Should the [mi-yodeya-series] Tag Be Retired?

Question

The [mi-yodeya-series] tag was introduced at this site's inception, when things were far less formal than they are now, and was intended as a fun sort of event to celebrate the founding of this wonderful site.

Nowadays, however, our standards are much higher for question quality. In addition such a tag is actually considered a "meta-tag" which isn't really supposed to be used. This tag also seems at times to invite users to create numerous questions about obscure numbers, which are low-quality.

Should we restrict the tag from further use?

Answer 1

This series has a lot of historical value to the community and has always been seen as being grandfathered in to various rules and exceptions. The following proposal is intended to formally tie up loose ends and allow the classical portions of the series to remain functional while limiting the series' scope and any potential for abuse.

• Someone (ideally Isaac) post now the remaining questions through to 365.

• All series posts besides 1-365 (and Purim adaptations) be deleted (or at least closed). New answers on open posts are allowed.

• The tag wiki be edited to indicate the series is closed and no more questions will be accepted. Remove the tag number from the series questions to reserve it for proper site questions (like how Purim Torah doesn't get other tags).

This still leaves it as an exception to the ordinary rules of good questions, which isn't very aesthetic legally speaking, and we may have to temporarily break some ordinary rules to implement this, but it seems like a good enough compromise that has little opportunity for abuse or long term problems. Better to tweak things now and not have a bigger problem later.

I also believe this is really just formalizing what was generally seen as the expected behavior until now. It's worked fine for years, so let's make it a rule so no one can abuse the system.

If someone actually needs help finding an important fact about some other number for some reason, ask with the tag number and explain why you need that fact and how to evaluate which fact can best suit your purpose. That question will then be evaluated by all the ordinary standards (not Off Topic, not Too Broad, not Opinion Based, etc.) to see if it fits our site. It might be better to just ask in chat though.

Answer 2

I'd like to offer this third option which I posted elsewhere:

I propose that a policy similar to the PTIJ policy be enforced on this tag.

• The format of the post must look like The first ones, and that same procedure should be followed. Something like this:

Who knows three hundred forty five?

חמישה וארבעים ושלוש מאות - מי יודע?‏

The traditional Passover song "Echad - mi yodeya" implies a possible presupposition that there is a Jewish significance to be found for each natural number. Accordingly, there is an ongoing series on Mi Yodeya that is attempting to unearth significant Judaism facts about each number, in sequence.

What significant Judaism facts are there about the number 345? The more significant within Judaism and the more intrinsically dependent on the value 345, the stronger the answer.

Please cite/link your sources, if possible. After a few days, I will

• Upvote all interesting answers.

• Accept the best answer.

At which point we can go on to the next number.

• The posts must have the [mi-yodeya-series] tag only and no other tag

• The posts must be in sequence. You cannot make a question about n until a question about n-1 has been asked and answered satisfactorily. When this series started, I might object to this rule, but at this point, all questions and answers will be pretty obscure, so I don't think this is too tyrannical.

• A new question cannot be made until the number before it has at least one upvoted answer.

• All questions not following these guidelines will be deleted. The current sequence (going up to 348 as of 3/3/21) will be edited to comply.

Answer 3

As discussed here, I believe that the extant posts in this tag are generally at least facially on-topic, though they vary in quality, including many of the earlier ones that I posted suffering from lack of explicit motivation and lack of explicit criteria for evaluating answers.

I therefore propose:

• Makemi-yodeya-series a synonym of number, which would make all future uses of the former show up as the latter, and would make old posts bearing the former also convert to the latter if edited.

• We (mods, close-voters, and voters) evaluate all posts in this series in accordance with existing site rules and norms, as we encounter them (i.e. not attempting any mass treatments).

• Add something along the lines of the following to the number tag wiki:

Note that some posts in this tag do not necessarily represent a good on-topic question here according to current standards, but haven't yet been closed or edited. Please take that into account before using these questions as precedent towards new questions.