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We are getting a low amount of questions every day which are not tagged with a language. I believe we can could prevent this if we make adding a language required.

Is there a possibility to add this within the SE system? The only system I know of is the one that all meta sites use:

must include at least one of (bug feature-request discussion support)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I think that me and @Jamal have been keeping it a secret so we could tag all the Javascript questions with the javascript tag before everyone else \$\endgroup\$
    – Malachi Mod
    Jul 18, 2014 at 19:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can you think of any other Stack Exchange site that would want some kind of similar functionality like this? (that requires questions to have at least one of x tags) \$\endgroup\$ Jul 18, 2014 at 19:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SimonAndréForsberg I believe all meta.SE sites ultimately benefit from having such system a I think their current one is not the best one (if it is indeed manually). For other sites... Sure, there should be ones, but not sure which ones. \$\endgroup\$
    – skiwi
    Jul 18, 2014 at 19:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ There is a query somewhere for getting a list of questions tagged with only a certain tag. For us, a majority of those questions just had a meta tag, and we've already taken care of that problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jamal
    Jul 18, 2014 at 19:14
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I would love to see how this lovely idea could be applied to traveling.stackexchange, or cooking.stackexchange.. or even ux.stackexchange - looks like it's a code-related sites -specific issue, which makes it pretty hard to implement consistently across the network. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 18, 2014 at 20:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ Seems like the simplest thing to do is put together a list of language tags and write a SEDE query to find questions that don't have any of those tags, and periodically review it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dagg
    Jul 22, 2014 at 18:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Related meta post: meta.codereview.stackexchange.com/q/701/41243 \$\endgroup\$
    – RubberDuck
    Jul 26, 2014 at 16:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Dagg I think that would be a good alternative. You should post that as an answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – RubberDuck
    Jul 26, 2014 at 17:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ Related feature request at MSO. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mast Mod
    Jul 5, 2018 at 21:29

4 Answers 4

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The idea itself is a good one. However, a slight problem is that new languages are invented every now and then (We had our first question not so long ago) so the "list of available languages" needs to be updated continuously somehow, and I can't come up with an easy system for that to happen.

I believe it all boils down to: "Is it worth the time of StackExchange employees implementing?" and I am afraid that the answer to that question is "No."

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think our moderators can be considered active enough to keep the list up to date. It may come with a cost of missing out on a few questions if they are really new though, which could be an issue. \$\endgroup\$
    – skiwi
    Jul 18, 2014 at 19:06
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    \$\begingroup\$ Is there a way for a tag to be create with asking a question about it? I don't think so. And the moderators won't always have the time or the will power to create the tag before someone has taken the time to ask a question on the tag. \$\endgroup\$
    – nhgrif
    Jul 20, 2014 at 14:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ Could language tags not be pulled from Stackoverflow? as the big brother could provide the little brother with vital information to assist expansion? \$\endgroup\$
    – Daryl Gill
    Jul 21, 2014 at 16:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ What about automatically flagging "non-language-tagged" questions for moderator review? If the user has tagged a question with a new language that isn't in the "accepted" list of language tags, the moderator can simply unflag the question and submit the new tag for inclusion in the list; if the question indeed doesn't have a language tag, then the moderator can either tag appropriately or take other action to ensure the question gets properly tagged. \$\endgroup\$
    – Doktor J
    Jul 6, 2018 at 18:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DoktorJ And who would write this automatic system to flag it? \$\endgroup\$ Jul 6, 2018 at 23:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SimonForsberg presumably whoever would write the code to make such tags required in the first place as suggested by OP? \$\endgroup\$
    – Doktor J
    Jul 7, 2018 at 0:45
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A simple solution would be to Vote to Close any question you see that does not have a language tag on it. Without a language tag, it is "Unclear what you're asking.".

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Indeed, this idea would be really good and beneficial.

Of course, there are some 'clowns' out there who expect people to read the code and then make people guess what language it is. Also, there are some reviewers who only review for a certain language, and if the review thread doesn't have a tag, then neither will the OP nor the Reviewer's will benefit, which will probably be ignored, and will be noticed late.

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-1
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I thought that this was already a requirement (even if it was unspoken among the regulars) that they needed a language tag so that reviewers could find them easily.

some other questions that kind of follow along are these,

Should name of programming language be in the title of a question?

Should questions include "tags" in their titles?

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    \$\begingroup\$ It is a requirement for on-topicness, yes. But it is not a technical requirement imposed by the system. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 18, 2014 at 19:08

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