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It make sense to have a tag for "dogs", but what about individual breeds of dogs. For example there might questions specific to pugs, terriers, or poodles. Such questions could include both a "dogs" tag and a "pug" tag.

Should we have tags for breeds?

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  • 1
    This question is relevant for all types of animals. Should we have tags for "Cichlids (Fish)", "Quakers (Parrots)", "Siamese (Cats)", etc.?
    – JohnFx
    Oct 9, 2013 at 21:45
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    @JohnFx There is a big difference between different breeds of dog and different species of fish. Dogs, as pets, are all one species. "Fish" refers to an entire superclass (actually a group of several superclasses) that contains thousands of species. I see this question as only relevant to breeds of a single species, and not related to tags for individual species of other types of animals (like fish, frogs, lizards, etc.).
    – Ben Miller
    Oct 17, 2013 at 18:12
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    I'm starting with this now. Maine coon is first of all a very popular cat breed, and in some aspects they are genuinely different from other cat breeds. Dec 10, 2013 at 7:58

5 Answers 5

18

I'm inclined to adopt a wait and see approach. Initially, breed tags might be overkill, but over time if enough breed specific questions get answered, then it might be helpful to have breed specific tags. That said, if breed specific tags emerge, the general tag should still be used. It would be the role of question editors to keep an eye on this.

My general feeling is that if that if you can point to at least 3 or 4 clear questions where a tag would be useful, then it is worth considering.

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    Agreed. There are two philosophies to tagging (in general, not just SE): complete taxonomy and emergent. I think SE sites work much better with the latter: see what needs arise and create tags to fill them. If we have a vast sea of tag options then more questions will be tagged incorrectly so they won't do their job anyway. Oct 9, 2013 at 13:09
  • Some breeds have a known genetic issues, of significance so I can see the need developing. But a breed tag that only has 1 or 2 questions, and/or where there is not a strong genetic issues tying the breed to the question, there is no need. Oct 9, 2013 at 23:27
  • @JamesJenkins - At this time of Private Beta, there are so few questions that it's not relevant to cull breed-specific tags.
    – JoshDM
    Oct 17, 2013 at 17:27
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    @JoshDM Concur, and in public beta they will not be as easy to create. Oct 17, 2013 at 17:29
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I vote yes on breeds, but think we should encourage using them only when the breed of the animal is germane to the question itself.

For example:
"How do I teach my dog to fetch?"
Should not have a "German Shepherd" tag.

"Are German Shepherds prone to any breed specific health issues?"
Should use the German Shepherd tag.

Ankit has a point that we might wind up with tag flooding. However, I would argue that using keywords might help the site's SEO ranking on breed specific searches and help build the community more quickly. Also, if we disallow it I think it will be a constant battle on this site to keep them pruned.

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  • Unless there is known issue with the breed, then there is no reason to add the tag. Otherwise it is only going to get used once for this question and anything else would be a dupe of if the answer is no. Oct 9, 2013 at 23:31
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I say "yes", but only for use when a question regards a specific breed and the breed of the animal is actually relevant to the question.

When you get down to it, there may be many breed-specific questions.

We should also see where other SE sites have gone with this. A good example is the Movies & TV SE site, which has adopted and applied show-specific tags. This allows simple searching and sorting by show or film.

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    The same has happened in Photography SE. There we have tags for almost every model of Canon (40 tags) and Nikon (19 tags). Dec 10, 2013 at 7:52
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If we find we are getting many questions that are breed specific, then it is entirely possible that we might want to add a breed tag (along with the animal tag, like dog or cat or what have you). At this point, though, it would just further divide the small question pool we currently have, and in many cases, the specific breed of dog or cat or so on doesn't matter.

It is generally better, as Monica pointed out in a comment, to have fewer tags and add more as there is a specific need for them - basically, letting them develop organically rather than forcing them unnecessarily. Part of being a good Internet information source and a good Q and A site is making that information easy to find, after all! :)

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Why we need a bread tag, it will only bring tag flood only. We have so many animals to be fall under the pet as Dog,Turtle, Cat, Goose, Rat etc etc. Not only dog but other animals also have breads, so making tag for every animals every bread will only make a flood of tags which are mostly going to be used for fewer questions only. For example now we have tag for , similarly if we make tag for every breed of fish then it doesn't look that useful.

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