Should we have a death tag?

Question

Death seems to be a pretty common topic on this site. Some example topics:

• Characters dealing with death:
  • Character motivations facing death?
• Writing character deaths:
  • What makes a good death scene?
  • What makes the death of a character satisfying?
  • What to avoid when foreshadowing a death?
• The role of death in creative works:
  • Can a novel without any death be taken seriously?
  • What does the death of a fictional character mean?
  • Death as person - A funny part of the story? Or serious stuff?
• And a whole host of other topics:
  • 177 question use the word death

I was recently retagging some of these question in my efforts to remove the story tag. I went to tag this question with death only to discover it didn't exist, which surprised me.

Should we create a death tag? Do we need a subtag for character-death as well?

Answer 1

Yes we should add the tag.

Using Secespitus' excellent tag creation question for this situation.

1. Ask yourself how many questions you have about this topic: is this probably the only one or is this a topic you want to ask about more regularly?

I can imagine a few questions I may like to ask related to death. Specifically relating to writing a eulogy and dealing with the plot fallout of a major characters death.

2. Look through the existing questions: how many already use the word or similar words and might profit from the tag?

I already found 177 questions that may use this tag. It is a very common topic and many of those would benefit from the tags existence.

3. Look through the existing tags: is one of them already encompassing what you are trying to convey?

No existing tags even come vaguely close to this topic. This is the main reason I raised this because there is no suitable tag for questions about it.

4. Look through Meta: have there been similar requests or precedent cases where something similar has been created/denied?

The only meta post that comes up in a search is discussing a specific question where this tag would have been useful. There has been no previous discussion about creating a tag for it.

5. Think about the sites scope: do you think that a lot of people will profit from these tags when they are asking questions about the specific topic of the site you are on?

I can see plenty of scope for this to be beneficial to the site. Adding tags like this helped the related links to be more relevant to the actual question. Currently if reading a question about death you would have to search to find other, similar questions. By adding the tags it would make them show up in the related list. This would also help to reduce the number of duplicates we receive as related questions show up when asking a question.

6. Think about the tag's scope: is it well-defined and obvious to users coming to the site?

With a decent tag wiki and usage guidance I can't see how this tag would be confusing. "This tag is for questions about death in writing. Portraying character deaths and discussions on the concept of death should all use this tag.". Seems obvious to me.

Combining all these things I think that yes we should create this tag. It is useful, well-defined and popular. I don't see a clear case for making an additional tag for character-death at this stage. A single tag should be sufficient to cover both topics.

Suggested tag wiki

Tag Info:

This tag is for questions about death in writing. Portraying character deaths and discussions on the concept of death should all use this tag.

Tag Wiki:

Death is a concept commonly explored in all forms of writing. This tag should be used for any question which relates to the topic of death, including the deaths of characters, representing death within the narrative, portraying death as a concept, and the plot implications of death within a work.

Examples of questions that should use this tag:

• Character motivations facing death?
• Can a novel without any death be taken seriously?
• What makes the death of a character satisfying?

Related tags: plot characters combat horror

Answer 2

No.

In the questions listed above the word "death" is an incidental and not the core of the question. In fact the same questions could have rephrased replacing "death" with "marriage" (or "salami" for that matters), and still be valid (albeit sometimes humorous) questions.

Rationale for no.

In my opinion, tags are useful when they related to large categories of question cores, let's not have an unnecessary proliferation of tags related to incidentals. On the other hand, if we have to let them proliferate, then let's be systematic.

Proof of replaceability of incidentals

Characters dealing with marriage:

• Character motivations facing marriage?

Writing character marriages:

• What makes a good marriage scene?
• What makes the marriage of a character satisfying?
• What to avoid when foreshadowing a marriage?

The role of marriage in creative works:

• Can a novel without any marriage be taken seriously?
• What does the marriage of a fictional character mean?
• marriage as person - A funny part of the story? Or serious stuff?

And a whole host of other topics:

• (original claim) 177 questions use the word death
• 16 questions use the word "marriage" (162 with the word "fear", which would probably be a better starting choice for my claim...)

_{Note 1: while equating marriage with death is a staple of a certain branch of comedy, I am not necessarily a proponent of such humour.}

_{Note 2: there are zero questions with the word "salami". This is now a surprise.}