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I have noticed of late that the tag is not being used very often when applicable, or is even being removed from many DNA questions. It sometimes seems to be replaced with , , etc. rather than just adding that additional tag.

I think that all DNA questions should be tagged with as well as any subcategory of DNA, if relevant. If someone wants to "watch" DNA questions then it makes more sense for then to have to watch one tag rather than going through all the subcategories of DNA.

It is not redundant to have, for example, both and on a question (and these types of questions rarely run into the 5 tag limit). Using both tags is consistent with what is done on other sites, such as StackOverflow, where it is encouraged to use both the more general tag (e.g. ) and the version ().

Our other option should be to remove altogether, and categorize all DNA questions into autosomal, x, y, or mitochondrial, but I think that would be a mistake.

Not saying this approach is necessarily right, and open to other ideas. Just going for consistency.

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I know that I have removed the generic tag from questions when they are about autosomal DNA and tagged .

I would prefer that we try to always tag one-level below the generic tag, and reserve that for only when a specific tag is not yet known or is not applicable. I did not remember anyone suggesting that we do otherwise.

However, I just found Cleaning up the DNA tags is an earlier Meta G&FH SE Q&A that is relevant to this discussion, and it did mention the tagging protocol that you propose. It seems to have been overlooked but two proposals within it were processed.

It is always possible to find all questions tagged for any DNA by typing [*dna*] into the search bar where it currently expands to [dna] or [autosomal-dna] or [y-dna] or [familytreedna.com] or [x-dna] or [mitochondrial-dna] or [ethnicity-dna].

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  • I though the up votes on the question you reference suggested it wasn't overlooked but rather agreed with by those of us who frequent meta. – ColeValleyGirl♦ Jul 29 '19 at 7:53
  • @ColeValleyGirl I think I set the status-completed based only on the two proposal dot points. If I was aware of the "always use dna" at the time then I had forgotten it in the intervening 3+ years because for any DNA tag modification that I've made lately I thought our protocol was the opposite. – PolyGeo♦ Jul 29 '19 at 8:12
  • No problem -- I was just highlighting the fact that sometimes things on meta just get agreement and no discussion. – ColeValleyGirl♦ Jul 29 '19 at 8:15
  • I think Meta works best when the question outlines a single issue to try and resolve (with votes indicating the perceived importance of the issue) and no proposals, and then answers can be used to make the proposals and attract votes on their relative merits. I find it harder to assess consensus when the issue and proposals are mixed in the question. – PolyGeo♦ Jul 29 '19 at 8:22
  • Be nice if the world worked the way we want it to :)) – ColeValleyGirl♦ Jul 29 '19 at 8:26

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