Should we use prefixed tags?

Question

We have a few tags that are effectively sub-tags, using a prefix and another word. [sr4.shadowrun], [sr4.matrix], and [sr4.technomancer] appear to use that model. I think [dd-oriental-adventures] is using dd as a prefix to "oriental-adventures" but it's difficult to say - it might just be an attempt to prevent ambiguous interpretation. [dice] and [dice-notation] is close, too.

Should we use tags like this? Should we attempt to encourage their use? Is there a better metric than "do it when it seems to make sense" to determine when their use is appropriate?

Answer 1

To repeat my answer here, since this isn't techically closable as the same question as the one Richard linked but my answer's the same...

I do not think that doing subtags like [dd3.5-monsters] is a good idea. That should be [dd3.5] [monsters], or even better [dd] [dd3.5] [monsters]. Otherwise we get tag sprawl with every single combination that you could have (oh look, this question should be tagged [discussion-tagging-community-wiki]). I think this is a crutch for those who don't know how to and/or tags.

That is also how it's done on the main trinity. On Stack Overflow, for example, you would tag a perl question [perl], additionally with [perl5] if it is specific to that version. There are very few exceptions to this. For example, there is a [perl-module] tag - but there are more questions tagged [perl] [module] than [perl-module].

My conclusion - no hierarchical, multipart, whatnot tags. Ones that exist should be retagged.