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In the last day, I have saw a minor spread of edits suggestions that only add a version tag.

As far as I know, many of such questions are NOT version specific, still it seems that I am the only one that actually rejects such edits.

To quote Jeff:

The danger of version tags is that they become de-facto requirements -- crutches to avoid thinking about what tags are actually useful on a question. Left unchecked, version tags will poison your tagging system rendering it useless. Don't get me wrong: version tags can exist, but should only be used on posts that are truly specific to a particular version.

Note: this could be considered a duplicate of my old post - Again about version specific tag. Still, since we are on meta, please don't mark as duplicate/close. I feel that this question need some visibility - seems that many power user still don't get how the version tag should be used. Please, spread the word.

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  • In my opinion questions with the same topic and more than three months apart are not duplicates. It's part of an overall discussion in time regarding our community progress. So I entourage the reuse of old topics since new uses come and old uses go all the time, which may very well change policy from one quarter to another.
    – Benny Skogberg Mod
    Jan 12, 2014 at 7:45
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    Added the feature tag, since this is an important topic on policy.
    – Benny Skogberg Mod
    Jan 12, 2014 at 7:47
  • I always post which version I'm using to give more info about the setup I have but it hadn't occured to me before that maybe many of my questions aren't version specific
    – Enilorac
    Jan 13, 2014 at 15:24
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    I rejected a few of these and referred to this in my reason: meta.sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/142/…
    – RJ Cuthbertson
    Jan 14, 2014 at 18:00
  • just edited this. The original user should be able to see the edit comment, hope he sees the difference.
    – SPArcheon
    Jan 15, 2014 at 11:56

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I will reject version tag edits if they are the only edit and if they are something that is truely not version specific.

Examples -

Editing a post to include 2013 tag on a minimal download question. Approved.

Editing a post to include 2013 tag on a claims question. Rejected.

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  • Same policy here, if clearly targeted to new features in 2013: keep, else remove. Harder to draw the line on for example questions regarding client object model or the API:s since some has gone through major changes between versions.
    – Robert Lindgren
    Jan 9, 2014 at 19:03
  • yep, I am on the same wave length too.. Still, seems many users just accept the edit whenever the question text contains the same version number. If it was something limited to new user I would understand, but I saw some 4k+ reviewers doing the same.
    – SPArcheon
    Jan 10, 2014 at 8:22
  • I am wondering if it is caused by a "I don't care what I review, just give my counter +1" mentality or if many people still don't know how to use version tags. Could we make somehow a little banner "Are you sure this is version specific" appear somewhere when someone use a version tag or reviews an edit that introduces one??
    – SPArcheon
    Jan 10, 2014 at 8:24
  • @SPArchaeologist I think it is a that people do not know how to use those tag, heck it isn't supereasy if you are new here :)
    – Robert Lindgren
    Jan 10, 2014 at 14:45
  • @RobertLindgren - Yep, but that is the first line in the tag description. I think the real problem is that many new users, hoping to get that +2rep will just search for questions containing a year that do not include a version tag and then bulk edit them. We need a way to 1) encourage rejecting those edits, 2) discourage those edits before they are made.
    – SPArcheon
    Jan 13, 2014 at 8:06
  • I'm actually ok with that. The users are participating in the site and building rep to be able to comment and whatnot. I seem to recall that is how I got started nearly 20k rep ago.
    – Eric Alexander
    Jan 13, 2014 at 15:26
  • I'm rep farming by removing unnecessary version specific tags, so approve all the 'add tag' edits you want :)
    – Nicole
    Jan 15, 2014 at 0:57
  • @Nicole - consider it done. BTW, the face in your avatar... random image or does it refer to a specific char? Remember me of MKR
    – SPArcheon
    Jan 15, 2014 at 9:53
  • @SPArchaeologist - It's Kyuubei (QB) from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
    – Nicole
    Jan 15, 2014 at 18:19
  • @Nicole - remembered me of Mokona.
    – SPArcheon
    Jan 16, 2014 at 8:39
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Thank you for readdressing this. Version tags wouldn't be a problem if users know that tags are for specific items. They use the tags to post more info about the environment they are using. Since there is no ideal and obvious way of posting the version, tags seem like the way to go for a new user. It would even go up to the point of putting a "Windows Server 2012" tag because the version of SharePoint they are using is on that OS. Doesn't make sense right?

I DO believe in posting more info about the environment/version they are using, and since the tags are so tempting to use, users don't think there is any reason not to. I will say that so many answers will be different depending on the type of environment they are using. For example, lets say we have a question about coding user profile properties, an answer from 2007 code(VS extensions) to 2010 code (often server-side code) and even 2013 (CSOM is best practice), all differ in answer breadth.

Something in the question-posting form needs to address this.

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