Are there additional tag-related features that you’d like to see here? Now that tags are easier to create… do they also need to be easier to delete? let us know!
I think that anything (or almost anything) that can be created, should also be deleted and renamed. As things evolve over time, our decisions today may not fit what we want 2 years from now, so having those 3 options seem like a good combo.
Thank you for giving all of us this new feature without having to create new posts. It makes everything so much easier and faster!
I’m speculating a little but: as tags are hierarchical, I’d say a drag and drop interface to manage and organise them (like what @Canapin mocked up for categories) could be interesting.
Or, maybe lighter: how about the ability to hierarchise tags in a big textarea (a bit like the tables of settings I’ve seen here and there in the interface). Of course there is certainly a thousand ways this would break, so it might not be a great idea. Actually just remembered there was the csv export/import already, how about « edit in browser » in that format, to start with? Would spare us the steps of downloading, opening in editor (oh hai Numbers/Excel, forgot I had better edit in my text editor), saving, uploading…
The need underlying these two ideas is: give me a more visual space where I can at the same time see all (most of) the existing tags and how they’re related to one another, and change the structure/tags and who knows, maybe some basic properties.
I agree that they should be easier to organize, but most importantly easier to rename/replace. We have a bit of a Tags Gone Wild going on in our community after 20 years, and want to get it under control, but it seems difficult to modify the name of a tag to make them all consistent without losing all the followers, and then if you have lost them all, to restore that connection in bulk, which makes the whole task very daunting.
Probably just my mistake… I tried one like a year ago, and don’t remember it being that easy. I think I was trying to merge tags and get rid of the old misspelled one, and it blew everything up.
From what I understand about “merging tags”, we use the synonym feature as Jagster mentioned, and also seen in my screenshot above. That should technically take away the need for a rename, but I understand the need to get your all ducks in order a certain way.
If you come across such a snag again do let us know.
I actually find this quite touching in a small but meaningful way.
When I first started using Discourse, I remember being genuinely confused about where tags were supposed to be created. Having the ability to create them directly from the /tags page would have made things much clearer back then.
Regarding tag synonyms , I do have a suggestion:
I personally hope that merging synonyms doesn’t mean the old tag completely disappears. Instead, it would be great if the relationship could be preserved — so that when someone later uses an old or synonymous tag, it’s automatically replaced by the canonical one.
That way, existing habits aren’t broken, and the system gently guides users toward consistency over time.
Thanks for continuing to improve these small but important usability details.
Can you explain the difference between your suggestion and how tag synonyms currently work?
If I use howto here on Meta, you are taken to all topics tagged with how-to. If I create a topic with howto, it’s published with how-to. The autocomplete offers both
You’re absolutely right, thanks for explaining it so clearly.
I misunderstood how tag synonyms currently work — it seems this behavior is already implemented perfectly.
