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In How do we want to handle questions with radically different answers for Drupal 7 (and lower) and Drupal 8 (and higher)?, we solicited thoughts on how we as a community want to handle the fact that some questions here can have radically different approaches depending on the version of Drupal being used, especially in Drupal 8.

While Drupal Answers has version tags, their use is discouraged per the tag wikis.

The diamond moderators have taken this up as a general Stack Exchange issue, and as of 2017/02/25, this is our guidance (part of which can be read at How should software related SE sites handle drastic version changes?).

  • We should continue to use tags only when necessary, per what is currently in the wiki. Yes, we know this doesn't reflect the voting. But, it better reflects Stack Exchange in general.

  • As a community, we need to remember that people asking questions may not know tag policy or whether something is specific, and that it is our (as in everyone, not just the diamond moderators) collective responsibility to tend the site and adjust tags for the long term, to add them when needed and remove them when not. I think this is something we overlooked during our initial discussions.

This also means that we need to avoid the "What version are you using" and immediately editing it in as a tag as a general rule. It does mean, though, that if we know an answer will differ radically based on version, we can try to solicit this information via comments and potentially tag. In this case, though, we shouldn't be discouraging answers for each version or an answer that covers multiple versions.

For the short term, I think that we can start to adjust questions a smidge to reflect the model that ones like How can I enforce maintenance_mode at all times in a specific environment? have. Discuss a scenario in in Drupal 7, and ask how to do it in Drupal 8 now that things have changed.

This is not an ideal situation, and not a solution that everyone agrees with, but this is the best current fit for the Stack Exchange model.

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    Just wanted to say, that eventhough mpdonadio has written this, this reflects how all the mods feel about this. We have discussed this over the past few weeks. We hope we can arrive at some consensus as the current situation isn't helpful for Drupal Answers.
    – googletorp
    Feb 27, 2017 at 14:26
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    And, this wasn't the diamond moderators acting on their own to come up with a decision. The reason this has taken so long were the back and forths with discussing the situation with other SE mods (a few of which participate here, too), SE/CM team, etc.
    – mpdonadio Mod
    Feb 27, 2017 at 14:29
  • Sorry to ask, but shouldn't this "question" be transformed in a self answered question? Probably also by marking your own answer then as accepted? Ideally in such a way also that reviewers can link to that answer when rejecting suggested edits that don't comply with it? Feb 27, 2017 at 20:07
  • @Pierre.Vriens Possibly, but I think a question here gives people the opportunity to add "answers" expressing concerns and where we need followups. I also have this tagged as "FAQ" so we can separate out the policy from the discussion.
    – mpdonadio Mod
    Feb 27, 2017 at 20:25
  • It really took me some time to get it. I wish the wording would have been different from the very beginning. It's not about that the use of version tags is discouraged it's much more that we are advised to use them more carefully. I also which the barrier to submit a post edit would be a little bit higher then this problem may not have gotten as big as it got now. It should be clear that adding one single tag isn't that much a improvement to a question.
    – leymannx
    Mar 3, 2017 at 23:59

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In How do we want to handle questions with radically different answers for Drupal 7 (and lower) and Drupal 8 (and higher)?, we solicited thoughts on how we as a community want to handle the fact that some questions here can have radically different approaches depending on the version of Drupal being used, especially in Drupal 8.

Voting results for the answers posted to that question (at the time this answer was posted):

While Drupal Answers has version tags, their use is discouraged per the tag wikis.

If the system doesn't seem to work according to the documentation (= the tag wikis), then fixing the documentation is a possible solution ...

The diamond moderators have taken this up as a general Stack Exchange issue, and as of 2017/02/25, this is our guidance (part of which can be read at How should software related SE sites handle drastic version changes?).

I suggest to include a relevant quote about that "part of which", for multiple reasons:

  • to be sure it is clear to which part it is a reference to.
  • links may stop working, or its content may get updated, so better include a relevant quote about it "here" so that this question here is not affected by such things.

We should continue to use tags only when necessary, per what is currently in the wiki. Yes, we know this doesn't reflect the voting. But, it better reflects Stack Exchange in general.

True, that does not reflect the voting from the Drupal.SE community members who did the effort to digest that question (and upvote/downvote).

But IMO it also does not reflect:

  1. the recommendation in the only answer to the question on meta.SE, and which states (in bold): Drupal Answers needs to break down and start using version tags.
  2. what is included in the current Drupal-tag on stackoverflow (first introduced for drupal-6 and drupal-7 via this tag edit):

    Each major release of Drupal is not completely compatible with the previous; hence, the importance of using the version tags (e.g. drupal-5, drupal-6, drupal-7, drupal-8) whenever appropriate.

    ... that sounds like "stackoverflow" does not fit with Stack Exchange in general related to those similar tags, no?

As a community, we need to remember that people asking questions may not know tag policy or whether something is specific, and that it is our (as in everyone, not just the diamond moderators) collective responsibility to tend the site and adjust tags for the long term, to add them when needed and remove them when not. I think this is something we overlooked during our initial discussions.

True that often times when people asking questions may not know such things. But if you post an answer that doesn't seem to fit with what they "had in mind" (but didn't specify in their question), they'll right away tell you the answer doesn't work for their case ...

This also means that we need to avoid the "What version are you using" and immediately editing it in as a tag as a general rule. It does mean, though, that if we know an answer will differ radically based on version, we can try to solicit this information via comments and potentially tag. In this case, though, we shouldn't be discouraging answers for each version or an answer that covers multiple versions.

This seems to me that posting an answer like "This answer is for Drupal version X" is (still) OK ... Better still, I think it's a way to protect your answer from being invalidated by OPer, such as my answer to "How to set "Entity has Field" when the Rules Event is unrelated to the entity?":

  • I intentionally did not ask about the release it was about (with the above "guidance" in mind).
  • I added the PS to my answer.
  • Then a comment was posted with "Thank you so much for answering, apologies though, this is about D8 ...".

Too bad, I (my answer) was first, and changing the question after it got answered "so drastically" that it invalidates my answer is not allowed.

For the short term, I think that we can start to adjust questions a smidge to reflect the model that ones like How can I enforce maintenance_mode at all times in a specific environment? have. Discuss a scenario in in Drupal 7, and ask how to do it in Drupal 8 now that things have changed.

That sounds like most of the (existing) questions that have no answer for D8 yet, are now open for an additional D8 answer (assuming such answer would be radically different from answers for pre-D8 releases).

It'll be interesting to see what'll happen to answers to existing D8-questions, which are like "just in case somebody wonders how to do this in D7, here it is: ...".

This is not an ideal situation, and not a solution that everyone agrees with, but this is the best current fit for the Stack Exchange model.

I'll consider this phrase as a summary of this "topic". As per my answer to the original question it's clear that "I" have another opinion, but I find it more important to know what the Rules of the Drupal.SE game are ... hoping that everybody will (be forced to) respect them.

After about 2 months of monitoring the brand new questions, my rough estimate is that there are about 20% of the new questions that do NOT have a version tag when first posted. And I noticed question edits by moderators which didn't take away such tags in quite a few of the edited questions.

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  • Thank you for sharing. This is definitely something we have to grow into, and we will have a few more MSE posts to fully work out the impacts (starting with your tagging question).
    – mpdonadio Mod
    Feb 27, 2017 at 20:06
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    @leymannx This isn't a new approach; it is what the tag wikis have always said. It is better clarification of how to proceed now that Drupal 8 has come out. There are still some things to work out. And I will repeat, this is not a unilateral decision by the diamond moderators, and we are not 100% happy with the outcome (because it is really a no-win situation). People on some SE sites want them to be more forum-like, but that goes against SE philosophy and will never change.
    – mpdonadio Mod
    Feb 27, 2017 at 23:26
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    @Pierre.Vriens One thing about the bolded text in your answer, "Drupal Answers needs to break down and start using version tags.". Yes, that is what is from Jon, and we have always had and allowed version tags (when necessary). But later down, he says "For the immediate time period, it's most practical to tag new questions by version if the resulting answers would be different.". That second part is the main thing to keep in mind. Yes, version tags, but only when needed. And, he goes on to say that the knowledgable users should help out with this by tagging/untagging as needed.
    – mpdonadio Mod
    Feb 28, 2017 at 1:01
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    @Pierre.Vriens I think what has happened, is that DA has gotten into the bad habit of not editing questions to improve them or to keep tags appropriate. We will edit in comments for clarity, but not always improvements. This turned into always adding version tags, when when not needed. Our power users (not just the diamond moderators) need to help out to keep on top of this to make this work.
    – mpdonadio Mod
    Feb 28, 2017 at 1:06
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    @Pierre.Vriens And not to beat a dead horse (does that translate?), see Jon's comment about "But I also wouldn't insist that every question have a version tag." The reason this particular post took so long was synthesizing all of the feedback into something that actually made sense and is achievable. This was not an easy task, a minimal effort one, or something that we took lightly. And, I can say on "scouts honor" (does that translate?) that I have avoided much of the actual discussion to remain neutral on this, to essentially mediate the two sides.
    – mpdonadio Mod
    Feb 28, 2017 at 3:56
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    @NoSssweat I think you are making this a bit more dramatic than it actually is. Positionen "The mods" vs "The community" based on 9/3 votes and 3/3 votes seems a bit drastic. The low vote count shows that most doesn't really care. We need to figure out to resolve this in a way that will work. I was here when we had the discussion about version tags originally and I'm in favor of having version tags. But I don't think that tagging all questions with them and duplicating questions is a good idea, which is how version tags are being used now.
    – googletorp
    Mar 3, 2017 at 15:24
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    Yes the runaway hyperbole is ruining any underlying point you may have, as per usual. Striking is a wonderful idea, I wholeheartedly support that.
    – Clive Mod
    Mar 3, 2017 at 15:51
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    @googletorp only when necessary, we know answer will differ radically sounds like this is a judgement call/grey area/opinion based and there is no black & white. What is radically differ? based on the discussions we had on the other thread, all this will do is create a tug of war.
    – No Sssweat
    Mar 4, 2017 at 1:57
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    Between the question and this answer and all the comments, I'm not sure what the concensus is. I notice @googletorp is removing all the version tags. Is this the concensus? Mar 5, 2017 at 20:24
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    @WimMostrey I notice googletorp is removing all the version tags. This is not true, I think I found 5-7 posts where version tags didn't really make any sense and remove it, as per how DA has been running past 6 years (if you find posts incorrectly tagged you can edit if you like). Fx question about drush (which works the same for all Drupal versions), XHPROF setup etc.
    – googletorp
    Mar 6, 2017 at 7:23
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    @googletorp not to question your prior comment, or your edits of those 5-7 posts you mentioned. But I noticed that some of those edits are 100% the opposite of what I've seen happening by another mod many months ago, which I believe had a short description like "remove tag from title". I trust you know somewhere in the help it says "moderators lead by example". But to be honest, I'm lost about how the new guidance should be applied. Can you help me answer this question? Mar 6, 2017 at 7:36
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    @Pierre.Vriens The answer to that question is written in this OP. Just scroll up and you can see where we want to go with version tagging. The gist of it: Use version tag when you know the question/answer is specific to that version alone. The current version should probably not be used since we assume tagless posts will apply for current version and we wont know if next version will be similar or different.
    – googletorp
    Mar 6, 2017 at 8:08

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