Kylo Ren tag question

Question

I tried to add a kylo ren tag to the site and was shot down multiple times by a moderator. I was told he's not a main character, we don't do character tags, etc. A user here said nasty things to me, flagged it multiple times, and it was taken out by a moderator multiple times who threatened me.

I wonder if there's a way to pull that discussion back up. It was in comment lines I believe.

In any event, now the question I had that was closed, was re-opened by a moderator.

What bothers me the most at this point. Is that now somebody else has added that tag when I tried to on at least three separate occasions, they own the tag, and they have 28 questions now associated with it.

And worst of all my question was just edited with the Kylo-Ren tag that this other user posted.

I want that tag, I want an apology from that moderator, and I want the discussion posted in Meta.

Anyway to do such a thing?

Answer 1

I know everyone likes to hate people who complain of unfair treatment, but in this case there really was unfair treatment.

• The user created a plausibly valid tag (on another user's question).

  • By that time it was clear from all the released material that Kylo Ren is a major character. I shall avoid posting 3-page-long bullet list of why, to avoid spoiling people.

  • While there may be valid arguments made on the side of the tag not being valid^[3], there are very valid arguments on the side of it being valid, and therefore NOT unanimously and unchallengingly worth-deleting without debate and discussion. This Q&A is not the correct place to settle that argument, but what's important to what happened is the fact that it's a meaningful disagreement on merits, not a unanimous and obvious "junk" tag conclusion.

• The tag was challenged without knowing this fact, and without checking this fact (e.g. on main site or Meta), and deleted by a moderator without seeking the site consensus on Meta, as is appropriate for tag deletion

  • As per the challenger, the basis of the challenge was 2-fold: (#1) he considered the tag invalid (_{as per above, I greatly disagree with him on merits of that judgement call, but it's his right to make that judgement call}); and (#2) considered it inapplicable to THAT specific question (_{another judgement call, that I am ambivalent about, I can see valid reasoning to either support or oppose that call on merits, and think it was far more correct than #1}).

  • As per comments from moderator, the FORMER basis of the challenge (validity of the tag itself) was the basis for fulfilling the flag. As such, I believe it necessitated a Meta discussion prior to deletion and should have been rejected until such Meta discussion was resolved. (_{For hypothetical completeness - I may have arrived at the opposite conclusion regarding moderator's action if the reason for the deletion was the second basis of the flag - question content, including tags, is definitely within moderator purview and ordinarily wouldn't need to be Meta-discussed. I may have disagreed with moderator's judgement but NOT his procedure then.})

• Regardless of the intentions of the action, the practical - if unintended - effect of this action was that the user was deprived of an official, SE-promoted, activity (creating new good tag) - and as a consequence of that:

  • user lost a chance to earn a rare badge awarded for creating a tag that is used by 50+ questions^[1]

• This was compounded when - according to the OP, his OTHER 2 tries to create the tag were also rejected. I do not possess the knowledge of how to dig through the data to verify that, or to see the circumstances, except that I know that OTHER people were involved than the user who challenged the tag's first instance - so this is a pattern of events that transcends a single user's one judgement call.

• Then, to add insult to injury, someone else created that tag and will get the badge that the OP was deprived of.

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The only correct way to make things right is to:

• Apologize to the OP for the rash action of deleting a tag without ANY community debate (which would have resulted in people - myself included - being able to present evidence that it's a major character and worth its own tag). A brief comments thread doesn't count, as few people likely saw it.

  UPDATE: One person who was involved (of MANY) - @Null apologized in his answer, which I deeply appreciate and would like to urge the OP to accept that apology, as no damage to OP was intended and it was all done in good faith by @Null, with negative outcome being unanticipated and unforeseen.

  This does not change the poor action of other people, both the moderator (who should have seeked community consensus before acting on that flag, and some users on this Meta thread who behaved in a hugely unconstructive^[2] manner - and no, the fact that OP's wording wasn't anywhere near 100% constructive is NOT A GOOD EXCUSE); as well as as-yet-unknown-details of who did what in the other 2 cases where the user's attempt to create a tag was rejected.

• Restore the opportunity to get the badge to the user. While a bit drastic edit-wise, it's doable:

  1. delete the current tag, from all quetsions, and let the OP re-create it once it's gone from the database.

  2. As an alternative, ask SE team to change the tag's creator in the back-end database to the OP.

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_{[1] - I know 10 people piled on a bandwagon and upvoted a snarky "nobody owns a tag" comment to the OP (where were the moderators enforcing "civility" then?), but that badge indicates that the tag creator IS treated differently by the site, and is rewarded. That's not "ownership", but it is user-specific. My strong opinion is that this is what the OP meant but they chose an incorrect term to express it which had unfortunately negative context}

_{[2] - One of the comments on the question explicitly called the user "nuts". IT WAS UPVOTED. Not flagged and deleted, upvoted.}

_{[3] - Obviously, I'm on the "tag is valid" side of the disagreement, but I acknowledge that arguments against it have validity despite my considering those arguments incorrect}

Answer 2

(I have no dog in this race, I'm not a moderator, I wasn't involved in any of this, [insert more disclaimers here])

We don't have Han Solo, Leia Organa, C-3PO, R2D2, Palpatine, or Anakin Skywalker tags. We do seem to have darth-vader (91 questions), darth-sidious (27 questions), and luke-skywalker (56 questions).

We don't have Hermione Granger or Ron Weasley tags. We do have harry-potter, but that doesn't count, because the work as a whole is named after its main protagonist. There's also voldemort (247 questions) and albus-dumbledore (95 questions).

We don't have Aragorn, Frodo, or Samwise tags. We do have sauron (98 questions) and gandalf (91 questions).

Bottom line is, I see no rhyme or reason to which characters have tags and which don't. If our site policy is "no character tags", then we have some major cleaning up to do. If that is not our site policy, then I'm not sure why you weren't allowed to create a Kylo Ren tag, unless it requires more reputation than you have?¹

_{¹ I know the privileges say 300 reputation for creating tags, but it also says 2500 rep for creating tag synonyms, and we all know that not even God can create tag synonyms, except on the second Tuesday in May if the moon is 3/4 full and the necessary incantations are performed, and no, nobody knows what those incantations are.}

One major clarification though: nobody owns a tag. Each tag has a "top users" page, but that comes from questions which use the tag. If you have questions which you feel ought to have the kylo-ren label, now that someone else has slipped it through the cracks, you can go ahead and add it where you'd like, but be aware that enough people are opposed to character tags that it might just go away again in a few days.

Edit: As DVK points out, there is a rare and hard to get badge for creating a tag, so in that sense, the person who creates a tag is "special". I'm not sure how to correct this situation at this point.

Answer 3

Since the Kylo Ren tag created by another user is now being used I regret that you were denied a Taxonomist badge. However, I am not responsible for the deletion of the tag you created "at least three times" and I stand by all my actions regarding the tag.

The conversation you are referring to might be the one you and I had a few months ago, though our conversation might have been one of the other "three separate occasions" you tried to add the tag. If you are referring to our conversation, I do not think I said anything to you that could be considered "nasty". In full disclosure, that conversation is still posted in the comments to one of your answers:

Kylo Ren is too minor of a character to have his own tag. Please don't create a tag for him. – Null Sep 10 at 15:01

@Null isn't he the main antagonist of the film? Darth Vader and Darth Sidious both have tags. – JMFB Sep 10 at 15:03

Possibly, but only of one film in the entire franchise. He is currently far too minor of a character to have his own tag. Only a few very major characters have tags. We don't have tags for Han Solo and Leia, for example. Please roll back your edit again or I'll flag for a mod. – Null Sep 10 at 15:08

See meta on character tags. – Null Sep 10 at 15:11

Vader and Sidious are both major characters who have appeared in six films and countless other sources (books, cartoon, video games, etc.). None of that is true for Kylo Ren. – Null Sep 10 at 15:15

@Null Han Solo and Leia are not the main antagonists or protagonists of a film or series. Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Sidious, etc. are. Kylo Ren is the Darth Vader of the upcoming movies. Read about him. The tag was approved fyi, so flag it if you like. And commanding somebody to rollback an edit or you're going to flag a mod sounds like a threat and highly inappropriate. And you gave me a link to one person's meta answer with 3 upvotes? That's hardly site policy. – JMFB Sep 10 at 15:18

Flagged. Ask on meta whether or not we need the tag if you really think we need it. – Null Sep 10 at 15:23

I did not command you, I said please. Since we are in disagreement the appropriate action is to flag for a mod to avoid an edit war. – Null Sep 10 at 15:32

@Null agreed. I like you and your contributions. This is nothing personal. Can't wait for the new movie to come out fyi. Hope it's more like 4 or 5 then 1, 2, or 3. – JMFB Sep 10 at 15:47

@JMFB Quit making the Kylo Ren tag. We know virtually nothing about whether or not it will be appropriate. At best, we'll know once The Force Awakens is released. – Keen♦ Sep 10 at 16:15

@Keen made it one time. It was approved. That's all I did. No need to give directives. – JMFB Sep 10 at 20:03

@JMFB You've done it twice, ergo the directive. – Keen♦ Sep 11 at 1:13

As I explained in the comments, I flagged for a mod in order to avoid a tag edit war. I edited the question to delete the Kylo Ren tag once and then posted my first comment above. After you added the tag back again, I asked you to please roll it back or I would flag for a mod to resolve the dispute. You refused, so I flagged. The mod and another user agreed with me.

I also posted a link to the relevant meta discussion on character tags and suggested you post a new meta question so the community could decide whether to add the tag.

I still think Kylo Ren is too minor of a character to have his own tag since he has only appeared in one movie out of the entire Star Wars franchise. (I haven't seen The Force Awakens yet, so please don't spoil whether Kylo Ren is alive or not at the end of the movie. If he's alive, he may eventually become a major enough character to deserve his own tag. If he's dead, he'll probably never deserve his own tag.)

Although I removed the tag from the question you answered, I did not systematically remove the tag from all questions on the site so that it would be deleted entirely. I only removed it from that one question, and that question should not have the Kylo Ren tag even if community consensus is that the tag should exist because that question is not about Kylo Ren. The original text of the question was:

[Title] Sith without masters

So the new Star Wars film has a Sith in it, his name's Kylo Ren. Hope I'm not spoiling this for anyone, but it's pretty obvious from the trailers that he's a Sith Lord of some kind, with his menacing red light saber and scary mask.

So if the last Sith died in Return of the Jedi, that got me wondering who trained this Ren guy.

That's not actually my question, just the inspiration. I want to know if there's any evidence in books etc. of any Sith who became Sith without having a Sith master to train them.

Thanks for your time.

The current version of the question is very similar. Kylo Ren received an incidental mention in the question, but the question is about the Sith. The asker even specifically said that "who trained this Ren guy" is "not actually [his] question". Furthermore, as your own answer stated that Kylo Ren is not a Sith Lord, the Kylo Ren tag does not belong on the question anyway.¹

I don't know if your Kylo Ren tag was deleted as a result of its removal from this question, but if so it should have been deleted at that time anyway since there were no questions that warranted the tag.

You mentioned that you attempted to create the tag on "at least three separate occasions". Since I only removed the tag on this one question, I cannot speak to why the tag was deleted on these other occasions.

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¹ There are multiple meta answers explaining why character tags should not be used on questions which give an incidental mention of the character. For example:

A tag could help pinpoint the questions that are specifically about the character, as opposed to mentioning it in passing; but this is rather marginal, especially as a title search should be able to serve the same purpose.

Also:

If the tag is used on every question that mentions the character, that defeats the purpose.

The latter is also quoted in the meta answer I linked to in our comment discussion. All of these answers are upvoted, indicating strong community consensus.