts?
That depends on our answer to questions 1. If we limit it to questions asking about German (whether in German or not), I'd say yes, it does mean the same in all common contexts.
To be considered for burnination, a tag would have to fail all of these tests. If we define it right, german (or any other such language tag) seems to pass all of them, so I conclude that it can't be a too terrible tag and will probably be useful.
Another "litmus test" that I remember to be often cited for tags is
Can someone be an expert in <tag>?
One certainly can be an expert in German. In German, there's even a name for such experts: Germanistin or Germanist. (And expert in (the studies of) the English language would be called Anglizistin or Anglizist.)
But let's make that a bit more specific:
Can someone be an expert in <tag> w.r.t. <site topic>?
I'd say one can be an expert in German w.r.t. Esperanto. And such an expert might indeed want to favorite the german tag on Esperanto Language Stack Exchange.
