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Can anyone explain in what way incorrect please?:

TSE suggested edit example

The tag wiki shows:

Combined tourism and business visa for the United States, the most common USA visa. It is not a visa which allows the bearer to work in the USA.


I have listened and I agree a close call but on balance think the tag belongs (as the question is posed). OP has been specific, which is in the spirit of avoiding “things that are overly broad” (and to a lesser extent, given its context, “unless VERY specific criteria is listed”). One might suppose “Any foreign national with any type of visas would presumably have to follow the same procedure.” but so far there is nothing much to support (or refute) that.

One answer has “As you are a tourist, you are most likely to be denied.”, another “So given that you don't have a US SSN and an associated driver's license it is more difficult to perform and thus more likely to be denied.” Maybe there is a significant difference – a tourist visa and “probably not”, a foreigner with an SSN number (and hence I’d guess potentially a different type of visa) “maybe possible”.

Either way, the B-1/B-2 visa is, I understand, the most common hence applying that tag does little to restrict the scope. Searching for “Are foreigners allowed to take a police ride-along in the US?” by either tag set:

is not very specific but for me the latter slightly more helpful than the former (though a shame the visa tag is placed first).

I admit one reason for asking is that on Stack Overflow, with which I am slightly less unfamiliar, it seems that any mention of anything in the question body may end up as a tag. This appears to be convention (ie deliberate rather than accidental) though SO has so many questions it is difficult to be quite sure. There I do wish tags were not applied when highly peripheral at best.

However, with only one answer and one that does at least address the question I think a tick is in order. The chances of anyone being seriously inconvenienced by misinterpreting a specific answer to a specific question as being of broader application than intended seem negligible.

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Simple as that: the question is not about B1/B2 visas. Any foreign national with any type of visas would presumably have to follow the same procedure. The type of visa is irrelevant in this case, so the tag is unnecessarily reducing the scope of the question.

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  • @pnuts: No need to. Mentioning the type of visa never hurts, but this question does not relate to obtaining or using said visa type for the purposes of gaining entry to USA -- which is the primary purpose of the tag. Aug 23, 2014 at 16:28
  • @pnuts: that actually might be a good idea, I'll try and think of something to clarify. As I said, there's no need to purposefully reduce the scope of the question with tags, when a more general version of it can be answered just as well. Aug 23, 2014 at 16:33
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    What makes you say the tag reduces the scope? I'm unfamiliar with that function of tags in general...Something about this particular instance maybe? Aug 27, 2014 at 2:14
  • @NickStauner: Imagine this: users with other types of visas might not realize the question applies to their situation as well, since having the tag implies the question is only for B1/B2 visas; in this particular instance it's probably obvious the answer should be general, but for some other questions this might not be the case. Not including a visa type tag implies the question and its answer are not visa status-specific -- which makes it certainly broader than asking and receiving an answer only for B1/B2 visas. Aug 27, 2014 at 6:56
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    Perhaps the body of the question might also be edited to remove the reference to B1/B2 and just leave visas. The question IS about a foreigner on a visa performing a ride-along, vice an illegal ("performing" a ride-along, in the back seat, with cuffs) or a legal alien.
    – CGCampbell
    Aug 30, 2014 at 13:03

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