As of this writing, 69 questions are tagged indie.
What value does this tag provide (if any), and what guidelines should we provide in its wiki to encourage correct use?
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\$\begingroup\$ For what it's worth, I'm not likely to recommend a 5,000$ per seat software license to someone with an indie tag on their question, but I might otherwise. \$\endgroup\$ – Selali Adobor Oct 21 '14 at 17:29
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\$\begingroup\$ That's okay, because questions asking for software recommendations are off-topic anyway. Even disregarding that, if price or license classification (after all, some software packages offer difference licenses based on income tiers, et cetera) are relevant to the question they should be described by the question; the "indie" tag doesn't add that information since the definition of "indie" is broad. Tags are about searchability and should be used mainly for that, not for scoping the question. \$\endgroup\$ – user1430 Oct 21 '14 at 17:38
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\$\begingroup\$ I didn't quite mean a software recommendation. More a question which would be answered by a certain tool/software/codec/etc. \$\endgroup\$ – Selali Adobor Oct 21 '14 at 17:44
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\$\begingroup\$ I know, but I still think if the asker is price-sensitive it should be in the question; the tag doesn't add sufficient information, because indie developers have a broad range of purchasing power (and that's list is hardly exhaustive or accurate). You can probably safely assume most people here can't afford several-thousand-dollar products, since the overwhelming majority of active participants here are not representing large professional interests. \$\endgroup\$ – user1430 Oct 21 '14 at 17:58
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1\$\begingroup\$ It was an example to show that it has some purpose, not commenting on if that purpose was directly useful here (hence this being a comment, not an answer). That said, the list is completely ridiculous ... it's like having a list of devs with beards. 5,000$ is just a hyperbolic example, that much should have been obvious. The workflow of most indie developers isn't going to be comparable to that of most game developers working on professional interests of any size.I don't know how useful it is to debate that unless you're worried about the semantics of the term (which is equally pointless). \$\endgroup\$ – Selali Adobor Oct 21 '14 at 18:10
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\$\begingroup\$ I agree, it's not a worthwhile debate; I just pointed out the list because it's such a pointless and arbitrary list and serves to underscore how pointless and arbitrary the definition of "indie" itself could be. \$\endgroup\$ – user1430 Oct 21 '14 at 18:28
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\$\begingroup\$ "The workflow of most indie developers isn't going to be comparable to that of most game developers working on professional interests of any size" is hardly arbitrary. That's why I say you might argue over the semantics of the term, but it's not an entirely useless term, that list is just using it in an embarrassingly nonsensical and useless way... \$\endgroup\$ – Selali Adobor Oct 21 '14 at 18:53
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I don't think this tag provides any useful information, and we should remove it.
indie is a meta-tag, and describes more the context of the problem rather than the problem itself, which doesn't offer enough improved search-ability to warrant the consumption of an entire tag slot on a question.
Further, the overwhelming majority of questions asked on this site are from non-professional or hobby developers, such that the indie tag is actually applicable to all questions. Therefore, like game-development, it's not a valid tag.
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2\$\begingroup\$ +1. This aligns with StackExchange's official stance on meta tags. \$\endgroup\$ – Anko Oct 18 '14 at 12:23
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\$\begingroup\$ I have eliminated the tag from all questions (manually, because apparently StackExchange thinks bulk-tag-removal features are not something we should be allowed to have). \$\endgroup\$ – user1430 Oct 20 '14 at 15:57
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\$\begingroup\$ For future reference, I think the good folks at SO have implemented one. There is also a tag-removal (aka 'burnination') script out there. \$\endgroup\$ – kadu Oct 28 '14 at 4:13
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\$\begingroup\$ Yes, I know developers and CMs can do it, but that's obnoxious and neuters some of the community's ability to manage itself. \$\endgroup\$ – user1430 Oct 28 '14 at 15:22
