Auto-remove of little used tags?

Question

I noticed three questions which where tagged untagged

• What characteristics should I look for in a sensei?
• How does Bartitsu's "foot hook with a cane" technique work?
• What's the difference between Internal and External martial arts?

I've retagged them now, but according to the comment by stslavik on the first question the question should have had the teaching-recommendation tag and I guess the other two questions had other tags as well.

I remember reading somewhere on meta-SO that tags that are not often used are automatically removed after a period of 6(?) months. I suspect this is what has happened to both questions. Can anyone confirm this?

If I'm right, and since this site is still in the beta phase, shouldn't we ask the SE staff if this auto-remove tag period can be increased?

Answer 1

You are correct in that tags are cleaned up after a period of six months if they are used only a single time. This is also mentioned in the tag creation privilege:

• new tags will be automatically culled and removed from the system if they are not used by at least 1 other question in a 6 month period.

I doubt there is a chance that the SE team will increase the auto-removal period (solely for our site no less). Given that, I see two solutions that would work to avoid this issue:

• Retag the question.
  If the original tag(s) are not that popular, perhaps using a different tag or tags would be more useful in describing that question's content. There is also the option to retag another question that might be relevant.

• Ask more questions that would fit in a particular tag.
  Six months should be more than enough time to at least come up with even just one pertinent question.

With the particular questions you've highlighted, I don't think retagging will be as helpful as asking more questions. The upside to the second option is generating more activity on this site (which I know has been a struggle) rather than waffling on tags that may still only be used once.