Should we remove the "culture" tag?

Question

Culture

Is culture a useful tag? I see it, at best, as not adding any value, and at worst, a problematic tag that will not have a satisfactory definition. There are huge academic debates about what the proper definition of "culture" is, and it's also just so broad a term that I don't think it's really helpful to include.

I bring up this issue because I was going to start going through and proposing tag wiki excerpts for some of the blank tags, and as I started to write out a description for culture I realized that I don't think it's a necessary tag.

The current questions for that tag benefit much more from their other tags than the culture one. My tag wiki excerpt started off with "The customs, behavior, language, attitudes, art and social institutions of a group" - but we already have local-customs language as well as tags for specific cultures like aboriginal maori etc.

It seems to me that most questions that have been asked and possibly will be asked are covered by other tags, especially local-customs language and food-and-drink.

Does anyone else have thoughts on removing this tag?

[Originally posted in "Tag issues (please add yours!)" but reposted here so more people would see and weigh in on it.]

Answer 1

Since you've mentioned it in a comment, I'd like to include it in an answer:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags/

However, I'll use the same link to argue FOR culture :) We just need to be more careful with how it's used to prevent it becoming superfluous.

From the link:

"If the tag can’t work as the only tag on a question, it’s probably a meta-tag."

which to me, would describe questions like "Are there any travel experiences in New Zealand that offer a Maori “cultural immersion”?" just fine. It's specifically about Maori Culture.

However,

"If the tag commonly means different things to different people, it’s probably a meta-tag."

causes problems, because as @Laura points out, meaning differs. But in this case I think we could probably just tighten up on it.

Answer 2

I will answer by going through the questions using this tag but rather than just talking about "most", I'll look at which if any are "characterized" by "culture" and/or not characterized by their other tags.

• Which countries are “Muslim countries”?
  The culture tag definitely characterizes this question. It has what seems like a much worse tag, "countries" and another good tag that characterises the question, "terminology". Other tags such as "local customs" wouldn't be right. We could have a "muslim" tag I suppose.

The culture tag does seem superfluous in these:

• Vomitorium: Only common in the German-speaking world?
• How to cope with disgusting fellow travellers?
• Where to stay for London nightlife
• How can I get French people to speak French to me?

Here's a tricky one:

• How to avoid drinking vodka?
  "Local customs" wouldn't be right because it's not about how Russians drink but about how a traveller can say no without offense. The questions other tags are "health", which is really just a sideline, "tips and tricks", which has also been criticized as being a meta tag though I disagree on that, "Russia" and "alcohol" are both clearly good tags.

Some more...

• What's a good gift to bring from Sweden for people I couchsurf with?
  "Culture" seems somewhat useful. "Gifts" is not used anywhere else so it's probably a bad tag. "Souvenirs" seems better but it is only used on one other question! "Couchsurfing" doesn't seem to be characteristic for this question to me, just a sidenote.

• Are there any travel experiences in Australia that offer aboriginal (or Torres Strait) “cultural immersion”? and Are there any travel experiences in New Zealand that offer a Maori “cultural immersion”?
  These seem to be good uses of the "culture" tag though "maori" clearly covers that too for the NZ question it's less clear that "aboriginal" and "torres-strait" do as good a job for the Aus question. "Languages" in this case would seem to overemphasize that aspect.

• Are there any standard clothing restrictions when visiting mosques?
  This one would definitely work fine with "local customs" alone without "culture". It would also benefit from a "muslim" tag if we were to create one.

Woah that's pretty much it. There's only 12 questions tagged "culture", I don't think we have a real problem. We have worse tags and tags that are more "meta". I do think "meta tags" are a real problem, but in some debates about them it has seemed to me that some people were going to rigid black and white on the issue. If we need to stamp out some bad tags let's take a look at international-travel, countries, etc.

Answer 3

I suggest culture be kept, along with all the other specific tags mentioned. If a visitor wants to drill down, they could do it coarsely with all questions tagged 'culture' and finely with specific tags.