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This question is tagged along with . Now considering that Age of Mythology is a game and it is referred to within the question, should we allow such tags?

Same questions can be asked about books. Should we permit tags for the book(s) that OP mentions in their question?

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What are tags for? They serve two purposes:

  1. To aid in searching
  2. To serve as guidance for brand new users to write good questions

The former is of only marginal use here; since the mythology itself is off topic, there will never be that many questions on the subject that are on topic.

However, the latter is what really concerns me. By having tags for things like this, we actively invite users to ask off topic questions. These are exactly the sort of problematic tags that enraged the ServerFault community about web control panels, and is currently inspiring a major cleanup in Programmers Stack Exchange.

I want to cut the head off of clearly off-topic tags very early on, so they don't become big problems later. Tags about video games and movies are just such tags.

All that being said, I support and actively encourage tags like , , (greek); (arthurian), etc. as long as they are clearly first sources about on topic material.

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    I concur with the point you've made, so I've removed the age-of-mythology tag from all three questions. May 5, 2015 at 23:22
  • @El'endiaStarman - Considering that this is obviously a contentious topic at present with no clear winner, I believe that was a bit premature.
    – Robotnik
    May 6, 2015 at 0:03
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    The tag can always be added back later if need be. There are only three questions related to it, so that's not a big deal. May 6, 2015 at 0:13
  • @Robotnik I agree with El. Nearly every action on SE can be undone, so it's not a big deal.
    – user93
    May 7, 2015 at 1:22
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Using a tag for a movie/game that came out recently sounds like a bad idea, because the game/movie just provides context to where the question came from.

The essence of the question is about something from a specific mythology (in your example question it's about the Greek mythology. The question could've just as easily came up without the game.

An example question from Arqade where a similar thing happens. It's a question asking what game is shown on a screenshot. Said screenshot happens to be from the movie Kick-Ass. The game is not tagged though, only . The latter is the core issue, the former is just context about where the question originated from.

The same goes for the questions here, the core issue of the question is , is just where the question came from. The source is not important for the tagging of the question.

Having a source for where a question came from is good, that might help in finding out why the question was asked, but isn't needed for being able to answer it.

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    I find your example less-than-convincing. If I could tag that question with the name of the game, I would probably not need to ask to identify the game! If I have a question about Age of Mythology, that is related to Greek mythology, I don't see why the question could not be grouped under both tags. If I look at the Arqade tags the top 5 of most used tags are actually specific games.
    – oerkelens
    Apr 30, 2015 at 13:16
  • That question would indeed be useless if you already know the name of the game (which is some Call of Duty version according to the answer), I'm talking about how the name of the movie that spawned the question shouldn't be a tag. Your hypothetical question about the game related to the mythology should be off-topic, because it is not about mythology in the first place (but that's a completely different discussion worthy of it's own question).
    – Arperum
    Apr 30, 2015 at 13:21
  • @oerkelens They do indeed require a tag specifying a game if you are asking about a specific game, because that's what your question is about, just as Mythology should require you to specify which specific mythology you are talking about. For example: greek, norse, roman,...
    – Arperum
    Apr 30, 2015 at 13:23
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    So do you consider the question linked by the OP to be off-topic then? The question is about a Greek mythological reference for an in-game occurrence. I'd say it is both a question about the game, and about (greek) mythology, and I do not consider it off-topic...
    – oerkelens
    Apr 30, 2015 at 13:26
  • No, that question perfectly on topic, it is purely about the mythology, the information about the game isn't needed for the question, that just adds a personal touch and a reason why it was asked.
    – Arperum
    Apr 30, 2015 at 14:13
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If the mythology question is about a game it belongs in the Gaming SE. If it's about pure mythology (not in movies, games, or magazines,) then it belongs here.

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    The question is not about whats on-topic and what off. The question is concerned with creation of tags for media. In this case, a game. May 5, 2015 at 13:28
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If I would watch a movie in which mythology plays a(n important) role, and if I would be wondering about the mythological accuracy of the storyline or of plot elements in the movie, I would certainly use a site called mythology.stackexchange to look for answers.

So I think that questions involving recent media, be it games, books or movies, are on-topic, as long as they actually refer to mythology — we do not want to encourage in-depth discussions of fantasy-world realities of WoT or GoT here.

Now, the question is if every book, film or game that raises valid mythology questions should be allowed its own tag...

There are a multitude of such new stories and we risk getting a tag-overflow if every mythology-related book, game or movie gets its own tag, so my initial idea would be to think about one or some tags that encompass all of these.

Maybe a single tag could do the trick?

I do suspect that eventually, when a new movie like Troy or a game like Age of Mythology comes out, users will try to create tags for those, and I'm not sure it's always a bad idea to try and avoid them altogether. After all, we want people to find those questions when they want to know if Troy was mythologically accurate. But that would be a question of keeping up-to-date with current affairs, I guess.

To avoid a becoming too broad a catch-all for too many different subjects, we could allow seperate tags for popular fiction that we expect to attract multiple questions. So a movie like Troy, especially when it is new, would deserve its own tag, but an obscure translation of a privately published short story loosely based on a mythological theme does not.

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  • Although the idea of a tag for one group eg. modern-fiction sounds interesting, (IMO) I don't think it will benefit much. Because within that scope, numerous/endless variations will be present. Apr 30, 2015 at 8:25
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    True, a single tag would likely function as a (very) broad catch-all. I made a small addition to add soem nuance.
    – oerkelens
    Apr 30, 2015 at 8:29
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    Umm .. I think there's a problem on another level. Most of the modern works are often named after elements of a respective (in this case) culture. So creating a tag like Troy could become confusing, considering that it is a well known city and now, also a movie. We cant allow the works and elements to be intertwined,and hence making a mess :/ Apr 30, 2015 at 8:43
  • In case of such confusion, an additional tag movies and/or games would help. Tagged Troy and movies should help. Or, as a last resort, movies-Troy, but I don't really like tthe feel of that.
    – oerkelens
    Apr 30, 2015 at 8:46
  • I think movies or games is a good idea. But I reckon the media will be mentioned in the question. So the tag wont contribute much (I think). Hmm .. let's see what the others have to say about it. Apr 30, 2015 at 8:50
  • I don't see the advantage of a specific one (e.g. to a specific game) but I like the idea of classifying modern adaptations and inspirations - somehow...
    – Luna
    Apr 30, 2015 at 13:03
  • @Luna The classification using a single tag eg. modern-fiction would help to group the questions. But I don't think we have to give importance to a recent work (which is already mentioned in Q) or the category it falls in. Because modern fiction alters from author to author. The single tag would be misleading, by somehow relating that modern-fiction Qs are very similar (while they're not) May 3, 2015 at 5:48
  • Perhaps adaptation would be better than assuming an arbitrary time period like "modern"? Though that might bring up an issue raised in another meta Q...
    – Ixrec
    May 4, 2015 at 23:28
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    @Ixrec et al - those tags are all very meta - they describe the question moreso than it's content. They're also not very useful in grouping or filtering the questions at all. Considering that a lot of SE sites are moving away from meta tags I'd hesitate to start by creating them here. Whereas tags like the AoM tag are specific, useful in searching & filtering, and describe & group the content well.
    – Robotnik
    May 5, 2015 at 13:54
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(Heavily Edited)

OP of the question in question here.

Are questions about a particular interpretative work worth grouping together?

Yes, I believe so. I added the tag for Age of Mythology (AoM) because I believe that questions about a particular fictional work (in this case a game) that derives from mythology should logically be grouped together. This would apply equally for movies/TV and even books that interpret and pull from the ancient lore of various cultures.

I feel a lot of our questions ARE going to be coming from interpretations written in books & portrayed in movies, and I don't consider AoM any different based on its medium (video game).

Where should we draw the line in regards to tagging? I think it's way too broad to have medium tags like or and a little bit too meta to have tags like or .


The thing with tags is to remember that their use is tied to searching and grouping of like questions together. Someone is more likely to browse and favorite questions regarding than they are or , or .

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  • I'm not saying that you should remove the source from the question, I'm just saying to remove it from the tags.
    – Arperum
    May 5, 2015 at 7:56
  • @Arperum - I may have had a few too many when I originally wrote this and forgot all about it. I have cleaned it up and tried to make my point clearer.
    – Robotnik
    May 5, 2015 at 8:31

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