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My first question here was: Does recirculated cabin air pass through the air filter?

I visited it for review/editing and noticed that the tab title in the browser was prefaced with "honda", e.g. my tab in chrome was titled "honda - Does Recirculated...".

(EDIT: I'm getting answers about "what are tags", etc. So just want to point out that I'm specifically asking WHY the HONDA tag shows up in the browser tab-title in the browser but others do not, in my experience. I'm a developer and I'm looking for a technical answer about the SE engine.)

I removed all tags, saved, added back ONLY the "cabin-filter" tag, saved.

Now the tab title had no prefix, just the question title.

I added back all tags, putting honda last (assuming order might matter), but that resulted in yet again the "honda - ..." prefix.

So, I'm guessing manufacturer tags have special powers in the GUI engine? Can someone confirm and elaborate on this?

Also, is this a general SE concept or unique to MVMaR tags?

3 Answers 3

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The tag which is placed first is the tag with the most questions against it (or most popular tag by question assigned). While your question may not have been Honda specific, if it is about a Honda, there shouldn't be an issue with having the tag present. Having other pertinent tags present is also good. The thing here is, the more tags which are pertinent to the question, the easier the search engine has in finding like questions when someone asks. They are mainly used (in this sense) as meta data. is the second most used tag on the site. It will go before every other tag besides . If you are on the main page, you'll see the list of most used tags on the right side of the page with the number count of questions associated with them.

The tags also have other uses such as having vote count against them for users who have answers under that tag. For instance, my most prolific tag right now is - I have 914 upvotes in all of the questions I've answered with that tag. When I get to a 1000 upvotes in the tag, I'll get a gold tag badge for engines. There are also tags at bronze (ten upvotes) and silver (400 upvotes) tags as well.

On the larger sites it also helps those who are particularly interested or good at certain question types find those questions faster, so they can answer them for those in need.

Don't worry so much about the tags, they are mainly there to help people find the questions.

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  • (Edited my previous comment): Thanks for the comments, I really do appreciate it. This didn't address my question specifically about GUI/browser behavior with tags. However I think I can infer from what you are saying that the SE engine will move tags around based on popularity, and choosing which tag to put in the tab title might be chosen by those methods, so that is informative. Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 18:56
  • WRT your original question, I may have to go back and think of what I thought was right. I thought it was the favorite tag which shows up in the title, but I saw behavior today which contradicted that assumption. I'm wondering if a @JonEricson might be able to shed light on the behavior? Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 20:19
  • What behavior did you see that contradicted this? I'm thinking you are right, because I did some experiments, and even when the honda tag was last, it was still selected as tab name. Also I found that hyphenated tags (i.e. cabin-filter) are not used in the tab title, even if they are the ONLY tag. Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 23:55
  • @WilburWhateley - Maybe the hyphen thing is what I saw, then. I saw the second tag in the list show up in the tab, not the first listed. I now in the list of tags, they are done in popularity order. You may be on to something with the hyphen ... see, answered your own question ;-) Commented Mar 19, 2016 at 0:22
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There are no preferences or weights on manufacturer tags.

Here's some tag info.

  • All tags are treated the same

  • Tags can have articles about the tag associated with them. Here's the 'info' tab for the battery tag.

  • The community writes articles to fill in the tag info and explain the tag, as in the battery info link above.

  • Weighting on tags is generated by use. The more questions with a particular tab and votes on those questions and answers contribute to the number that's associated with a tag.

Why are manufacturer tags important to some?

I'm a former Honda motorcycle mechanic. I seek out Honda motorcycle and small engine questions. There are other former mechanics and enthusiasts here too that have more knowledge about hot rods so, there's now a hot-rod tag. So the tags are helpful in finding something you are interested in whether it's a manufacturer or a system, like fuel injection or Renault. I hope this answer was helpful to you and I hope you find the site different in a very positive way.

Here's some links for you.

What privileges you receive with increased reputation.

Why voting is important.

A list of badges you can earn.

Edit

The tag that appears on the browser tab is the highest used tag of the group of tags associated to the question.

So if there are tags for motorcycle and engine associated when you open the question engine will be displayed as it has twice as many questions as the motorcycle tag does.

Regarding your cabin-filter tag not showing up when all others were removed.

I don't have a factual answer. I will say that I believe if the question sat with the update for a bit the database behind the site would update on some sort of scheduled stored procedure call and display the cabin-filter tag in the browser tab after a certain period of time.

Hope this is helpful.

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  • Thanks, but this answers the question "what are tags" or "what are they for", which is not what I asked. I asked specifically about the relationship between tags and browser tab titles, why one tags would show up but not others. Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 18:04
  • @WilburWhateley I have updated the response. Regarding the long response. I was trying to give you as much info as I could in a compressed manner since you are a new user I thought it might be beneficial. Thanks for the questions and sorry I missed the core of what you wanted to understand. Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 18:12
  • Very much appreciated. Kindness shown to a new user on SE? What planet have I landed on? I am not a high rep user, but definetly NOT new. I've been trolling the computer tech sites (SO, superuser, linux/unix...) for years and I'm used to the attitude/behavior on those sites, which is probably why I started flaming everyone right out of the gate here...apologies ;) Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 18:18
  • LMAO....no worries bud. I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. I just got hammered on the music fan SE for asking a Led Zeppelin question. Gross. Most everyone here agrees we want a different kind of site that truly adheres to the idea of SE in the FAQ. Hope to see you around and feel free to ask millions of questions. Are chat is pretty active too. Take care. Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 18:21
  • Regarding your answer, I did some experiments and found that hyphenated tags (i.e. cabin-filer) will not show up at all, even if it is the only tag. I think this was really adding to my confusion about the situation. Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 18:57
  • @WilburWhateley Interesting. It sounds like a question for the main meta site. I dug around in there to see if I could get the 'facts' but couldn't turn anything up. Which certainly doesn't mean it's not there so much as it means I couldn't find it. I'm really curious now. Commented Mar 18, 2016 at 21:05
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I did some experiments on my original question and from what I can tell:

  1. The most popular tag is used in the tab title
  2. Order does not matter
  3. Hyphenated tags (i.e. cabin-filter) never appear in the tag title, even if they are the ONLY tag.

Number 1 is up for debate though, see the comments on Paulster2's answer.

Regarding number 2, perhaps more accurately the tags are re-ordered based on popularity, and the first one is used? Not sure. EDIT: I tested this, I removed honda, saved. Then added honda to the END of the list, saved. When I was returned to the question page, honda was first. So, the tags are re-ordered, which effectively means the most popular tag will be used in the tab title (but see number 3).

Number 3 might be a bug/issue/feature of the SE framework itself. Just for interest, it seems that hyphenated tags have caused other problems.

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  • Good one. So if you were to ask another question in here about the hyphenated tag and used bug as a tag it would alert the software developers and they would look into it and eventually respond. That is if you think it's a bug. I'm going to dig further in meta to see if I can turn up an explanation but from the sounds of it, you sir have possibly identified a bug. Which is pretty cool.... Commented Mar 19, 2016 at 2:47

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