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When tagging a question with , the following abbreviated description pops up:

Questions about PHP not related to Drupal should be asked on Stack Overflow. Don't use this tag to mean "the question is about PHP code."

The first sentence is perfectly clear. However, what exactly does the second sentence mean?

"is about PHP code" is very vague. Does this mean:

  • I should not add the PHP tag just because my question is about Drupal, which is made using PHP code? (Yes, I assume.)
  • I should not add the PHP tag because my question is about editing the PHP in my theme, custom module, etc.? (???)

When should I use ?

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    I can't see any good reason for that tag to exist, except maybe to serve as a signpost for people who might post PHP questions that don't relate to Drupal. Since Drupal is built in PHP it's pretty much implied that any code in the question would be PHP – Clive♦ Jan 28 '13 at 15:58
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There are very few questions that eventually could use , which should be used when there isn't a more specific tag. The tag excerpt says the tag should not be used (for example) in the following questions:

  • Questions about how to use a Drupal function
  • Questions about the hook to use
  • Questions about how to implement a hook
  • Questions about the documentation of a Drupal function

The problem is that, on Stack Exchange sites, when a tag is used on the majority of the questions, it stops to being useful. That is the reason why the tag excerpt for says not to use it to generally mean the question is about a module, or the code used for a module.

As it is, the tag is more used to individuate questions that don't suite well Drupal Answers. If you see a question which is only using , there are two cases: the OP doesn't know which tags should be used, or the question is too generic to be acceptable on Drupal Answers. If you see a question that uses different tags, and includes also , it simply means the OP didn't read the excerpt that is shown when tags are selected; in this case, the tag should be simply removed.

The right thing to do with would be asking for the tag to be burninated. If then the tag keeps to be used, we could ask it is black-listed.
Burninating a tag is done from Stack Exchange staff, which really burninates tag when there is a consensus about that. With the participation we have in this very site, I have not been successful on asking the burnination of . :)

  • I would say we burninate it, along with api. – mpdonadio♦ Jan 29 '13 at 14:07
  • The problem is that Stack Exchange will not burninate it if the question about burninating it doesn't receive enough votes. – kiamlaluno♦ Jan 29 '13 at 14:11
  • I asked a question about burninating php. – kiamlaluno♦ Jan 29 '13 at 14:25

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