The name "Restler" refers both to a PHP API server and also a REST client library for Node.js. If you look at the list of questions tagged with , you can see that about 80% refer to the PHP server, and about 20% refer to the Node.js library.

I came across this because I was given this suggested tag wiki edit for the tag today. I wanted to post on meta to maybe get the tag split (this SE meta post recommends that the best way to get a tag split up is to post on meta).

A potential idea for names after the split would be and . Anyways, how do I (we?) proceed from here to get the tag split up?


I hit both suggested edits as well, and had the same reaction that you have. It's a bad idea to introduce ambiguity by giving a tag dual meaning. While use of the or tags would serve to disambiguate, the need to do so can be easily avoided.

To proceed, community members with an interest in the tag(s) should speak up via comments and votes here on Meta. Given that the suggested tag excerpt and wiki suggestions were made by the same user, their voice should be loud and clear. (...and they should have started this process here.)

Once there is agreement for the principle as well as names and wiki content for the new tags, start the work to triage the existing questions. This would be easily done with the support of a chat room such as Node.js, JavaScript, PHP, or (by far the best...) the SOCVR.

As each question is handled it should be:

  • Close-voted if it is off-topic and unredeemable or a duplicate.
  • Edited to meet on-topic and quality standards.
  • Finally, re-tagged with one of the new tags.
  • Any questions closed as duplicate should also be re-tagged.

Other than that, normal burnination activities are appropriate; closed questions that have no value for future users should be removed via voting or automatic deletion.

The alternative would be to move the 20% to a new tag, then involve a moderator to rename the 80% tag. Since that requires that a clean-up be done first, and this is a relatively small pile, IMO it's better handled by the community.

  • The Node.js restler tag info was inadequately attributed anyway, so it's probably good the edit was rejected. Original source – theB Oct 19 '15 at 22:58
  • Now that I can live with – Software Engineer Oct 20 '15 at 20:13

I'm the original poster of the tag update that spawned this discussion. I'm just not interested in this tag enough to go through the incredibly lengthy process outlined by @Mogsdad in the answer above. There are only about 50 questions that have been mistagged and the project owner obviously isn't interested otherwise he'd have done something about this problem early on.

While it's fine to bang on about ambiguity, given that nobody has the time or is willing to put in the effort to fix this, I feel that we're left in a worse position than that introduced by the ambiguity. Ambiguous is one thing, outright wrong is another, and of the two I'd rather have ambiguous.

Anyway, where is the ambiguity? If I'm searching for node.js questions by the restler tag, and I find a php response, I'll check the tag and see that it covers both and I'll either ignore the php questions or I'll add a javascript or nodejs tag to further reduce my results. I can't imagine a situation where a node developer will start thinking that they can use php code in their javascript, or where a php developer will wonder why the javascript they just pasted into their php app doesn't really work.

I have already put in effort to redefine the tag so it explains how it is actually being used. I honestly don't have the time to go through the proper dogmatic processes to fix it. Now we're left with a tag that doesn't describe how people have actually used it because of some academic definition of ambiguity that really doesn't apply.

Honestly, sometimes SO is so frustrating. It's meant to be user led, you have 50 users who have decided that this is how it is (I'm referring to the nodejs questions that have been mistagged), yet 3 out of 5 academics have decided that people should put in at least dozens of hours of effort to make it perfect, when good enough is all we actually need. But it's ok, because the users who have decided this all have high reputation, so it's their votes that matter, and the 50+ people who've decided otherwise don't seem to matter.

  • ps -- I took this long to respond because rejected edits are effectively hidden in SO unless one searches for them. – Software Engineer Oct 19 '15 at 20:53
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    So, you are declaring darkness the new standard? (In a similar vein to your comment on the other answer.) – Deduplicator Oct 19 '15 at 21:22
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    "50 users who have decided that this is how it is". Sometimes users just tag without reading the excerpts. This happens even to tags with correct wiki. We shouldn't take common mistakes as consensus. – approxiblue Oct 19 '15 at 23:10
  • @approxiblue -- why not? Your assumption is that these tags are mistakes. I tag without reading the wiki. When I do that I mean that I don't care about the wiki, I know/assume that other people searching for this question will be searching using that tag no matter how somebody defined it in the past. This happens all the time and it's not a mistake -- there is actually nothing wrong with it, there are no rules here, only dogma. – Software Engineer Oct 20 '15 at 20:19

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