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Just as I write this, a user with $\sim$500 rep. has retagged 28 questions inactive by removing the tag to leave only the tag . This has crowded the main page with already answered questions, and I find this very unnecessary and nocive for actually active questions. Aren't there any regulation as to editing that many questions , some as old as November '10? Shouldn't they be moderated by high rep users before getting bumped up? Is there any way this can be avoided in the future?

ADD 31 by now.

ADD Some examples of the edits. Red means removal; green addition. Black means unchanged.

  1. [analysis] $\color{red}{\rm [differential-equations]}$ $\color{green}{\rm [pde]}$
  2. $\color{red}{\rm [differential-equations]}$ $\color{green}{\rm [pde]}$ [numerical-methods]
  3. $\color{red}{\rm [differential-equations]}$ $\color{green}{\rm [pde]}$
  4. $\color{red}{\rm [differential-equations]}$ $\color{green}{\rm [pde]}$
  5. [soft-question] [terminology] $\color{red}{\rm [differential-equations]}$ $\color{green}{\rm [pde]}$
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    $\begingroup$ It seems the user stopped immediately after I asked them to. :) $\endgroup$
    – user856
    Aug 21, 2012 at 2:11
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    $\begingroup$ +1 to Rahul for prompt reaction and invisible +1 to the retagger for promptly stopping. See also: related, mildly entertaining meta thread $\endgroup$
    – user31373
    Aug 21, 2012 at 2:16
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    $\begingroup$ Let's see, +1 since I agree that mass re-tags are disruptive, but -1 since I do believe those questions should be tagged pde and not differential-equations. That leaves a net vote of $0$... $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Aug 21, 2012 at 3:28
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    $\begingroup$ Just to clarify (and to separate two different matters), your question is about mass retagging in general and not about whether his choice of tags was correct/incorrect. Is that right? $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Aug 21, 2012 at 3:52
  • $\begingroup$ A similar complaint appeared here some time ago. Note that the situation from that thread was caused by several fairly experienced users. The problem was that each one of them made a few retags, but since they were not aware of the activity of others, they joint work bumped several older posts. (But still it was much less posts than in this case.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Aug 21, 2012 at 3:58
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    $\begingroup$ nocive?${}{}{}$ $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Aug 21, 2012 at 6:01
  • $\begingroup$ Another bump. Plus I thought it was me. :) $\endgroup$
    – Frenzy Li
    Aug 21, 2012 at 8:31
  • $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson dictionary.reference.com/browse/nocive $\endgroup$
    – user31373
    Aug 21, 2012 at 13:07
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    $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson: My guess: A direct translation from the Spanish of nocivo; harmful, damaging, or noxious. $\endgroup$
    – cardinal
    Sep 1, 2012 at 15:02

2 Answers 2

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In answer to Peter's third question, no, there is apparently no way this can be avoided in the future. Three times I have tried to bring this behavior (which has now occurred at least three times) to the moderators' attention by flagging posts. The first flag was deemed helpful. The second, made two days ago, is still pending. The third flag I just sent minutes ago, so let's not count that one, but I am coming to the conclusion that the moderators are either unwilling or unable to do anything to avoid massive re-tagging attacks by this user. The user has been given carte blanche.

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    $\begingroup$ +1 for massive re-tagging attacks. $\endgroup$
    – Did
    Sep 3, 2012 at 9:17
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I think you should ask those asker first, why they tag wrongly for their own questions? Although all questions can be retagged by other users, it seems that this will connive the askers that tag wrongly is no problem! , this will finally influence the images of SE sites.

The current policy seems to be too benevolent to the tagging-wrongly-askers. I think we should increase the level of punishments for those repeatedly-tagging-wrongly-askers.

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    $\begingroup$ I don't agree that the questions were wrongly tagged. You removed [differential-equation] and left or added [pde]. $\endgroup$
    – Pedro Mod
    Aug 21, 2012 at 2:25
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    $\begingroup$ But the tag wiki of the [differential-equation] tag has been strongly emphasized that [differential-equation] tag is for ODE questions only, use [pde] tag for PDE questions. $\endgroup$
    – doraemonpaul
    Aug 21, 2012 at 2:35
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    $\begingroup$ Punishments?!? Yes, you are an expert on SE culture. $\endgroup$
    – The Chaz 2.0
    Aug 21, 2012 at 2:42
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    $\begingroup$ doraemonpaul, these seem to be reasonable tag changes. However, it is arguably more important to maintain the integrity of the front page. If you would like to continue retagging, I would ask that you limit yourself to 2 or 3 a day. $\endgroup$
    – davidlowryduda Mod
    Aug 21, 2012 at 3:14
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    $\begingroup$ I agree with @mix; the re-tags are justifiable, but should not have been done all at once. This subject (especially the disruptiveness of a bulk re-tagging) has been discussed many times before in meta. $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Aug 21, 2012 at 3:26
  • $\begingroup$ In the past I have sometimes done mass retaggings; for example, I created multisets and added it to many questions. But I was always careful to do one or two questions at a time, once or twice per day, and nobody has ever complained about it. $\endgroup$
    – MJD
    Aug 21, 2012 at 19:31
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe SE should be amended with a mass retagging functionality which would not bump all retagged questions up, but would add a "pseudo-question" for the mass retag, which would then list all the affected articles. The criterion to detect mass retagging would simply be that the set of added and removed tags is the same for all questions. $\endgroup$
    – celtschk
    Aug 24, 2012 at 9:38

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