# Should we retroactively tag all relevant questions that are missing a relevant tag, or not?

For example, I've just now realized that,

When searching questions that contain the word "palindrome" but do not contain the appropriate tag [palindrome], i.e. palindrome -[palindrome] , we get that there are over $$600$$ results.

I went on to tag around 30 such questions (increasing the total number of tagged questions from 70 to 100), but then I stopped mainly for two reasons. First, all of those questions will get bumped up to the front page and prevent new questions from showing in the period while the tags are being edited. Secondly, 600 questions is not a small number and will take some time.

I must admit that this is my fault because a few years ago, I was passionate about the properties of palindromes and was the one to create the tag (by simply adding it to new questions I was posting), but, I did not consider that a lot of old questions that have been asked in the past and are related to this topic, will now be missing out on this tag.

Should we, and how, tag these questions?

Is it possible for someone (a moderator or admin?) to retroactively add the tag to all these questions?

Or should every such question be reviewed individually and tagged appropriately? (Is it okay for me to continue tagging every question individually?)

Should we NOT tag these questions?

Or is there a third option that should take action?

I.e. not all questions that involve prime numbers have the tag [prime-numbers]. Therefore, should all these questions that are missing the tag [palindrome] just be left alone?

• It seems you did not search for questions though, you'd need to add is:q doing that one arrives at around 250.
– quid Mod
Aug 30 '20 at 21:28
• @quid Thank you for that. Actually my main concern was, If would go and edit all those questions, would that be okay or would that amount to something like "spamming the front page with edits bumps of old questions"? Aug 30 '20 at 21:32
• The one thing you absolutely shouldn't do, Vepir, is bump lots of old questions up to the front page in a short time span. Three or four old questions bumped per day is about right. I recognize that at that rate it will take roughly forever to get the appropriate tag on all those old questions, and it would be much better if the system could be induced to make all the changes at once without bumping anything, but if that's not an option then I urge you to limit yourself to three or four a day. Aug 30 '20 at 22:18
• @GerryMyerson Thank you, that was the reason why I stopped and decided to ask here before doing anything more. Aug 30 '20 at 22:22
• @GerryMyerson I think that comment makes a fine answer, if you will post it as such! Thanks. Aug 31 '20 at 1:17
• @amWhy, no can do – technical reasons – long story. But you have my blessing if you want to post my comment as an answer. Aug 31 '20 at 1:53
• Thanks, @GerryMyerson, for the fine answer! Aug 31 '20 at 2:16
• Searching palindrome -[palindrome] -[formal-languages] is:q closed:no for relevant questions. Sep 1 '20 at 9:48

## 1 Answer

"The one thing you absolutely shouldn't do, Vepir, is bump lots of old questions up to the front page in a short time span. Three or four old questions bumped per day is about right. I recognize that at that rate it will take roughly forever to get the appropriate tag on all those old questions, and it would be much better if the system could be induced to make all the changes at once without bumping anything, but if that's not an option then I urge you to limit yourself to three or four a day."

-Gerry Myerson

Given @quid's updated search for questions using the term "palidrome", at 3.5 edits per-day (3-4 as Gerry recommended), this could easily be accomplished in 72 days. All things worth doing are worth doing well and appropriately.

• Problems related to bumping questions to the front page would be resolved if simply every edit could be ticked as either a "minor edit" or not. ("minor edit" would not bump the question to the front page). Was something like this ever suggested on the meta? Aug 31 '20 at 14:21
• @Vepir My guess is that if such a proposal were suggested, it would not be implemented. Large-scale retagging should be a relatively rare event, thus there is little reason to introduce a software solution to handle such an infrequent need. If this is really important to you, take the time to slowly work through the backlog. For what it is worth, my feeling is that you should have no more than three or four retagged posts on the front page at any given time. Given the rate at which new questions come in, you could likely retag three or four questions every couple of hours.
– Xander Henderson Mod
Aug 31 '20 at 15:19
• @XanderHenderson The "retroactive tagging" is not the only instance of "minor edits" (i.e. Minor edits of old questions). That is, all problems related to "minor edits" have been always resolved with "just don't do it" or "be careful how you do it if you must do it". There are also people that edit their own post 10 or more times in a row and then have to be warned to not do it in the future. I feel like "this is a minor edit that I'm submitting" is a natural feature to have to tackle similar issues, imho. Aug 31 '20 at 15:31
• @Vepir Again, I cannot see a large number of cases in which a single user might want to make a large number of minor edits in quick succession---retagging is the biggest such instance. These things happen rarely enough that I can't imagine that the SE overlords have any interest in implementing a "minor edits" feature, particularly because it is open for abuse (imagine that a spammer decides to perform multiple "minor edits" to include a spammy link; this is easily missed if those questions are not bumped).
– Xander Henderson Mod
Aug 31 '20 at 16:28
• @Vepir You might consider supporting this feature request: Allow non-bumping minor edits, but review them on /review (on Meta Stack Exchange). I think there were some related discussions also on this meta - such as: “Minor edit” feature for trusted users. Sep 1 '20 at 9:17