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The tag contains no real mathematical content and does not help to organize the site in any meaningful way. Despite that, the tag has been recreated and deleted multiple times. It has been suggested that the tag should be added to the blacklist. Thus I am proposing that the tag, and simple variations (e.g. generalize, generalizations, etc), be blacklisted, which would prevent users from applying the tag to any question (this would not remove the tag from existing question, but this is not really relevant, as there are currently no questions with this tag).

Diamond moderators do not have the power to blacklist tags, but tags can be blacklisted by the community moderation team. There is no formal process for blacklisting a tag, but the consensus from the other moderators on the network seems to be that the following is a good outline of a procedure:

  • Collect community feedback via a meta question (that is what this question is).
  • Assuming that community feedback is in favor of the blacklisting, tag the question .
  • The community moderation team will review the request, and either blacklist the tag and retag the meta question , or decline the request and retag the meta question .

As past feedback in the Tag Management thread from 2019 seems to indicate that the community is in favor of this blacklisting, I have taken the liberty of tagging this question for review by the community moderation team.

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    $\begingroup$ I'm in favor of blacklisting that tag. The word "generalization" is very vague. I would imagine it's a hassle to keep deleting the tag. $\endgroup$
    – Accelerator
    Aug 18 at 0:36
  • $\begingroup$ You could say generalization is a very... general tag? $\endgroup$
    – Jme
    Aug 18 at 2:02
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    $\begingroup$ Some statistics related to the tag (generalization) (including some previous occurrences of this tag) were mentioned in the Tagging chatroom.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Aug 18 at 3:56
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    $\begingroup$ I'm all for putting generalization and its variants on a permanent exclude list. $\endgroup$
    – Cameron Williams
    Aug 18 at 6:58
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    $\begingroup$ When blocking a tag we include error text that explains to anyone attempting to use it why the tag is blocked. Can you please propose text for such a message so that we can move forward with this request? We're happy to refine it but the message generally explains why the tag is blocked and may suggest alternate tags to use instead. $\endgroup$
    – Catija
    Sep 19 at 5:10

2 Answers 2

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I'm in favor of blacklisting that tag. The word "generalization" is very vague. I would imagine it's a hassle to keep deleting the tag.

(I turned Accelerator's comment into an answer, in order to better gauge community approval).

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I am posting this answer in response to Catija's comment, which asks for an error message (to be displayed when an asker attempts to use the blacklisted tag). I am marking the answer "Community Wiki" so that everyone feels welcome to help with the word-smithing.

Proposed Error Text:

The tag "generalization" cannot be used, as this tag doesn't help to narrow down the subject of a question, nor to keep the site organized. Consider using a tag related to the subject being generalized. For example, if the question is about generalizing the mean value theorem to the multivariable setting, consider or .

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  • $\begingroup$ I've put in a ticket to block this tag and variations of it using this message. The only change I added was to add "and variations" after "generalization" since we'll be blocking tags other than generalization alone. $\endgroup$
    – Catija
    Sep 29 at 20:03
  • $\begingroup$ @Catija Thanks for remembering to do this! $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Sep 29 at 20:09

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