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Currently, covers questions that ask about two entirely different ideas -- that of (as the tag wiki says) "short prayers called b'rachos ("benedictions" or "blessings"), generally said to thank God for specific events," as well as questions that ask about a bracha that I might give you, i.e., a prayer on your behalf (or however brachos work, specifically). Examples of questions about "making brachos" include 1, 2, 3; and examples of questions about "giving brachos" include 1, 2, and 3. As it is, all of these questions are categorized under .

I propose introducing a new tag for questions about "giving brachos," leaving all questions about "making brachos" under , in order to make the questions about giving brachos easier to find. I'd like to hear what the community thinks about this idea, as well as find out what this new tag should be called; at the moment, I don't have a clue.

....if the community decides either that it's too much effort/not worth our while to retag these questions, then I propose editing the wiki to include the "giving" of a bracha.

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If we need to split them up, which I don't think we do, let's use verbs to clarify - and . I'd keep the brachos on the second since it's by far the more common use case.

However, I honestly don't think we really need to split them up.

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I agree that it should be split, but has always been used to mean "making a bracha", that changing it would be way too disorienting. Let's make it either or (or both).

I actually thought of this before reading the comments here... baruch shekivanti.

To me, "blessing" is so tied to "b'racha" as "the thing I say", and the idea of a person giving a blessing to somebody else so minor, that if "blessing" becomes the latter I will be tripped up for it every time I go to tag a question. If we need to separate these (and I don't know if we do), let's find a way to involve a verb in the latter. (And yes I know that "blessing" is a gerundive verb in addition to a noun, but that's not what I meant.) – Monica Cellio♦ 1 hour ago

To me, both "blessing" and "benediction" bear both meanings equally, so splitting the tags up into those two is not the way to go. – msh210♦ 1 hour ago

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  • Is blessing-people easy to confuse with e.g., mehcayay hameitim or the blessing over ugly folks?
    – Charles Koppelman
    Jan 5 '15 at 17:07
  • I don't think so. And those happen to be edge cases.
    – Scimonster
    Jan 5 '15 at 17:10
  • I think it would be better two have both tag names unambiguous.
    – msh210 Mod
    Jan 6 '15 at 7:12
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My first reservation would be the pitfall of users using the wrong tag, not realizing that their blessing-type-1 question is really a blessing-type-2 question. As far as the names, easiest would be to rename type-1 to benedictions, and keep type-2 as blessings. Clear tag-wikis are a good start, but they won't protect against the quick-draw taggers (the ones for whom the warning about creating a new tag had to be created).

However, I don't think it will be such a problem, though, because we could just keep our eyes out for it, retag when necessary, and use those opportunities as teaching moments. We don't have such a flood of blessing questions that they would be flying by.

As far as the names, I think the simplest option would be to rename the type-1 questions and keep the type-2 questions as .

That being said, I am not volunteering to help with the retagging. And I hope you don't make me lose my tag-wiki badge.

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  • Badges are never revoked, even if the conditions that made the badge true are no longer changed.
    – MTL
    Jan 5 '15 at 4:21
  • @Shokhet I think that is with the exception of tag wiki badges, but I'm not sure. I know there is one exception.
    – Y     e     z
    Jan 5 '15 at 4:22
  • @Shokhet meta.stackexchange.com/a/120050/248652
    – Y     e     z
    Jan 5 '15 at 4:23
  • I was just looking for that; thanks for the link!
    – MTL
    Jan 5 '15 at 4:24
  • 2
    To me, "blessing" is so tied to "b'racha" as "the thing I say", and the idea of a person giving a blessing to somebody else so minor, that if "blessing" becomes the latter I will be tripped up for it every time I go to tag a question. If we need to separate these (and I don't know if we do), let's find a way to involve a verb in the latter. (And yes I know that "blessing" is a gerundive verb in addition to a noun, but that's not what I meant.)
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 5 '15 at 13:41
  • To me, both "blessing" and "benediction" bear both meanings equally, so splitting the tags up into those two is not the way to go.
    – msh210 Mod
    Jan 5 '15 at 14:13
  • @msh210 To me, benediction always had more of an association with prayer. But I just googled it and I seem to have been incorrect.
    – Y     e     z
    Jan 5 '15 at 18:40

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