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I was scrolling through MSE on the cell phone earlier today and these popped up:

enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here

and the list went on. Is this an artifact of the search engine, or is there some reason for the sudden "interest" in it?

It should be important to notice that most of those questions, as far as I recall, are of different users.

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    $\begingroup$ I have added some tags which seems to be related to the question. Feel free to change them if you thing some of them is not a good fit. I have also notified the user responsible for most of those edits about this post on meta. $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Dec 5 '17 at 5:10
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    $\begingroup$ This meta post linked by Gerry Myerson also seems relevant to post here user on an editing spree $\endgroup$ – amWhy Dec 6 '17 at 19:45
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The tag was created a few days ago. The tag creator added almost immediately after the creation above 60 questions to that tag. And it seems that he continues in his retagging efforts in relatively large batches.

You might notice that you won't see those questions if you choose newest rather than active tab. And if you display the recently active questions on desktop rather then on mobile, you will also see which user caused the most recent activity on the question - which makes the fact that most of them came from the same user immediately obvious.

I will add that stuff like this has been discussed in the past. It is true that the site has grown since those discussion, so probably bumping is less noticeable among many new questions. But still one should try not to bump too many old questions at the same time. (Although different users might have different views on what exactly too many means and the number of admissible edits to old questions is now probably higher - since the site is now bigger.)

Some examples of older post about this - you can find many others, for example if you look at the tags and :

This recent feature request is related to such retaggins sprees: Limit for number of questions where tag can be added by tag-creator soon after the creation of tag.

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    $\begingroup$ My opinion, for what it's worth, is that if you see someone on an editing spree, you leave a comment politely asking the miscreant to cease and desist, and you flag for moderator attention, bringing attention to the editing spree. (But I repeat myself, math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8708/…) $\endgroup$ – Gerry Myerson Dec 5 '17 at 5:38
  • $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson I think that mods are aware of this specific user. (Both quid and Michael Greinecker participated in some discussions about the tags created by this user in the tagging chatroom.) It is possible that this user was not aware of the problems caused by bumping, but I notified him of this thread at least now. The goal of my post was mainly to answer the inquiry of Aloizio Macedo why he sees so many questions from this single topic. But since it is related to bumping and retagging, I have mentioned some past discussions, too. $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Dec 5 '17 at 6:04
  • $\begingroup$ The fact that a specific user was singled out is a side effect. (He is certainly not the only user to do something like that. But the OP's question was about this specific tag.) BTW thanks for the link, I will add it to the lists of related past discussion in the answer. $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Dec 5 '17 at 6:04
  • $\begingroup$ Precedents, ladies and gentlemen. Once someone did it and got away with it, every Taxonomist craving user can do it too! $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Dec 5 '17 at 6:47
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    $\begingroup$ Sorry, Martin, I was trying to give advice on what to do when next someone goes on a spree; I wasn't talking to this recent outbreak. And I have no quarrel with any part of your answer. $\endgroup$ – Gerry Myerson Dec 5 '17 at 8:09
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    $\begingroup$ I have half a mind to just go through all these posts and obliterate the tag. Not because it's not useful or something. But just because I'm annoyed. $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Dec 5 '17 at 11:50
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    $\begingroup$ (Especially since mean-value-theorem is also a brand new tag from the same maker.) $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Dec 5 '17 at 11:52
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    $\begingroup$ @Asaf, if you bump all those posts up by obliterating the tag, then I'll be annoyed. $\endgroup$ – Gerry Myerson Dec 5 '17 at 12:23
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    $\begingroup$ @SimplyBeautifulArt: Are you proposing a dare? Because I will do that for free, but if you want to push me into doing that and also pay me a whole dollar, well... it's your funeral. :P $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Dec 5 '17 at 14:52
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    $\begingroup$ I think it is worth adding that since the default tab changed from "active" to "interesting" (math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9249/…), recently edited old questions will often not even show up on the front page at all for most users. $\endgroup$ – Eric Wofsey Dec 5 '17 at 21:33
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    $\begingroup$ @Asaf Since you have mentioned (mean-value-theorem), I will mention that this is going to be removed. This will be done based after the discussion on meta: Should we have a tag for the mean value property of harmonic functions? (and also in chat, namely here and here). $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Dec 5 '17 at 22:53
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    $\begingroup$ @EricWofsey What are you referring to? I see no change in the default tab. You linked to a four-year-old meta post proposing the idea (back in 2013.). Perhaps you know something I don't know, relevant to this site, now. $\endgroup$ – amWhy Dec 6 '17 at 19:52
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks, @MartinSleziak. That makes sense! I rarely am in that mode, any way. So I wouldn't have noticed! $\endgroup$ – amWhy Dec 6 '17 at 20:10
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    $\begingroup$ @amWhy: See bluefeet's answer to the question I linked. The proposal was implemented this past March. The main page math.stackexchange.com no longer shows all the most recently active posts, and instead is identical to math.stackexchange.com/?tab=interesting. $\endgroup$ – Eric Wofsey Dec 6 '17 at 20:14
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for the explanation, @EricWofsey. I'm only on the main page when I first log in. I click on "Questions", where the default tab is "newest". So the tabs I thought you were referring was to the tabs under "Questions" which also has an "active" tab. $\endgroup$ – amWhy Dec 6 '17 at 20:19

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