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I've removed the trivia tag. In my view it veered on the wrong side of meta-tagging to start with. I also always read it as a descriptor meaning something like "this is the kind of question that might be asked during pub quiz", and it was being applied to questions like How are the Lego instruction manuals made? which don't fit that at all. In a broader sense, everything on this site is trivia.

I replaced the ones that actually were trivia with , all three were about the "biggest" something; otherwise I've just removed the tag.

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    records seems just as bad as trivia.
    – Pubby
    Commented Oct 31, 2011 at 2:22
  • @Pubby8: People won't put records on things like "How are the Lego instruction manuals made?" so it's definitely not as bad. It does describe the question's content and not just the type. I don't have a better alternative yet.
    – user23
    Commented Oct 31, 2011 at 15:18
  • Related: meta.bricks.stackexchange.com/questions/31/trivia-or-fun-tag Commented Jan 26, 2012 at 6:54

1 Answer 1

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I'm kinda "meh" on both of these... It kinda seems like you couldn't think up any other tags!

What is the largest single LEGO piece?

Only tag is . That sucks. What about , , ? You'd think there'd be something that describes this with a bit more specificity?

What's the largest LEGO construction ever?

Here again, only one tag. I'd think would be a no-brainer.

What is the largest Lego kit commercially available?

The only one of the three with multiple tags, and yet even here it seems to be missing the most obvious tag: .

I guess my point is, you're fixated on the wrong problem: we don't really need a "pub quiz" tag, since just about any other tag will have some amount of trivia associated with it; what we need are specific tags that adequately describe the questions.

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  • I'm not sure why you think history is an appropriate tag. The largest Lego construction could have been built yesterday. It's not a question about the history of Lego or the Lego Group; just that whatever the answer is must (by necessity) have happened in the past. As for sizes, why is that better than records?
    – user23
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 15:57
  • identification is for identification of pieces or sets based on incomplete information, I don't see how it applies. The newer piece-information is better for that question; I've added that. I also don't see how records is a "pub quiz" tag; I never claimed to want one of those. Rather the opposite.
    – user23
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 16:01
  • @Joe, sorry for the late response. I'm having trouble seeing how [records] is much of an improvement over [trivia] - it's a bit more specific I suppose, but you're still looking at sort of a grabbag tag. Combined with other tags, it's perhaps no big deal... But when the only tag on a question is [records], that question is effectively uncategorized. Surely there's some topic that could be extracted from a question on kits or constructions or pieces and used for a tag...?
    – Shog9
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 19:59
  • I don't see why records alone is bad. The question is about a record. What's grab-bag about it? Just because a tag would be a bad categorization on e.g. SO doesn't make it a bad tag here. What else would you say that question is about? Sometimes a question is simple and only needs one tag...
    – user23
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 21:15
  • @Joe: what does "record" say about the question? How is "record" related to LEGO bricks, the LEGO community, or the LEGO company? FWIW, [record] is a perfectly appropriate tag on SO, because it has a fairly well-defined (albeit completely different) meaning in that context. So what does it mean here, and what is so special about these questions that no other tags can describe them?
    – Shog9
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 21:22
  • I don't understand your point. The question is about a record. The record is a record involving Lego bricks. records says that the question is going to be asking about a Lego-related record. Your rhetorical questions seem like they would apply to any tag on the site. What does "instructions" say about the question? Well, it says the question concerns instructions. There's nothing special about that question, it's just a straightforward one. But again, what other tags would be useful on it? james-may? I don't understand why you think it needs more tags.
    – user23
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 21:26
  • Maybe, if james-may is a notable builder who one might expect questions to be asked about. I really can't say - that's one reason why it makes me uneasy: [record] here has the same general meaning it would have anywhere else; that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if there are no terms that describe a question here that aren't at some level specific to the topic, then I start to wonder what the question's even doing here.
    – Shog9
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 21:34
  • Well we're not allowed a lego (and I don't want one), so I mean, what do you expect? The question is specific to the topic, adding more tags doesn't make it more on-topic. In a global tagging system, I'd give it lego and records because it's about Lego records. But this site already implies lego.
    – user23
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 21:39
  • You make a good argument. I might be over-thinking this - seeing two out of three questions with no other tags set off alarm bells when I first looked in. But you've re-tagged two of the three. It still concerns me, but if you say there's no other possible tag for that question... I'll take you at your word.
    – Shog9
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 22:03

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