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A lot of the story-identification questions that I've answered do not have the short-stories tag, although the answer is a short story and the question specifically called for a short story. Can I improve my score for the short-stories tag badge by editing the short-stories tag into those old questions? I mean, would it work, and would it be considered bad etiquette?

P.S. It works all right, I just tried it out on this question and the points showed up on my short-stoies badge score. So I'm asking about the etiquette: is it acceptable to edit those old questions this way? (Assuming, of course, that I space them out appropriately.)

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    My personal issue is more regarding just when the tag should be applied, if at all. IMO, it should only be added once the answer has been correctly identified. Until then, all memories are suspect and possibly wrong. I may remember something as being a short story, but it's really not. In this case, a short story tag would be wrong. – phantom42 Aug 26 '14 at 20:16
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    @phantom42 Seems to me the tags should reflect the question, not the answer. For instance, many story-id questions are posted with a wrong author tag, usually Asimov. Should those tags be removed after the story is identified as by someone else? Should the correct author tag be added? (I seem to recall this particular idea has been considered and rejected.) – user14111 Aug 26 '14 at 21:55
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    I'm not a fan of author tags in general, but yes. If a title is determined as not being Asimov, it should not be tagged as Asimov. If I'm looking for information on Asimov works, I don't want stories that are definitively not by Asimov. – phantom42 Aug 26 '14 at 23:19
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  1. General retagging:

    The main problem with doing what you propose is that any edited question shows up as "new" content for people who view the site in the "new content first" mode - that includes both RSS feed and "Active" tab on the site.

    Effectively, you're spamming people with less-than-useful changes.

    As such, if you keep the rate of edits low enough to avoid spamming (say 1-2 every several hours, at most 4-5/day), it should be OK.

  2. That specific retag:

    On the other hand, I don't see the point of having that tag in the first place.

    People aren't likely to search for "Just short story" questions, IMHO. People aren't likely to filter by them. But that's just my personal opinion, not a site rule (unless you ask on Meta specifically whether that tag should exist) and as such, you are free to ignore it.

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    Thanks for your advice. I was thinking of a rate of one a day. Can't agree with you on the uselessness of the short-stories tag. Suppose, for example, I'm trying to remember the author and title of Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder"; I would be searching for time-travel short stories (with maybe dinosaurs as another search term), not wishing to be flooded with movies, novels, and comic books. – user14111 Aug 24 '14 at 22:05

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