When is it appropriate to use tag 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9?

Question

There are various flavors of questions about using Drupal release tags, more specifically these tags: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

However I continue to struggle with when it is appropriate to actually use any of those tags. To illustrate my struggling, this is what the current tag excerpts are for some of them:

• 7 (and similar for 6): This tag is for questions regarding Drupal 7 specifically. Version tags should be used only when strictly necessary, for questions that apply to Drupal 7 only, and not to merely say "I am using Drupal 7 in my site."

• 8: Drupal 8 is the latest version of Drupal. Avoid using it as the only tag, unless your question is only specific to this version, and does not involve non-core features, or core features that already have their tags.

Here are the parts in the tag excerpt for 7 that are not clear to me:

• Version tags should be used only when strictly necessary

  when does that strictly necessary actually apply? Can you point me to any existing questions to illustrate where the 7 is appropriate, and also other existing questions to illustrate where the 7 is not appropriate?

• for questions that apply to Drupal 7 only

  When I post a question, is it OK to tag it with 7 to indicate "I only want to know the answers that apply to Drupal 7"? Can you point me to any existing questions to illustrate where the 7 is appropriate, and also other existing questions to illustrate where the 7 is not appropriate?

• and not to merely say "I am using Drupal 7 in my site."

  as per the not to merely here: it sounds if you want to indicate in your question that "you're using Drupal 7 in your site", you should not use the 7 tag. But, assuming I'm allowed to include in my question an indication that I'm using Drupal 7, how should I then add that information? In the question body, in the question title, in both?

Here are the parts in the tag excerpt for 8 that are not clear to me:

• Avoid using it as the only tag, unless your question is only specific to this version,

  when does that specific to this version actually apply? Can you point me to any existing questions to illustrate where the 8 is appropriate, and also other existing questions to illustrate where the 8 is not appropriate?

• and does not involve non-core features, or core features that already have their tags.

  I don't need to know when to not use this tag, but rather the reverse, i.e when to correctly use 8. Can you point me to any existing questions to illustrate where the 8 is appropriate, and also other existing questions to illustrate where the 8 is not appropriate?

Somehow related to the usage of the 7 tag (+ similar for 6, 8, etc):

1. For questions for which the title contains something like "Drupal 7", or "D7":

   • If it is also tagged with 7, is it correct to just remove that part from the title?
   • If it is not tagged with 7, is it correct to remove that part in the title and add an extra 7 tag at the same time?

2. For questions for which the body contains some kind of indication about "Drupal 7" (or "D7"):

   • If it is also tagged with 7, is it correct to just leave that part in the body as a kind of redundant information?
   • If it is not tagged with 7, is it correct to also add an extra 7 tag?

Notes:

• If you think the above should be obvious, clear, self explaining, then have a look at the revision history of this question.
• If you don't use version tags at all and include something like "Drupal X" in the question title, then these kind of edits may apply. So maybe I'm asking the wrong question, or maybe I should extend it to the title of a question also.

Answer 1

For brevity's sake, I think all tags should read for tag X:

This tag is for questions regarding Drupal X specifically. Version tags should be used only when strictly necessary, for questions that apply to Drupal X only, and not to merely say "I am using Drupal X in my site."

The wording for the D8 is confusing (2x negative) & superfluous (we don't need to know it's the latest version).

As to usage guidance, I think the tag should simply mean OP's question is specially in the context of version X and answers should reflect as such.

As for editing out version information in question title/body, I think it should be left as OP wrote it. Header & body text are signals that search crawlers can pick up on. Tagging is mostly fuzzy metadata for us who want sort through buckets of question topics.

Answer 2

Apart from Shawn's recommendation, I'm going to try to answer my own question, based on facts I've seen happening on Drupal.SE, and including samples of what I saw. As things become more clear to me, I plan to further expand my answer. And if this answer contains mistakes (i.e contract the new guidance), then please drop me a comment ... (I'd be happy to correct my answer).

Here it goes ...

1. For questions for which the title contains something like "Drupal 7", or "D7":

   • If it is also tagged with 7, is it correct to just remove that part from the title?

     Answer: yes, that's how it looks like, here is an example of it.

   • If it is not tagged with 7, is it correct to remove that part in the title and add an extra 7 tag at the same time?

     Answer: it doesn't seem like so, or maybe not always ... here is an example of a question where "Drupal 8" was removed from the title, with no equivalent version tag. Maybe that's because of the question content, which may be specific to D8?

2. For questions for which the body contains some kind of indication about "Drupal 7" (or "D7"):

   • If it is also tagged with 7, is it correct to just leave that part in the body as a kind of redundant information?

     Answer: open question for now (still looking for an example of this).

   • If it is not tagged with 7, is it correct to also add an extra 7 tag?

     Answer: open question for now (still looking for an example of this).

Answer 3

Personally, I think this depends more on the answer than the question. Take this theoretical question:

I use Drupal 7 and have module X because I thought it would solve problem Y that I am having, but it does not seem to be working. What is wrong?

[screenshot]

If the answer to that question would be similar for multiple (supported) versions (at this time 7 and 8), I feel it should not be tagged. Configurations matching this scenario could be for views or metatag that look very much the same for both versions.

On the other hand, if the module has been completely overhauled, the steps would be very different. In these cases it would make sense to tag the question with a specific version, so other know it does, or does not apply to them. I have not yet used it, but based on their blog I believe Commerce would be such a module.

The downside of this selection is that moderators (us) all have to be aware of how a module works for both Drupal versions and that some tag edits should be approved, where others should not.

A real example of a question would be Disable field on hook entity_insert. Where I have rejected the 8 tag with the following reason:

This edit introduces tags that do not help to define the topic of the question. Tags should help to describe what the question is about, not just what it contains.

Simply because (and correct me if I am wrong) the answer to the question would apply to both Drupal versions.

But at the same time I realize that not everybody is aware of the similarities and differences in Drupal versions and their modules. (Nor do I believe that people actually read tag descriptions, but that is a different problem.) I suppose the fuzzy critera of 'my method' do not really make it into a good guideline, but I wanted to share it anyway.