11

Today I realized we have a tag on the main site with the excerpt

Questions about legal problems which may arise during software development or questions about software law, patents and copyrights in general.

But we also have a custom close reason for questions that ask for legal advise or aid, which redirects users to our sister sites OpenSource.se and Law.se.

Should we add a warning notice to the tag that such questions are no longer a good fit here and that better answers should be expected at Law or OpenSource. I am thinking of something similar to the warning in the excerpt of .

2
  • We already have something similar to this in the tag info. Are you saying that you think we need the disclaimer in the excerpt as well? softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/tags/legal/info
    – maple_shaft Mod
    May 28, 2020 at 12:06
  • @maple_shaft, yes I do. I updated the question te reflect that. I find the tag info really hard to access, so a warning there that a question with this tag is likely to be closed will be even less effective than a warning in the excerpt. With the warning in the excerpt, we have a better chance of saying you have been warned.
    – Bart van Ingen Schenau
    May 28, 2020 at 12:39

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
7

I suggest:

legal

OFF TOPIC QUESTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED! Questions about legal matters, including software licensing, are off-topic here. ask a lawyer, or try the law stack exchange site.

However, please make the other forbidden tags consistent:

internship

OFF TOPIC QUESTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED! Internship questions seeking career advice or discussions about workplace issues are off-topic on this site. We recommend avoiding asking any such questions here. Before asking on a different site in the stackexchange network, please review their site rules.

If we make the forbidden tags consistent it will make them easy to recognize as different from normal tags and provide a way to find them with a search.

Some more candidates:

8
  • Any idea how many of these tags we have?
    – Doc Brown
    May 30, 2020 at 6:13
  • @DocBrown I also found recruiting. Been trying to find more. I'd like some identical text string I could put in them all.
    – candied_orange
    May 30, 2020 at 6:15
  • @DocBrown add licensing to the list.
    – candied_orange
    May 30, 2020 at 6:19
  • No, certain licensing question can still be on-topic here.
    – Doc Brown
    May 30, 2020 at 6:20
  • I found a SEDE query to search for "DO NOT USE" in the tag description, still evaluating which ones are really off-topic.
    – Doc Brown
    May 30, 2020 at 6:22
  • @DocBrown that search ability is what I don't want to lose.
    – candied_orange
    May 30, 2020 at 6:24
  • @DocBrown nice work!
    – candied_orange
    May 30, 2020 at 6:37
  • @DocBrown I've updated the tags in your list. Feel free to review them.
    – candied_orange
    May 31, 2020 at 12:11
7

I've taken a stab at a new Tag Excerpt.

QUESTIONS ABOUT LEGAL MATTERS, INCLUDING SOFTWARE LICENSING, ARE OFF-TOPIC HERE. ASK A LAWYER, OR TRY THE LAW STACK EXCHANGE SITE.

My rationale:

  1. Making it ALL CAPS increases the likelihood that an asker will see it.
  2. The size of the excerpt is limited, and the longer it is, the less likely it is to be read. I've tried to limit the information to only that which the asker needs.
  3. Tag usage should be self-explanatory.

New users view tags as permission to ask. Whenever possible, we need to try and limit this perception for off-topic tags, and the Tag Excerpt is as good a place as any.

4
  • 1
    All Caps shouldn't be necessary in my opinion - the only people who read the tag excerpt are those who already care about what it says
    – lucidbrot
    May 28, 2020 at 20:40
  • 1
    Then it's not going to matter either way, is it?
    – Robert Harvey
    May 28, 2020 at 20:43
  • 1
    It does matter. Example user is unsure which tag to choose and opens up the description to see whether that legal tag makes sense or not, and whether there are any hints. With all caps, our example user feels yelled at. It is my personal opinion that the caps are adding little value but feel aggressive
    – lucidbrot
    May 28, 2020 at 20:45
  • 3
    If the excerpt offered formatting (bold, italics or blinking text, anything to grab attention) I would have used that instead, but it doesn't.
    – Robert Harvey
    May 28, 2020 at 20:47

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .