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When looking through the tags on the Main Site I found the tag . Two of its questions are closed. Two questions use the tags and , which looks like the author wanted to use the tag and didn't know that tags are written with a hyphen when you would use a space in normal writing. There is a total of 4 questions with this tag.

I don't see how it is useful for the site, seeing as we already have the often used tag with currently 580 questions. There is no usage guidance or tag wiki that would explain why the author of the first question with this tag, who currently has a bit under 700 reputation, added this tag to the already existing tags. One could argue that "fiction" is a more general term, whereas "science-fiction" specifically states that the question is about fictional elements regarding science, but as WorlBuilding is in itself about creating a fictional world I don't see how using this tag would make questions easier to find. It looks like the tag could be used on basically every question ever asked on the site.

I think we should burninate this tag. What does the rest of the community think?

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    $\begingroup$ Surely, the nature of worldbuilding implies that everything on here is fictional $\endgroup$
    – Aric
    Aug 10, 2017 at 10:23
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    $\begingroup$ Do we need the science fiction-tag? $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Aug 10, 2017 at 11:54
  • $\begingroup$ @sphennings That might be worth a different Meta discussion. I would probably not use it as a question tagged science or science-based on a site dedicated to WorldBuilding would be enough, but it's used quite often so I am more reluctant to change it. Burninating fiction wouldn't have a big impact on the site, burninating science-fiction would definitely have a big impact. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Aug 10, 2017 at 12:04
  • $\begingroup$ @Secespitus Mind the difference between [science] (which is a "normal" tag for questions that are about science, or about the perception of science, within a fictional world) and [science-based] (which is a meta tag for questions that needs answers based in valid science, where the question may be on essentially any subject). Lots of people get that wrong. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Aug 10, 2017 at 19:48
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling Thanks for pointing that out again. A question tagged [science] would already be [science-fiction] on WorldBuilding whereas "science-fiction" normally means "different from real science" and therefore not apply to [science-based] questions that are based on real world science. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Aug 10, 2017 at 20:31
  • $\begingroup$ @Secespitus Actually, a question tagged [science] on WB wouldn't necessarily be about anything science-fiction at all, at least not in the common sense, and the tag wiki excerpt seems to support that by saying that the tag is "[f]or questions relating to worlds with a setting of common science-fiction". Science-fiction typically implies settings set in the future, but you can just as easily ask a question about (the perception of) [science] in, say, a LOTR-esque world. So [science-fiction] and [science] are not one and the same at all. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Aug 11, 2017 at 8:19
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling Seems like this topic is more complicated that I thought. I always assumed that "science-fiction" most often relates to future, but is not limited to it. But maybe things from the past fall in different other categories, maybe something like "Steampunk". The tag wiki from [science-fiction] only mentiones "common" sci-fi settings, which I took to be about fictional science, but not limited in the time of the fiction. Maybe we need to adjust the wiki a bit to make it more clear. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Aug 11, 2017 at 9:06
  • $\begingroup$ @Secespitus Sounds like a separate meta question to hash out what the respective tag wikis should say might be in order. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Aug 11, 2017 at 9:14
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling I just looked up the Wikipedia article for Steampunk and it says in the first sentence that "Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy". So yeah, another Meta Post is probably a good idea. I will see if I can make one once I find the time. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Aug 11, 2017 at 9:36
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling Done $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Aug 11, 2017 at 10:16

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I removed the tag from the questions

  • There hasn't been an answer in 5 days on this question
  • There are 4 upvotes on this questions
  • The highest ranked comment has 4 upvotes (3 if you don't count mine):

    Surely, the nature of worldbuilding implies that everything on here is fictional

  • Other comments under this question were about a different tag

All in all the community seems to agree as there hasn't been a single indication to keep the tag. The reasons why I think the tag should be deleted have been laid out in the question body.

These are the questions that had the tag before I removed it

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