We can’t perform the operation requested here, that is, blacklist career and jobs while still leaving the tags present on the site. We have some suggestions on what could be done as an alternative, though.
Nuke The Tags
Simply put, obliterate the tag. I’m aware that the previous request was to explicitly not destroy the tag, but it remains a simple, direct, and potent form of action. It’s swift and easy to do - simply need to grab a dev and get it done. It is also instantaneous, taking no time. And it gets the most important aspect of the job done: the prevention of future questions with this tag. The cleanup afterwards is just to remove untagged from a much smaller portion of questions remaining. Without a doubt, the fastest option available.
It is not without fault, though, the main issue being that it erases all traces of the tag. There may be several questions which had other tags, yet may have benefited from additional retagging. The ease of finding these questions would be lost.
Plot The Disambiguation
Rather than obliterate the tag as a first step, an alternate route is to work through the existing tag, without performing any retags but instead plotting out how the disambiguation would work out. This would entail collecting links of all the questions, and organizing them into discrete groups of similar properties, so that the consequent retagging job is highly organized. An organized set of links to all the posts would allow for the tag to be safely removed from all instances without inhibiting the ability to revisit them; it would also allow for the merits of any particular retag direction to be discussed and fine-tuned.
On the minus side, it is an extensive amount of work to perform, perhaps the most time-consuming option available. Assuming it is done merely as a side task rather than a focused effort of hours at a time, merely running through a handful of questions, cataloging their links into appropriate groups, it will take a team of users several days to tackle 1100 questions.
Use A Dummy Tag
This is what Seasoned Advice did when they had to deal with the likewise horrible [cooking-techniques] and [ingredients] tags that were just easily misunderstood, ambiguous, and waaaay too widespread across their site. They created a new tag, [please-remove-this-tag], which all of the bad tags were renamed to. This gave them the ability to take their time with the retag effort while preventing the bad tags from resurfacing during that time period.
It is similar to the previous suggestion, but exchanges the high level of organization for a much faster execution. The immediacy of the renaming will prevent future tag instances much sooner, while still preserving the access to all the questions. It is, however, a bit clunky in appearance, and users may be confused by the presence of a tag which requests its own removal.
These are the current options on the table. There may be better tools available in the future, but dilly-dallying until those tools are available is just going to let those tags continue to grow, festering like a fetid pile of compost salad.
