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I mostly ask questions about A Song of Ice and Fire, and I'm usually only interested in the books; I don't consider the series relevant to my questions, so I tend to tag them with just . In a recent question, someone added - I left it because it wasn't worth the quibble.

Does every ASOIAF question need a GOT tag, and vice versa?

3 Answers 3

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is different than , and, accordingly, they should be considered independently. If a question is asking for information from the books, the question should be tagged ; if it's asking about the show, it should be . If (and only if) both canons are fine, it should be tagged with both.

In this case, it seems that both are fine. But, for example, if a question were about something in the books beyond where the TV series is, that should be tagged with but not .

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  • This makes no sense. Since the books are ahead of the TV series, it seems sensible to tag ASOIAF with GoT as well. Then it can be tag-ignored.
    – Valorum
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:15
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    Why on earth would TV watchers ignore the TV tag and not the book tag?
    – Kevin
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:25
  • Er, because they're new to the site and aren't expecting it?
    – Valorum
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:38
  • Is this a search facility I'm not aware of, systematically removing tags from your feed or similar? I thought you were all talking about manually ignoring GOT/ASOIAF tags.
    – Lou
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:41
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    @LeoKing right side of the homepage, under the bulletin. "Set tag preferences." You can set favorite and ignored tags.
    – Kevin
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:48
  • Thank you. I knew about favourite tags, but not ignored tags.
    – Lou
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:49
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    @Richard Aren't expecting what? If they know how to ignore GoT they know how to ignore ASoIAF. If they don't know what ASoIAF is, tagging those questions with GoT too makes it a great deal more likely for a user to accidentally encounter spoilers.
    – Kevin
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:55
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    Directly above you is someone that this applies to.
    – Valorum
    Aug 9, 2014 at 22:13
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    @Richard - That was a bit rude. I'm irrelevant here, though, I'm up to date on series and books alike and won't care about spoilers.
    – Lou
    Aug 9, 2014 at 23:34
  • You might want to mention now that it would be vice versa given the show is leaps and bounds ahead.
    – Edlothiad
    Dec 1, 2017 at 22:19
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I'd say: use your own judgement depending on context and on a case-by-case basis.

Each of the books and the TV series contains material that's not in the other, so it's perfectly possible for a question to be valid for one but not the other (it is of course also possible for a question to be valid for both).

Some people may be following the TV series a season or some episodes behind others: depending on when it's shown in their country, or on the DVD releases.

Some people may be reading the books but be behind the most recent publication: they may be relative newcomers to them.

Ultimately if someone doesn't want to be spoilered it's their own responsibility to avoid sources of information that could do so. Using the tagging system as a means of avoiding spoilers seems to twist it's intended purpose.

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    Surely the twin purpose of the tagging system is to ensure that people can find what they want and ignore what they want.
    – Valorum
    Aug 10, 2014 at 10:16
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As far as I'm concerned, the answer is a resounding yes.

Since almost all questions will provoke some level of spoilers for the TV series I would consider it a common courtesy to other site-users to tag it with to ensure that they can use the "ignore-tag" function.

On the flipside, there's absolutely nothing to stop you from marking it with "book canon only, please" in the body of the question if you're convinced that the TV series has nothing useful to contribute to answering your questions.

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  • The reason I didn't remove the tag you added, and shan't strictly specify "book canon only" or similar, was because I appreciate that useful answers can come from the series, and far be it from me if people wish to draw on Game of Thrones. But my primary interest is in A Song of Ice and Fire.
    – Lou
    Aug 9, 2014 at 20:32
  • Your argument about spoilers from the books makes sense, though, and I probably will include game-of-thrones in future questions for that reason.
    – Lou
    Aug 9, 2014 at 20:33
  • @LeoKing - I presume you're aware that GRRM is actively consulting on each TV episode.
    – Valorum
    Aug 9, 2014 at 20:35
  • Yes. But the amount of divergences between book and series - and the amount of content that is necessarily missing from the latter - mean that answers from the series aren't always useful to questions about the book.
    – Lou
    Aug 9, 2014 at 20:36
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    I think you have it backwards. If a question would be a spoiler for the series-watchers (i.e. beyond where the series is), it should most certainly not be tagged [game-of-thrones], and the series watchers should ignore [a-song-of-ice-and-fire], not [game-of-thrones] (unless they're not caught up on the series).
    – Kevin
    Aug 9, 2014 at 20:48
  • @Kevin - I've no idea what you're saying. If it's tagged GoT then TV-series watcher can ignore it. If it's only marked ASOIF, they could be exposed to TV-Series spoilers by accident. Surely the courtesy would be to use both tags.
    – Valorum
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:14
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    @Richard ... They should ignore ASoIAF if they don't want spoilers from the book. It sounds to me like you're saying "tag the book questions with the TV tag too so the people who don't read the book can ignore the TV tag." You know you can ignore more than one tag, right? And I imagine a lot of people would like to read GoT questions but not ASoIAF.
    – Kevin
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:18
  • @Kevin - That's precisely what I'm saying. If one tag will lead to massive spoilers in another tag, you should use both tags.
    – Valorum
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:21
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    "If one tag will lead to massive spoilers in another tag, you should use both tags." No, if one tag (A) will lead to massive spoilers in another (G), you should avoid tagging with G so those who want can ignore the tag with spoilers.
    – Kevin
    Aug 9, 2014 at 21:29
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    @Richard Let's present it from another standpoint (one that seems much more intuitive to me): I'm watching the show. I'm interested in questions on the show. I favorite the game-of-thrones tag, because I want to easily find questions on the show. Your method means that questions that explicitly deal with the books, and not the show, will now show up in my favorites, increasing my chance of spoilers. Your method forces me to hide questions I'm interested in, in addition to potential spoilers. Its my feeling that the "favorite" feature is much more commonly used than the "ignore" feature.
    – Beofett
    Aug 11, 2014 at 12:19
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    If you don't want any spoilers at all, you have to ignore both tags. Slightly regrettable, but not such a problem that we have to start throwing the game-of-thrones tag on every question that applies to the books. Just need a better way - such as using tag wiki excerpts properly! - to indicate that you do need to ignore both tags if you want to avoid questions on both the TV show and the books.
    – Anthony Grist
    Aug 18, 2014 at 18:51
  • The situation is fully reversed now, interestingly enough. Book readers (like me) who want to avoid spoilers until the BOOKS catch up, have to avoid the GoT tag.
    – Wildcard
    Aug 22, 2017 at 23:52

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