I don’t think this is a problem (yet).

I’m not saying that we don’t have a problem with overly broad tags, but the potential for gold tag-badge abuse is a very weak argument against them.

Two reasons:

1. There are no “broad” tags where this is likely to happen any time soon.

Going through the list of tags, and looking at the users with the most answers in the broad tags:

• [movie] – Richard ♦ (103), Thaddeus ♦ (74), phantom32 (34).
• [short stories] – user14111 (135), Richard ♦ (29).
• [comics] - Thaddeus ♦ (127), Pureferret ♦ (31), DVK (27).
• [books] – Richard ♦ (30), Mike Scott (25).
• [novel] – Richard ♦ (24), Mike Scott (17).
• [tv] – Richard ♦ (34), Thaddeus ♦ (18), Tango (16)

Below this, the broad tags have <200 answers and tend to become far more fragmented in terms of answerers.

So the people most likely to get gold tag badges in these broad tags are already moderators, and so these new powers would mean nothing new. The users below them are so far off getting this tag badge that it’s nothing we need to worry about any time soon.

The only exception is user14111 in the [short-stories] tag, but they’re already so close to a gold tag badge in [story-identification] that I doubt getting a gold badge in short stories would open up much potential for abuse that wasn’t already there.

2. So far, there have been no problems on our site with people abusing these privileges.

My personal approach (with a gold tag badge in Harry Potter) is to only close if I’m absolutely sure that a question is a dupe. Otherwise, I’ll drop a comment and let other people voice their opinion. I’ve seen very similar sentiments from our other gold tag badge holders and our mods.

In general, to get a gold tag badge, you need to have been around a while. You’re probably familiar with how the site works. This isn’t a badge that a new user gets by accident – it takes sustained effort to earn this. That doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who’d abuse their new closing privileges.

(And in the unlikely event that somebody did, there’s always the modhammer. I think it unlikely you could do this unnoticed for long.)

I don’t think this is a problem (yet).

I’m not saying that we don’t have a problem with overly broad tags, but the potential for gold tag-badge abuse is a very weak argument against them.

Two reasons:

1. There are no “broad” tags where this is likely to happen any time soon.

Going through the list of tags, and looking at the users with the most answers in the broad tags:

• [movie] – Richard ♦ (103), Thaddeus ♦ (74), phantom32 (34).
• [short stories] – user14111 (135), Richard ♦ (29).
• [comics] - Thaddeus ♦ (127), Pureferret ♦ (31), DVK (27).
• [books] – Richard ♦ (30), Mike Scott (25).
• [novel] – Richard ♦ (24), Mike Scott (17).
• [tv] – Richard ♦ (34), Thaddeus ♦ (18), Tango (16)

Below this, the broad tags have <200 answers and tend to become far more fragmented in terms of answerers.

So the people most likely to get gold tag badges in these broad tags are already moderators, and so these new powers would mean nothing new. The users below them are so far off getting this tag badge that it’s nothing we need to worry about any time soon.

The only exception is user14111 in the [short-stories] tag, but they’re already so close to a gold tag badge in [story-identification] that I doubt getting a gold badge in short stories would open up much potential for abuse that wasn’t already there.

2. So far, there have been no problems on our site with people abusing these privileges.

My personal approach (with a gold tag badge in Harry Potter) is to only close if I’m absolutely sure that a question is a dupe. Otherwise, I’ll drop a comment and let other people voice their opinion. I’ve seen very similar sentiments from our other gold tag badge holders and our mods.

In general, to get a gold tag badge, you need to have been around a while. You’re probably familiar with how the site works. This isn’t a badge that a new user gets by accident – it takes sustained effort to earn this. That doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who’d abuse their new closing privileges.

(And in the unlikely event that somebody did, there’s always the modhammer. I think it unlikely you could do this unnoticed for long.)