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I'm taking a leave of absence from moderating

Update 1/20/2020: called2voyage has resumed moderation, more info here.

I’ve wrestled for some time with how to approach this issue, but I’ve finally come to a decision. The bottom-line is that it appears SE is becoming unhealthy, and I don’t feel it would be wise for me to continue to invest my energy in the duties of a volunteer position on the site. If there were more transparency from SE about their goals, I might be able to give them the benefit of the doubt, but now that it appears large changes are on the horizon with no prior community discussion, I have nothing to put my faith in.
If SE’s intentions here are good, I will be sad to have departed just before those changes went in place, but their recent history of action is too mired in problematic moves for me to cross my fingers and hope for good intentions. I have enjoyed helping build Space Exploration and Astronomy through the moderator role, and I continue to enjoy those communities today. However, I cannot overlook the bigger picture in the platform hosting those communities.
So due to all of this, I have decided to take a leave of absence from Stack Exchange—I will be marking myself as inactive on Space Exploration and Astronomy. The leave may eventually transition into a resignation, but I’ll give time for community response and the possibility of SE making a rapid fundamental shift in communication surrounding the changes (seems like it would take a miracle at this point).
More details about the changes that precipitated this are on Meta Stack Exchange.

Thanks for your great work on the site. I fully get where you're coming from, but I still hope you'll decide not to resign in the end; even if SE is making very questionable decisions, Astro has its own community and it'd lose a lot without the current mods.

@SirCumference I appreciate your thoughts. :)

I wish I could say I thought that SE management would care, but I honestly don't think they do anymore.  However ordinary members will miss your efforts and they were appreciated, and I for one one respect (and agree with) your choice, if that is any consolation to you.  Thanks for your (unpaid !) work.


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Community Policy Repository
This is the official repository for general community policy decisions.
On Posts

How do we handle questions with answers on other sites?
Is the use of ChatGPT or other chatbot software forbidden?

On Topics
Scope

Are astrophysics, cosmology, and theoretical astrophysics on topic?
Can I ask questions about the Earth?
Can I ask about UFOs?
Is astrology on topic?
What if astrology is only peripheral to my question?
Are resource requests allowed?
Are homework questions allowed?
Is history of astronomy on topic?
Are beginner questions allowed?
Is planetary science on topic?
Can I ask about configuring astronomy software?
I want to share my personal theories here. Why can't I do that?
Can I ask for book recommendations?

Resources

Where can I find resources such as books to get additional information about astronomy?
Where can I share astronomy jokes?
I'm not a professional. Are there still ways I can help scientists online?
How does astronomy make a difference in the world?
Where can I find educational resources for astronomy?

On Tags
Requests

Where do I request tags to be synonymized/merged or removed?

Usage

Should I tag my question based on concepts in the answers?

On Writing Guidelines
Grammar

What pronouns should I use for individuals?
Can I use emojis?
What are the rules for abbreviations?

Sources

Someone says I didn't properly attribute my source or I should have used quotes. Do I really have to do that?
What are the guidelines for linking to external materials or scripts I created?

Standards

Which temperature units should I use?

On the Blog

Where can I sign up to contribute to the community blog?

this is excellent!

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


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This month's focus tag: tidal-forces
Happy New Year! Last month we took a close look at the topic of dust. This month's focus tag is tidal-forces.
Featured Question: How did Mars come to have a 24 hour 39 minute day?
This question covers the impact of tidal forces on the rotation of planets, giving us a good look at the topic at hand.
The monthly focus tag is an opportunity for us to learn more about a topic and improve the site by taking a look at a particular area. Please take this opportunity to look at the questions and answers in tidal-forces. If you see anything that could be improved, take the opportunity to edit. If you have follow-up questions, go ahead and ask them (with the appropriate tag, of course). If you happen to know the answer to an unanswered question, we'd appreciate your input!
Also, this is a good chance to take a look at the tag excerpt and wiki. If it is empty or could be improved, perhaps you could help us out?
Feel free to use the answer space below to make community wiki lists of posts in need of editing, or to brainstorm ideas of what to add to the tag excerpt and wiki. Not sure about a particular tidal-forces question you have? Go ahead and share your concerns below, so we can help guide you to framing the question on the site.

In planetary science, what exactly is, or is not, a tidal force?

New focus tag coming soon. Just wanted everyone to know we haven't forgotten!

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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This month's focus tag: dust
Welcome to our new series of monthly focus tags! This month's focus tag is dust.
Featured Question: What is the difference between gas and dust in astronomy?
This question is great to start off with because it covers the definition of dust in astronomy, so if you're not sure what this tag is all about you should check it out!
The monthly focus tag is an opportunity for us to learn more about a topic and improve the site by taking a look at a particular area. Please take this opportunity to look at the questions and answers in dust. If you see anything that could be improved, take the opportunity to edit. If you have follow-up questions, go ahead and ask them (with the appropriate tag, of course). If you happen to know the answer to an unanswered question, we'd appreciate your input!
Also, this is a good chance to take a look at the tag excerpt and wiki. If it is empty or could be improved, perhaps you could help us out?
Feel free to use the answer space below to make community wiki lists of posts in need of editing, or to brainstorm ideas of what to add to the tag excerpt and wiki. Not sure about a particular dust question you have? Go ahead and share your concerns below, so we can help guide you to framing the question on the site.

Definition of dust resulted in the need for the tag dust-storm. Check it out and feel free to revise it as well. If you see any questions which need this tag or other questions under dust that don't fit the new definition, you can discuss here.


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This month's focus tag: white-dwarf
Sorry for the delay in the focus tag this month! Last month we took a close look at the topic of tidal forces. This month's focus tag is white-dwarf.
Featured Question: Is there a possibility that a white dwarf can turn into a neutron star or a black hole?
The nature of white dwarfs is covered in some detail in order to answer the title question.
This month we also have a blog post related to the topic: Can merging white dwarfs form variable stars?
The monthly focus tag is an opportunity for us to learn more about a topic and improve the site by taking a look at a particular area. Please take this opportunity to look at the questions and answers in white-dwarf. If you see anything that could be improved, take the opportunity to edit. If you have follow-up questions, go ahead and ask them (with the appropriate tag, of course). If you happen to know the answer to an unanswered question, we'd appreciate your input!
Also, this is a good chance to take a look at the tag excerpt and wiki. If it is empty or could be improved, perhaps you could help us out? Don't forget to follow the guidelines for writing good tag wikis.
Feel free to use the answer space below to make community wiki lists of posts in need of editing, or to brainstorm ideas of what to add to the tag excerpt and wiki. Not sure about a particular white-dwarf question you have? Go ahead and share your concerns below, so we can help guide you to framing the question on the site.

Sorry, where is the "wiki"?

@Max0815 https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/tags/white-dwarf/info

@Max0815 Unfortunately, I had to rollback your wiki edits. We sent you a message about it. I've updated this post with a link to additional guidance to help future users avoid the same mistake. Thanks for your interest in improving the site!

I read thru the criteria. So isn't it viable to put the general definition from Wikipedia though?

No, that would be plagiarism.

Oh, ok. I see. Let me try again.

I added a non-Wikipedia definition purely based on my prior knowledge. Not as good wording and grammar but hey its original.

♦  I have a suggestion. Put the month name on there so it won't be too confusing on which month it is

@Max0815 That's a good idea. For now, we're still getting in the rhythm.

Ah, ok. Anyways good to know you like my suggestion :P


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Regarding moderating the new Code of Conduct
To hopefully alleviate concerns regarding the new Code of Conduct, I want to explain how I intend to moderate regarding pronoun use.

When speaking generically, posts should use gender neutral language (which per the Code of Conduct means, for example, "they" not "he or she"). If a post doesn't, I will not be removing it on sight. If flagged, I will comment asking the user to make an edit. If they refuse, I will point them to the Code of Conduct and inform them of behavior expected on this site. If they cannot agree to abide by the Code of Conduct, I will remove their post. If a user is not active, I may elect to edit the post for them while waiting for their reply. I will not be seeking out posts to see if they comply. As usual, I will rely on flagging or whatever I happen to come across in my normal perusal of the site.
Number 1 does not apply to quotes. I will not require anyone to make editorial mark-ups of quotes to ensure they comply.
When referring to other users on the site, posts should use gender neutral language until asked otherwise. If you want to check someone's bio to see if they've specified, you're welcome to, but I won't expect you to. Once asked to use a certain set of pronouns, per the Code of Conduct, you should use that set. If you don't and the post is flagged, I will edit the post or remove the comment and leave a comment explaining why. I am letting you know this now so that if you are not comfortable with me putting words in your mouth you will be aware. The reason I will be doing this instead of waiting for users to edit on their own is that leaving unaffirming pronouns around while waiting for edits would make the site unfriendly, per the Code of Conduct. If there is push back or an edit war, I will then handle according to how I would normally handle someone who refuses to follow the rules. I don't really see this coming up, but if a quote of some external source happens to refer to a known user of this site and uses the wrong pronouns, then you should use appropriate editorial conventions (brackets to replace incorrect words and a footnote to explain the edit) to rectify the problem. If you slip up and accidentally use the wrong pronouns, it's fine, we'll edit it and move on. There's no reason for moderator action over a mistake.
When referring to specific people not on this site, posts should use whatever pronouns Wikipedia does. You don't have to check in advance if you think you know their pronouns, but if someone edits in or requests a correction and points to the Wikipedia article, you should comply. If there is reason to believe the Wikipedia article is wrong, please leave a comment pointing to the source for the person's pronouns. When a person doesn't have a Wikipedia page, use whatever information you have (e.g. if a news article uses a pronoun, use that). Again, if you think you know their pronouns, you don't have to check in advance, but if someone requests a correction and points to a source (or if by chance the actual person joins the site and requests a correction) then you should oblige.
Obviously, I will use moderator discretion when handling these issues.
Please do not go around editing other people's posts just to update their language. If you feel it needs to be updated, comment and/or flag. However, if you are editing for another reason and you also see an opportunity to make something gender neutral that should be, you may edit it, but please leave a comment explaining why.

I know this is a lot to process, but really I don't see this coming up very often. As described above, I don't see this really changing the way most of you write 90% of the time. If something I said is unclear or if you have further questions, let me know. If you disagree with the new Code of Conduct, please take that commentary to the official Meta post. For this discussion, assume we are following the Code of Conduct as directed.

How about "we" assume the new CoC is crap and refuse to go along with it?  That would earn you a lot of respect from the community.   And yes, I moved my response to the 100 or so responses to the "official" meta page announcement.

I get the reasoning for an update post like this being made on Astro, but I think it might've benefited from waiting a little while. The situation is highly agitated right now and we're not sure how SE might change the CoC in the very near future, given the feedback they've gotten.

@SirCumference If policy changes, the post can be updated, but I have to mod according to the policy now, and I wanted to head off questions about how I would do so.

Just to alleviate any doubt, I agree with everything called2voyage has said here and intend to deal with these cases in the same way.

It would be non-CoC to thank you for explaining your responsibilities and to thank you for what seems like a calm and polite, respectful, approach; but it seems fair to add that it's well thought out, and written.

@Rob I'm not sure I understand the first part of your sentence, but I appreciate the  feedback and I'm glad you found it calm and well-written!

@Rob Oh, I understand now that you're talking about "Thank you" comments. That's not exactly CoC, but part of the editorial guidelines of the site. Also, on Astronomy at least, meta is a little different in that we can get a little more conversational. I generally tend to be lenient on that type of stuff anyway. If the comment thread needs to be cleaned up, thank you comments are the first to go and if they get flagged as no longer needed I'll remove them then, but I don't judge users for that type of thing.

@Carl there are certainly major issues with SO/SE’s new CoC, but respecting people’s pronouns was already implicit in the old CoC, and I think [@]calledtovoyage’s explanation is eminently sensible. It’s not hard to be respectful, and “being nice” is the bedrock on which our SE interactions are based. It should be even easier on a science stack. I’m glad we have moderators on this site that can rise above the clamour and provide some calm, rational leadership.

@Chappo  i have no problem with the "once asked..." part.  I do not accept Wikipedia as any sort of authority on grammar.  Use of a plural "they" as an indiscriminate singular makes my teeth grate.  I fail to see what's wrong with "it" as in German, for example.

@CarlWitthoft I don't know [@]calledtovoyage’s gender so I would quite naturally refer to "them" rather than "him" and "they" rather than "it", even though they are obviously only one person (i.e. singular). This is normal English usage. I would be most offended if anyone referred to me as "it": in English that pronoun is never used for humans, except as an insult.

@Chappo If you're genuinely curious, I recently listed my pronouns at the top of my bio.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.


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How much is astrophysics, cosmology, and theoretical astrophysics on topic?
There have been some concerns raised about cosmology and theoretical astrophysics, as well as astrophysics in general.
The concern is that this community does not support astrophysics questions, especially cosmology and theoretical astrophysics.
If you think this community can support astrophysics questions, make your case for it in an answer here. Try to bring more to bear than just "I like astrophysics, and I'm a professional and I want it here." Bring existing posts (questions AND answers) to support your view. Show us why you think this community can support these types of questions.

And by support, I mean that we actually have a sufficient userbase to ask and answer these types of questions at an expert level, not just show an interest in them!

Summary: Yes, those are all ontopic here.

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of astrophysical questions, with fairly good answers:

Why do X-ray binaries such as GRS-1915 have active and quiet states?
Why does the Earth have a tilt of ~23°?
Why is our solar system "tipped" about 63° with respect to the plane of our galaxy?
Why Did Mars lose its Magnetic Field?
What is the current accepted theory for the fate of hot Jupiters?
Why is there a matter/anti-matter asymmetry in the universe? (cosmology)
What is the current accepted theory as to why Mercury, despite its size, has a similar density to Earth?
Why is the Sun's atmosphere (the corona) so hot?
Two species of dark matter? (cosmology)

Plus, there are at least few people around with (or preparing) a degree in astrophysics who are able to handle this kind of questions:

astromax
guillochon
Francesco Montesano
UV-D (at least for planetary science/atmosphere)
myself
Manishearth (Currently an undergrad, has not yet decided a field but is leaning towards astrophysics)
Eduardo Guerras Valera
Freelanceastro

I did not check on everybody though.

Thanks, MBR! It would be helpful if you could note which ones are specifically relevant to cosmology and theoretical astrophysics as well.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Should [observation] and [observational-astronomy] be merged?
observation and observational-astronomy seem to more or less mean the same thing. Should these tags be merged? Which name should be favored?

The only difference seems to be that observation discusses a singular object, and observational-astronomy discusses multiple.
Looks to me that these tags could be merged since basically observational-astronomy encompasses observation and questions could be altered to define if the question is about a singular object or multiple.

Tag merge complete.


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Destroy the [science] tag
I think the science tag should be removed, and maybe even blacklisted from the site. The way it is currently used it does not really mean anything, and I don't really see it being that fruitful of a tag on a site focused on a scientific discipline--everything could be said to be science-related.
Thoughts?

There are two questions that only have this tag that y'all might want to retag before we leave them untagged when we get rid of this. With only 16 questions using it, though, you could delete it yourself pretty easily. You can't prevent it from being re-created but it may never be if you get rid of it once.

@Catija I didn't want to do this in a way that drew attention to that many questions on the main page of the site. For our site, that is a relatively large number of questions to make active in a short period, but I understand what you're saying from a resource management perspective. We'll plan the retag campaign.

@Catija Also, this is a good time to bring up that perhaps mods should have the ability to do this: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/124504/moderators-should-be-able-to-remove-burninate-a-tag-themselves/212823#comment1055038_212823

Yeah, I understand what you mean. :) It's never fun to have a bunch of older stuff up in your active list It's totally your call how you want to do it... I've seen people either do two at a time over a week and that will take care of them all or do them all in one go like pulling off a band-aid. We're generally happy to help with these requests, particularly with larger volumes (50+). And I see y'all took care of it, so yay! :D

To the best of my understanding, the kind of vague, high-level "meta" tag that science represents is generally discouraged.
I agree - kill it with malice.

All question retagged. Now we just have to keep an eye on the tag to make sure it doesn't attract new questions.

@called2voyage If it does, we can blacklist it.


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Is there really a use to having separate [time] and [date-time] tags?
I question the need for having separate time and date-time tags. I think those concepts will rarely be distinct in terms of the questions we have here. What do you think? My inclination would be to merge date-time into time.

The time tag currently has 17 questions, and date-time currently has 58. Neither of them have a tag wiki. They seem to be used for exactly the same purpose.
I think we should 1) make date-time a synonym of time, 2) add a tag wiki for time, 3) retag questions that don't follow the new tag wiki.

I did step one. I'll leave step 2 and 3 to the community.

What aspects of time will the tag cover? Everything from physics and GR concepts to calculating the time that the Sun rises tomorrow? It could be quite a challenging wiki to write!

@uhoh I think the tag should focus on time as a tool and not the concept of time in physics. That seems to be the bulk of the usage. I think space-time and the relativity tags cover the physics concepts pretty well.


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Etiquette for user-created external resource links in posts
I've just discovered that one of our old users (barrycarter, now "user21"), who is no longer with us, used a personal, unlicensed github repository in 31 of his posts: https://data.stackexchange.com/astronomy/query/1292675
It seems he has since deleted his account with github, and his repository along with it. While his answers do not technically rely on the contents of the repo to understand the answer (in at least the handful of cases that I checked), they do rely on the repo for users to be able to validate his answers in many cases.
This presents an interesting problem. In a sense, this is a subset of the broader issue of link rot, but it is unique because he never licensed his repo, which means that he still holds full copyright on that repo; and even if someone had saved a copy it would be illegal to share here.
This practice feels antithetical to the mission of Stack Exchange in creating an enduring knowledge base. Should we create clearer guidelines for the use of links to user-created external resources in posts here? If so, what should they be?

Just to clarify: user-created content embedded directly in the text of the post here would automatically be licensed and if a user tried to remove it, mods would treat that as vandalism and revert it. In this case, however, the content was not actually in the body of the post, the readers are just directed to it by hyperlink.

for this I've always used pastebin with expires=never as sort-of an imgur like thing but for code. I'm definitely for guidelines of the expires=never variety, and if github licensing makes something like that possible I think it's a great thing, exactly for the reasons you point out.

@uhoh It depends on the license. If a user selects a non-revocable license for their content, then someone who had a copy of it could rehost it and it could still be legally shared here.

@uhoh The combination of the "expires=never" setting with the license the pastebin terms of service assigns to user content, does make that a good option!

@uhoh Though you should note, the pastebin license doesn't actually grant people the right to use the contents outside of pastebin, if that's something you wish to do. Linking to pastebin is fine, of course.

I use it only for short, fairly inconsequential scripts as a courtesy when it's not relevant enough to the post to even include as a code block, but might have some secondary educational value to some future reader. Big projects probably still need a git-like repository, and I suppose that SE posts that have some dependency upon them should really license accordingly, or not make them an important part of the post but only refer to them as supplemental information.

@uhoh That's my feeling as well.

I just saw "the pastebin license doesn't actually grant people the right to use the contents outside of pastebin" again and the words finally sunk in, but the implications of that escape me. I'll read further...

@uhoh For example, if you gave someone code, they wouldn't have a guarantee that you wouldn't sue them if they tried to incorporate your code into their own project. Or someone else could accuse them of stealing your code and get them in hot water that way as well, depending on the context. All the pastebin license ensures is that users of pastebin can read and operate pastebin functions on the content.

Okay, I think I've got that bit now, thanks!


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Is the topic scope too confusing for new users?
Recently, a new user, who I would consider to be a reasonable individual who actually took the time to try to learn the system, complained that the topic scope of the site is too confusing for new users. While closing is just a part of the way SE works, perhaps we are not doing enough to explain the scope of what is on topic here? Ideally, a user who puts in the effort should be able to figure out somewhat quickly what the scope of the site is.
I think we might need to look at beefing up the on/off topic guidelines. Or maybe there is another solution? What are your thoughts?

Do you mean the scope of Astronomy in general or is there a specific question this is in reference to? The scope of Astronomy as a science is a kind of a mix of Physics, Math, Chemistry and occasionally engineering. So that may be hard to nail down.

The scope of Astronomy, yes.

Than this seems to be somewhat related to this old question, where a general confusion about how this site is to work was expressed... I like this SE site but agree that it is not well defined as is.

Can you link the user's complaint? That would give us an idea of the problem.

@SirCumference http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/16568/hubble-space-telescope-2-cost

My top two favorite resources for the scope of any Stack Exchange site are, in order, the tour and the help center. The former takes maybe a minute or two to read and should clear up some basic questions; the latter is useful for more specific concerns about scope and allows us to be more explicit about certain unique rules and guidelines.
The help center is in decent shape; moderators can edit certain pages, and, in general, this can/should be done early on, and revised later. The Astronomy What topics can I ask about here? page (moderator-editable) is one of the better ones I've seen, and I think it outlines the scope nicely. The Astronomy What types of questions should I avoid asking? page is substantially vaguer, but it's not moderator-editable and is the same for each site; at any rate, I think it's intended to be less important than the other page.
The tour on Astronomy could, I think, be better. It's the first place I visit when joining any Stack Exchange site, because it's concise. However, it's currently using the default text in most areas, I believe, which isn't good. Some parts can be edited, including the sections under the headings

Welcome to Astronomy Stack Exchange
Ask questions, get answers, no distractions
Get answers to practical, detailed questions

The second one has been changed from the default to use a modified version of What is the name of our Solar System?; whether another question should be chosen is maybe something we should think about (criteria are given here). The third one is what I think needs to be changed; a good example is the version on Physics Stack Exchange. It has

Examples of things to ask and not ask about
Links to meta questions on topics that need more detail
A couple of the default bullet points

I think we need to edit this section, as it's easy to point people to and easy to read; I'd also guess that many more people are willing to look there than in the help center, even if it's just to get the informed badge.
Here's my proposed text (it's just an example; we can change it):

Ask about . . .

Experimental and theoretical problems in astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and planetary science
Astronomical equipment, both professional and amateur
The use of space probes, telescopes, and rovers for astronomical purposes
Certain resource requests

Don't ask about . . .

Questions about physics or space exploration that do not involve astronomy (e.g. how a certain rocket works)
Questions that are primarily opinion-based
Questions with too many possible answers or that would require an extremely long answer
Astrology or astronomy-related pseudosciences

Obviously, some of this needs to be a bit clearer, but you get the idea.
Now, we could instead just add in a version of the text from the What topics can I ask about here? page in the help center, as Space Exploration has done, but I feel like that would be too long and bulky - not concise enough for a good tour.

That's a good idea. Thanks for your suggestions for the Tour as well!

One thing that makes me wonder if this still might be somewhat lacking is that both you and I gave the user in question quite a bit of advice on where to look for guidance, and he still felt it was unclear after that: http://meta.astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/356/what-are-the-intended-boundaries-of-this-question-and-answers-community

I especially agree that we should update our example questions. Maybe one of the more upvoted questions would be good.

@called2voyage Yeah, that did give me pause. The only other option I can think of is to direct them to a canonical community wiki question/answer on meta (which we already have, but it formed the basis for the help center text) or to chat for more specific problems. But again, he had been to chat, too.

@HDE226868 I updated the Tour. Let me know how it looks.

@called2voyage I like it; thanks. I hope it helps a bit.

@called2voyage I also think it's about time to specifically add to the rules: "No questions about objects in the sky without pictures and sufficiently detailed description." We've been getting way to many questions like that lately.

@SirCumference How's this? See the new section "What about that thing in the sky?" just below the off-topic section.

@called2voyage Looks good!

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Question got roomba'd, would it be possible to undelete it?
Just a few moments ago, I realized that one of my questions (Relation between core mass and red giant mass?) got deleted by Community for inactivity. Would it be possible to undelete it so I can place a bounty on it?

Done! Undeleted!


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Do we really want a [debunk] tag?
During an edit I removed a newly-hatched debunk tag from Is it true that “ Shower meteors always come in spurts separated by spells of inactivity that can last up to a few minutes” Since the OP put it back again and I don't want to get into an edit war, let's think about it here in meta, where there is a rich tradition of discussing the pros and cons of new tags.
The probem I see with a specific tag about "debunking" is that it opens up a whole category of low quality questions, where any suboptimal wording, like "always" instead of "often seems to" is the source of another question with little or no long-term value.
Now I have probably asked a few "debunk" questions myself in each SE site, for example here in Astronomy SE:

Why are these objects moving at Vastly Different Speeds along the same orbit?
Orbital velocity of a planet - why is my calculation off by about 10%?

One led to the fixing of a bug in a website, another led to the correction of a paper between preprint and publication.
And in related SE sites:

Are there measurements or calculations that suggest atmospheric ice plates would be horizontal to within 0.1 degrees?
How could the recently explained "glints" seen by DSCOVR appear so compact considering the finite size of the sun?
Now what do we think? Is this purple dot really caused by Cassegrain optics and coherent backscattering?
Are there ANY verified satellite images of visible light coherent backscattering from Earth?
Did New Horizons use its smaller medium-gain antenna for most/all downlinking of Pluto and Arrokoth flyby data?
What are "large hadrons"? Are there also "small hadrons"?
Did it take 3 minutes to reload a musket when the second amendment to the US constitution was ratified?
Are tech workers in the Siberian city of Tomsk really "descendants of those sent to the gulags"?

I'm not questioning that an occasional question that calls into question something that's been written is OK, and no question about it; I ask those potentially questionable questions myself!
It's just that if we make a tag for "debunking" here in Astronomy SE, then it seems to me to invite a much higher rate of relatively low-quality questions here in Astronomy SE with little short-term OR long-term value from their answers.
Real debunking is usually asked in Skeptics SE and they can be on any topic - including Astronomy.

I agree.  Real debunking goes to skeptics.  Bad, low quality debunking goes in the garbage. hence no need for the tag here.

Would a misconception tag be better

I don’t see how my question was low quality as my main concern is not with the word always but rather with the premise that shower meteors come in bursts

@Harrychink Sorry! I didn't mean to imply that your question was low quality, only that the existence of the tag may make some question-askers feel that it semi-legitimizes their question about any possible editorial error in any popular astronomy website or blog.

Great call going to Meta with this and not engaging in tit-for-tat.  It would be hard to justify closing flat earth nonsense, all the UFO stuff and every other crackpot theory if all the poster had to do was tag it "debunk".

I do not think we need a 'debunk' tag.
From Meriam-Webster, to debunk is: "to expose the sham or falseness of". I think a 'debunk' tab is unnecessarily presumptuous and perhaps a bit derogatory. Many of us wouldn't take it well if we were told one of our ideas was 'bunk' without an authoritative citation. If a belief or widely held position is actually a sham, then a well-posed question should expose it without such a tag.
If we believe in Astronomy Stack Exchange, the answers and votes should sort it out. If you think someone is trying to sell snake-oil like flat-earth, take it to the Skeptics SE.
If we reach a consensus on this question, I'll help implement it.

My initial reaction to reading this question is exactly this answer: no. I'm not an astronomer by any stretch of the word, but I can see a "debunk" tag being a challenge to the community to provide evidence that someone's false beliefs are false when the OP believes them to be true. I think that plays to the derogatory tone of the word "debunk." --- "The earth is flat. I am right because (non-scientific) A, B and C. Prove I am wrong, and I will be the judge of whether you are right by withholding the green checkmark since I am not convinced!"


text:
We've been using the [gravitational-waves] tag for 10 years, do we really also need [gravitational-wave-astronomy]?
We have had this tag since 2014:

gravitational-waves 181 questions

Waves in spacetime formed by the acceleration of massive bodies. A passing wave causes spacetime to be stretched and squashed by a very small amount. Typically we can only detect the most energic gravitational events such as black hole mergers.

About 1.5 years ago a second tag was added with a pretty low usage rate:

gravitational-wave-astronomy 7 questions

The gravitational-wave-astronomy tag has no usage guidance, can you help us create it?

I think it's unlikely that we'll have questions about gravitational waves that are not related to Astronomy in some way. I don't see how having both tags and having each question author grapple with how to decide if they should use one, the other, or both.
Should they be merged, or some other action taken to consolidate back to a single tag?

Note that when we want to narrow down the aspect of gravitational waves the question addresses, we generally add one or more of the following:

observational-astronomy 1,297 questions

Questions about the techniques and practice of observing the night sky.

observatory 71 questions

Questions regarding structures designed to aid in the observation of astronomical objects.

instruments 53 questions

The instruments tag has no usage guidance, can you help us create it?

cosmology 518 questions

Questions about the origin, history, evolution and fate of the Universe.

time-domain-astronomy 23 questions

The time-domain-astronomy tag has no usage guidance, can you help us create it?

observation-campaign 8 questions

The observation-campaign tag has no usage guidance, can you help us create it?

No, the [gravitational-wave-astronomy] tag is redundant. I've merged it into [gravitational-waves]

Another One Bites the Dust

The use of the [tag:gravitational-wave-astronomy] tag was first suggested (incorrectly?) by a moderator here: https://astronomy.meta.stackexchange.com/a/846/18054, adding a different tag was discussed in the comments there. It's important to note that early gravitation wave observations did not utilize "astronomy" but are physically based, such as LIGO. Later "Pulsar Timing Arrays", which do utilize astronomy, were developed to study extremely low frequency gravity waves; previously undetectable.


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2023: a year in moderation

It’s that time of the year again! As we wave goodbye to last year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here might be aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks — folks like you. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference in ensuring Stack Exchange sites remain a valuable source of high-quality content on the web.
So as we say goodbye to 2023 (and January 2024… ahem) and move into 2024, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Astronomy over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community User¹
Community²

All comments on a post moved to chat
7
0
0

Answer flags handled
232
64
0

Answers flagged
8
32
253

Bounties canceled
0
0
0

Comment flags handled
240
87
11

Comments deleted⁸
478
35
1,007

Comments flagged
4
1
333

Comments undeleted
2
0
0

Escalations to the Community Manager team
0
0
0

Posts bumped
0
89
0

Posts deleted⁷
138
155
270

Posts locked
3
35
0

Posts undeleted
2
0
59

Posts unlocked
1
2
0

Question flags handled⁶
62
271
16

Questions closed
30
123
3

Questions flagged⁶
6
14
210

Questions merged
1
0
0

Questions migrated
6
0
0

Questions protected
8
3
7

Questions reopened
0
1
1

Questions unprotected
0
0
0

Revisions redacted
0
0
0

Tag highlight language set
0
0
0

Tag synonyms created
1
0
0

Tag synonyms proposed
1
0
1

Tags merged
2
0
0

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Close votes" queue
0
14
565

Tasks reviewed⁵: "First answers" queue
0
4
156

Tasks reviewed⁵: "First questions" queue
0
10
343

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Late answers" queue
0
1
65

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Low quality posts" queue
0
0
50

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Reopen votes" queue
0
1
66

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Suggested edits" queue
11
32
383

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Triage" queue
0
0
0

User banned from review
0
0
0

User review-bans lifted early
0
0
0

User suspensions lifted early
1
0
0

Users contacted
16
0
0

Users deleted
0
0
0

Users destroyed⁴
3
0
0

Users suspended³
12
52
0

Footnotes
¹ This refers to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² This refers to the membership of Astronomy without diamonds next to their names.
³ The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
⁴ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁵ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁶ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes). The community² can handle these flags by at least one person voting to close a question that has a close flag.
⁷ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁸ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2022: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing everyone a happy 2024! ^_^

Thanks for putting this together. It really shows our wonderful community does the 'heavy lifting' of moderation for our Astronomy Stack Exchange, especially resolving the review tasks!


text:
NOT READY FOR PUBLIC BETA — What function should this site serve?
We've decided to keep Astronomy Stack Exchange in PRIVATE beta for one more week.  The Community Manager team reviewed the site so far and, while we love the enthusiasm here, we are deeply concerned that many of the questions and answers are poor or literal copies of material available elsewhere on the internet.  We want to make sure this is a site for people "doing" astronomy—whether you're a PhD or into backyard astronomy.  We don't want to create a site where folks are simply repeating content they heard elsewhere.
Let me paraphrase something Joel Spolsky (Stack Exchange co-founder) wrote:

There are only 200 easy [astronomy] questions, and they've all been asked 100 times on every other site on the subject. But there are 20,000,000 detailed, difficult, long-tail questions that only an expert can answer, and we'd be doing a REAL service to the Internet by creating a place where you can find answers to the 20,000,000 hard questions, not the 200 easy ones.

The current list of questions comes close to being a complete set of the 200 easy questions with pitifully few of the hard ones.  Let me call out one counter-example: How can I collimate a dobsonian telescope with a laser collimator?  What I love about this question is that Wipqozn clearly was trying to do some astronomy, ran into a problem, and chose to ask here.  Then TildalWave answered the question by pulling out some equipment and taking pictures of the process to show how it's done.
There is an odd disconnect between the questions being asked and the folks we see on the site. Many of you are working on (or actually hold) advanced degrees... or work in academia, engineering, or astronomy. If there's some misunderstanding about why we're all here during the private beta, it's time to hear from you... right now. If you're holding back waiting for the site to get better, now is not the time to wait. Whether it's a question from your studies, or a particularly intriguing problem you might have once encountered in work... the time to ask your question is right now.

I have just taken a look again about the composition of committer for the beta site:
6.0% Expert
13.9% Academic
32.4% Enthusiast
31.9% Beginner
15.7% Curious
which translate to roughly 30 people of Expert and Academic. But typically only 10% to 20% are active, if they have good questions in their mind which should have already asked. Each person can only have little good questions which must be accumulated over time slowly.
So, if you don't allow public to join it, what is your suggestions of getting more good question?
I am just a bit curious about why the Astronomy stalled in private beta and am able to sneak in because of the invitation posted somewhere in area51, though I am not quite fond to involve in it.

I have snuck in as well, mainly because I liked the previous astronomy site. Although I really don't see how it would be much different from the physics site. More complex astronomy questions eventually gravitate towards physics questions, although they don't have to be answered with reams of math.

@Carl By definition, Physics.SE already allow all astronomy question, so it should make no different. The questions I see here seems quite appropriate either for physics or space. Except I never see those questions asking about particular star, galaxy in Physics.SE. These individual star has more interested within amatuer/astronomer for some reason

In the words of TildalWave:

here, we should focus on observational science more, not so much on actually interpreting data... how to gather data, where to look for them, with what equipment, who has done what, how do we define / catalogue something, also discussing other astro societies, events, e.t.c.

I think some of our highest voted questions show that we know that we need that focus:

How are black holes found?
What is a parsec and how is it measured?
How do I calculate the inclination of an object with an amateur telescope?
Why is only one side of the Moon visible from Earth?
How could a hobbyist astronomer determine apparent magnitude of a star?
Amateur observing targets for binary star systems?
Could someone explain RA/dec in simple terms?
Why is the Hubble Telescope in space?
I live in an area with a lot of light pollution, how can I view the stars without building an observatory?
How are the compositional components of exoplanet atmospheres differentiated?

The problem isn't that we don't know what we need; it's that we seem not to know how to generate a large enough volume of these types of questions. I suspect that will improve if we promote the site well enough, but that won't likely happen unless we go public.
Again, from TildalWave:

So if Astro is to make it, I guess we need folks that will make it what it will be. And in private beta, that might be impossible to achieve anyway.

Actually, volume is by no means an issue.  Tor passed into public beta with roughly 3/4 of the questions.  But those questions were adding real value to the internet's knowledge of Tor.  On Astronomy (so far) few questions have added anything to the internet.  Looking at the 10 questions you listed does not make me think this site is in anyway different than the dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of astronomy sites that are a Google search away.

@JonEricson I understand where you're coming from. The top voted questions are not exactly tough ones. What I'm arguing is that they're on the topic that we want tough questions in. The tough questions will come when we have more exposure to the audience we want.


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Too many downvote on questions recently?
I found that the downvote for questions is growing larger recently, some questions like mine
and this one from uhon get downvoted, and the people who downvote the question didn't give an explanation or how to improve the question. I know the rule of downvote is listed here, but we to consider some people are newcomers like this one, it is important to let them know how could they improve their questions in the future, not just leaving a downvote, and that particular question got 2 upvotes and 2 downvotes, with no constructive advice in the comment section. The site should encourage people to ask questions, and if they make mistakes, tell them how to get better. When you leave a downvote and don't give any feedback to that person, it is not helping anyone.

Similar question in chemistry.meta: https://chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5056/is-habitual-down-voting-considered-okay

Sometimes folks leave only a downvote because they think the question is inherently poor and there is nothing that can be improved on. Sometimes it's because they don't have the energy to go back and forth on what is wrong with the question--you could argue the latter is unfair, but it is what it is since downvotes are necessarily anonymous and at user discretion.

@called2voyage Well, in my opinion, if that's the case, then vote for close the question should be more appropriate. I agree with the second half of what you said. That's the cost of anonymity.

@JacktheRanger The downvote privilege only requires 125 rep, whereas the close vote privilege requires 500 rep, so a number of users who mostly participate as readers have access to downvote but not close vote.

@called2voyage That makes sense. Maybe the site will balance its rep system, but I don't think its anytime soon.

Prologue
A stack exchange site and its community of users is a truly amazing thing! The internet is full of all kinds of places with all kinds of environments, but there are precious few that are completely open and available to the whole internet, for experts and novices that are as calm, quiet, welcoming and informative as a good, healthy Stack Exchange site.
This happens in part because of discussions and compromises among its community members and amplification and implementation of community consensuses by its moderators along with their gentle guidance.
There's a different but related discussion: A modest proposal to increase question quality.
There is a balance between keeping the site welcoming to new users and slightly unusual or incompletely informed answers, and keeping the overall quality of the question and answer collection from dropping.
Attracting and keeping new users is critical for site health, as is maintaining interest of existing users who are contributing quality posts already.
As pointed out in comments below the question, anonymous down votes are a standard part of the Stack Exchange experience and the way SE works is the result of knowledge and experience over almost two hundred separate SE communities and cultures, over a decade, and over tens of millions of posts.
Answer
What I call "drive-by down votes" are here to stay. They ebb and flow. There can be a string of them, then sometimes they stop. That there's nothing we can do to affect them directly is baked in to SE. So let's see what else can be done when we see this happen to others:

up vote if you see promise in a question by a potentially discouraged user who may not yet understand how to improve their question.
accompany that up vote with comments/suggestions how to improve
or just make a helpful edit yourself as long as it doesn't conflict with the author's intent.
leave a comment of the type "Don't worry about the down votes, try again with a different question..." along with helpful suggestions.

and when this happens to us:

when we're relatively new, some down votes can sting. I remember when I started in SE and I saw a few down votes collect I felt like my ship was sinking and all aboard were perishing. Don't worry (so much) about it!
instead, look for clues what those down votes might be about if there are any, or just leave a comment "Why the down votes? Suggestions on how I can improve this question are most welcome!"
Some down voters take their votes seriously and will click "follow" under the question and be notified of any edits or comments, and may come back to respond. Other more experienced users may have a better idea what might be going on and leave comments as well.
If the "ship is sinking fast" you can always temporarily delete the question and perhaps post a different but related question. That might give you some insight into why some folks see this question as low quality.
Some folks are adherents to the tool-tip advice. Hover a cursor/mouse over the up and down arrows and advice appears (not sure about phones). It suggests we vote based "shows research" or "lacks research". In other words, some people will just down vote a point-blank "What/Why is X?" question if it does not show or demonstrate that the author has tried to answer the question themselves. I do not strictly adhere to this advice and many do and many don't; sometimes a questions is sufficiently thoughtful or complex that it's a challenge to even begin to research, like a "I just don't understand this" or "I don't know where to begin".
In critical cases where you'd really like to get the question answered and answered sooner rather than later, ask a "Why is my question being down voted? What can I do to improve it in order to receive answers?" here in meta.

Basically, stick with it, learn, adapt, don't sweat a few down voted or closed questions, instead ask more and better ones, and come back later to refine/adjust/revise.


text:
Why do so few users suggest edits?
A curious thing I keep observing is that the suggested-edits queue seems rather empty (less than 5 suggestions per day, I guess).
In other words: Not so many users seem to suggest edits to questions or answers. Is there something we could do about it, or is that fine? Wouldn't more editors be beneficial to fix typos, typesetting and other hick-ups on old posts?
Some statistics
On a meta-site, edit privileges start for users with 1000 reputation, but what about all the 1323-177= 1146 users who could potentially suggest edits? Is it about the return-rate (how often a users visits the site per time interval), or is it about returing-visitors not being motivated to edit?
Total reputation   User count as of June 16th, 2020
> 1000                 177
>  500                 404
>  200               1,323
>    1              29,321

It looks like there are two questions here: "Why do so few users suggest edits?" and "but what about all the users under 1k who could potentially suggest edits, shouldn't they be able to edit too?" The second one looks like it's proposing to change how Stack Exchange works, and that's usually quite an uphill climb. The first one is hard to answer; I guess people enjoy down voting and closing more than they do contributing to the site by helping folks improve their posts which is a win-win.

@uhoh "I guess people enjoy down voting and closing more than they do contributing to the site by helping folks improve their posts" - That's speculative, making assumptions about people's intentions. There's a lot simpler explanation which is that down and close votes require a lot less time and effort than editing.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Tbh, the initial draft of the questions here are already well formatted and therefore edits are not required. For example, your questions are so well-formatted that edits are not even required.

When I see a typo on Wikipedia, I fix it.
When I see a typo here, I don't.
Why? Because "tiny, trivial edits are discouraged" (from the help center: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/edit). You have to change more than 6 characters, and I don't want to spend time to artificially alter a post when everything but the typo is fine. So I would fix the typo if not for this questionable rule... I guess I'm not the only one who does this.

Very valid point actually.

When I see, for example, someone use "it's" when they should have used "its", or the other way around, it grates on me a bit, but fixing that one character typo is against the rules. So I have learned to overlook minor typos.
When people object to one of my answers, the last thing I want to have happen is for someone to completely change the sense of my answer. I've had multiple answers that have been edited to be flat-out wrong rather than merely unclear. Use the comments to suggest changes.
A long time ago I worked for a think tank corporation where I was a member of a group that was looking into improving how NASA operated. We wrote a series of documents intended to go to very high levels of NASA, and we used the concept of extravehicular activities (EVAs) to frame our work. The corporate technical editor assigned to review our documents thought 'extravehicular activity' did not make sense. He changed each and every use of 'extravehicular activity' (EVA, for short) to 'vehicle with extra activities' (or VWEA, his acronym). The "corrected" documents were then printed and distributed, without our approval.
I have had the pleasure of having technical editors who did extremely good jobs in fixing my mangled writing. Unfortunately, those few occasions were far outnumbered by technical editors who completely mangled my already okay (but certainly not perfect) writing. I am very leery of editing of my writing, and because of this leeriness, I don't edit other people's writing.

Use the comments to suggest changes.

I used to make a lot of editing suggestions, especially in my early days on the site when I didn't feel confident enough to post questions or answers but I could use my professional editing skills to make questions or answers more intelligible, for instance if the writer's first language wasn't English.
I still make the occasional edit, but the limited time I can contribute to "community moderation tasks" gets eaten up in review queues, particularly as I try to post a comment to help the person rather than just hitting a review button.
The posts with only one or two typos can be really frustrating. My rule is that if it's a quite recent post (eg within a few days) and there's an opportunity to improve some poor expression and/or add formatting to make it more readable, I'll fix the typo. However, there's a view within Stack Exchange that "bumping" an older post by making cosmetic changes undermines the usefulness of our SE system, and I generally try to respect that view.
I should note, however, that there's an alternative view that regards an old question being "bumped" by an edit as a positive thing, since it dredges it up to the surface for a fresh review – perhaps to post a new answer, or perhaps to vote to close (maybe it's a duplicate of a better question that didn't exist back then), or maybe just to vote it up (or down).


text:
Bounty on my question
I have put a 50 point bounty on my question How are the cyclones on other planets studied? 2 days ago. There are 5 more days before the bounty expires. However, I have not yet received a good quality answer there. There is currently one answer with 2 downvotes. I cannot understand why everyone is getting so late to answer my question during the bounty period.

If I offer to pay the first person who neatly cuts my lawn ten euros, that doesn't mean anyone will agree to do it.

Well, that’s sad for you but a bounty is not a garuantee that you get a good answer. Also there’s 5 days left


text:
edit reason declined with reason "comment reserved for system use"
EDIT: This bug seems cross-site and has been reported elsewhere (1) and (2), too.
When editing this question by replacing the supplied images of the formula with identical mathjax formulas I tried to supply a reason as shown in the image with "use mathjax instead of images". However that edit reason was declined by the system with a message of

Comment reserved for system use. Please use an appropriate comment."

I actually tried a few variations of the shown comment, but none was satisfactorily until I deleted the edit reason and left it blank.
Giving an edit reason is not mandatory, but might sometimes be desirable. However I wonder whether I miss here something?
If not, I'd like to suggest to change this check so that usual reasons can be given and differentiate system reasons (if needed) differently.
Lol. And when reviewing this very question here in meta I got a 404 when hitting the "post question" button. Something seems to be fishy right now.

Resolved on this MSE post


text:
June 5 Strike - Who, What, When, Why, and how to join
Following from Stack Overflow, and as other sites will soon have to (if they don't already have them, I have decided, with some approval, to announce the upcoming June 5 strike on this child meta. It has no scheduled ending, only when the goals are resolved. As the title suggests, there are 5 main questions about this that I would like to answer. So, let's start.

Who

You can see in this strike letter, although, it doesn't include everyone who is striking. It does have (as of 21:16 UTC June 27, 2023) 125 current moderators, 20 former moderators or staff, and 1500 total users onboard at this time.

What

As is detailed in both the strike letter, discord, and the github, we will be suspending certain activities.
Moderators will (in addition to what the normal users do):

Stop handling flags

Normal users will:

Stop flagging
Stop reviewing
Stop running charcoal
Metasmoke still has old spam for review but is no longer auto flagging
It is disputed over whether they should stop posting on main sites
Stop voting

DO NOT Upvote Spam:No voting of any kind. Also, don’t be destructive.
DO NOT ACTIVELY RUIN THE SITE: This is a strike of inaction, not spamming.
The goals are the following:

To show SE that it needs its curators and moderators and contributors.

To reverse the unbanning of AI generated content.

It is disputed if reversing the vote arrows is a goal

It is disputed if stopping the whole AI stack wants is a goal

To get SE to listen to community feedback

Clarity on policy

To get the data dumps reinstated (Update:This has been done;thank god. Hopefully the first goal down of many)

14.It is disputed if the removal of the prompt design site and the community stakeholders group is a goal

When

The strike begins on June 5 and will end when our demands are met.

Why

The Stack Overflow Meta post explains the why pretty well, but I'll summarize here. Stack Exchange has decided to make the following unpopular changes:

Refusing to listen to community feedback
Making an AI with the seeming goal of replacing us human contributors
Wasting time on unpopular vote arrows
Unbanning AI generated content
Firing more of the workforce
Vagueness on policy
7.bypassing established methods to force an unpopular change
8.removal of the data dump

A note on AI generated content:It was banned because it had a habit of making seemingly correct, but wrong, posts that were plagarized and took a lot of moderation effort with limit poster effort.

How to participate

You can join by signing onto the strike and agreeing to not do the listed moderation and curation activities.

Final notes

This is not meant to do any of the following:

Pressure moderators or other users into joining if they don't want to

This is meant to do the following:

Increase the visibility and inform users of the strike.
Explain to SE what and why we are doing this.

Charcoal is an independent project, and it's not specifically the community of moderators who have decided for Charcoal to join the strike (though some of our admins are also moderators, and participating in the strike in that capacity as well). The plan is to leave metasmoke running, though we probably won't spend extra effort on keeping it up if it turns out to be challenging for whatever reason.

(I am unable to suggest edits here, but there are also various minor grammatical and formatting problems that I'd like to address if you are interested in a more detailed review.)

Ill make it CW @tripleee

@Starship-OnStrike thank you for posting this - I found the letter & added my name to the now 600+ list of signatures, in including many familiar current and past moderators.


text:
Add `mchem` to MathJax Extensions?
I tried using \ce{} earlier in an answer but it didn't work!
Although this meta post shows that Astronomy has MathJax extensions, why doesn't it work?
After some discussion on meta, I think maybe we can add the mhchem extension? Not sure. Yes it does slow down page loading, but some equations require me to use non-italicized characters, which mhchem provides.

Is mhchem standard in a version of Mathjax for additional requiring explicit dev support for all versions ?

Supplemental answer only:
See my question in Space SE meta Should we start using the normal MathJax chemistry notation for chemicals? e.g. \require{mhchem}\ce{H_2O} for H₂O
Each site decides if they want every single page to preload the chemistry stuff or not. For those that don't currently but still have MathJax (like Astronomy SE and Space SE for example), you simply have to prepend \require{mhchem} to your first instance of \ce{} to trigger loading of the chemistry stuff on the page.
I won't answer your question about turning on the chemistry stuff for the whole site automatically, I can imagine arguments both ways.


text:
Question closed under the arbitrary pretext because of its content that undermines common knowledge
Expanding Confusion: Time integral of the reciprocal of the scale factor from Hubble parameter equation
I know, I'll only get more downvotes for this statement out of sheer defiance, but I don't care since the second ban on physics.stachexchange. I've decided to speak bluntly and from heart. Please, read the original question carefully and with comprehension, before you downvote it or this post.
This community headed by moderators has tied its hands so tightly with the rules, that probably only outlaws like me seem to say what they think and feel here.
Community, have mercy on me
I know you're angry when I disagree
Community, crazy indeed
You'll be so lonely
Without me

I'm the moderator who cleaned up some comments on the question, closed the post, and locked it after you began an edit war. I'd like to write out a few things for transparency and clarity.
There was a long chain of 37 (!!) comments, which, along with the post itself, attracted a total of 15 (!!!) flags. Many of the comments were argumentative and a couple were somewhat rude. A comment thread should never get anywhere near that long; if it does, there's a major issue with a question -- and rudeness has no place here. After two days the discussion was still going nowhere; I saw the flags, deleted some comments, moved the rest to chat, and invited you to again consider whether you might be dealing with a conceptual issue, and to revise the question to pin that down. (As a rule of thumb, questions that are ~5 paragraphs long are typically hard to follow and contain too much extraneous information; this was definitely the case here.)
I closed the question because it certainly needs edits, and because it was increasingly apparent that you believe that you've found a mathematical error in how distances are calculated. The comments make that clear, as do the things that happened three months ago on Physics Stack Exchange (c.f. the deleted question and a subsequent meta post), when the same basic sequence of events played out. Personal theories and questions about non-mainstream science are off-topic here; your question seems to fall into that category.
I'd like to reiterate my recommendation that you take a step back, take a break -- hey, that's never a bad idea -- and reconsider the situation. Try and look at things from another angle. If you're able to succinctly rewrite the question to focus on a conceptual problem, please do; flag it after making edits and ideally it will be reopened. But if you're just trying to make claims that the astronomy community doesn't understand how distances work -- well, this isn't the place for that.

First of all, quote the rude comments please, to prove, that they were actually rude. Second of all, that's not my fault, that physics.stackexchange.com can't handle this question. But you still have a chance.

You say, that i'm trying to make claims that the astronomy community doesn't understand how distances work - please, again, quote my claim. That's deliberately unfavourable and antagonistic choice of words. I do not claim anything about anyone or the community, although i already have my uspoken, unshared opinion. What i really do, is pointing out the basic error in common calculation, that is clear as day for me, as well as pretended misundersting of it.

it was increasingly apparent that you believe that you've found a mathematical error in how distances are calculated - i did, i'm deeply convinced about it and it's also announced in the title of this post. I have nothing to hide, and nothing had to become increasingly apparent, because it was obvious from the beginning.

As a rule of thumb, questions that are ~5 paragraphs long are typically hard to follow and contain too much extraneous information; this was definitely the case here - None of the informatiom i'm giving is extraneous. All the information is laser-focused on the specific problem considered from various angles to make my explanatiom as clear as possible for everyone. And it's also my hard work.

i also recommend you to  take a step back, take a break (hey, that's never a bad idea) from moderation. If that's rude for you, it means, that you were rude for me, suggesting me to take a break from my actions. i'm suggesting you the exact, same thing.

Moving my comment from the original question to the meta-side of things: Marcin (in his recent question edit today, version 9) is claiming that he can't use the chat room you created, but his reputation score seems high enough (>20 as of yesterday), so something seems off here.

@Hokon my account is suspended on the chat's parent site and cannot chat for 53 days.

the reason of closing is that the question needs more focus. The last reason of closing on physics.stackexchange was that it needs more details and clarity. Now I've given a whole load of details and all are focused on the problem.

@Marcin I see. Well something needs to be done, because routinely editing a closed question to respond to a chat room bumps it up to the top of the queue, which is unfair to open questions (I won’t flag it, but someone may eventually flag that behavior as spam).

I'm done, unless they post something new on the chat.

I dare to ask for locking the original question (so it's not auto-deleted), as the discussion seems to be over, the problem is unresolved and fundamental for astronomy. I don't want to argue like a child in a sandbox about the reason why it's not acknowledged. You have your opinion and I have mine, and they cannot be reconciled. Undisputable fact is that the problem remains and it's not only my problem - It's yours problem now too, because this site is dedicated for asking such questions and this question in no way differs in terms of topic from the dedicated topic of this site.

Personal theories and questions about non-mainstream science are off-topic here; your question seems to fall into that category - There has probably never been more on-topic question in the history of this site. As to my "personal theory" - there has never been a theory in the history of mainstream physics, that wasn't personal at the beginning, but mine is different from all the others, because it does not propose nothing new or replaces the old theory - it just points out the error in commonly accepted formula.

After two days the discussion was still going nowhere - that's where the reasoning of all my interlocutors was going and i proved it every single time. You can obviously deny it, but You'll have to ban me or lock this post or comments to your answer, to make me unable to reply and prove you wrong.

If you're able to succinctly rewrite the question to focus on a conceptual problem, please do - i would really like to know your definition of conceptual problem and your reasoning behind your claim, that my problem is not conceptual. I'm also deeply and totally convinced, that i shouldn't give up on a single piece of explanation that i've given. I suppose that's the end of my reply to your answer.

Actually, I'd like to quote my only comment, deleted by you, that could be considered as rude: "After lots and lots of discussions i conclude, that pretended misunderstanding is the worst type of attitude among people involved in science. Especially misunderstanding regarding basic maths, basic physics and basic logic, that connects them".

Downvotes given out of personal grudge after discussion - this is closely related to the original question in terms of physics, moderation and the community.

Downvotes given due to the reluctance to think for yourself and the uncritical acceptance of common knowledge

I was banned for a week. Now I'm asking for a lifetime ban, so I don't have to remind you what you've done to maths and physics with your voting. I'll keep posting this comment until you ban me, so please, do it right away.


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Should I change the title of my question to make the results more searchable?
My question Who is Sifter, and what is “the so-called Sifter flare” exists only because the linked BBC news item wrote "Sifter flare" where it should have written Seyfert flare.
The BBC News article has since been fixed, so "Sifter" no longer appears anywhere, which makes me wonder if I should just update my question to read

Who is Seyfert, and what is “the so-called Seyfert flare”?

The change might make the question and its authoritative answer appear in more searches which is a good thing, and a search for " Seyfert flare" shows no other posts that it could end up being duped to.
I can't think of any reasons not to update the question, except that it makes my reference to a previous BBC error about the colliding of "large hadrons" less obvious. (They edited once but there are still two references to the collision of large hadrons with other things).

My opinion is yes, change the title, but don't remove Sifter from the text post. Just add some language that it was originally phrased that way.


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Should I have asked this Space Telescope question here instead?
I posted Will the James Webb Space Telescope be able to see the Spitzer Space Telescope (assuming…)? in Space Exploration SE because the observer and observed are both spacecraft, but now I'm wondering if this should have been posted here instead.
Answering this question requires some understanding of the telescope's infrared camera's sensitivity and thermal infrared brightness of objects in orbit around the Sun, and that's the kind of thing that astronomers do.

Should I have asked this Space Telescope question here instead?
If so, should I now just delete it there and post it here? Or as discussed here should I wait for feedback here, then flag it there to close with affirmative answers here indicating that the question is more likely to be answered here?

It would be answerable here if Spitzer were treated as a near Earth asteroid of approximately the same size, with the caveat that the emissivity will be different.

As this is about astronomical operation of space telescopes, I think it would be on topic here, but it's also on topic on Space Exploration. If you would like it migrated here nonetheless, flag the question and I can migrate it.

I'll wait a little bit longer to see if someone expresses some likelihood that it would receive an answer here, thanks!


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Why was this answer deleted? Is it possible to re-open and this link added to it?
This answer (viewable to those with rep > 10k on "alpha sites", 2k on beta) to the question Which star did Uranus occult in 1977 when the planet's rings were discovered? seems useful. The author never responded to the comment asking for a link unfortunately.
A month later, a moderator with the current description "I work for Stack Overflow as a Senior Product Support Specialist." deleted it.
Is it possible to know why in this case?
The Circular number is easily found. Is it possible to undelete this answer and just add the link to the source http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/03000/03051.html I can't really understand why the answer was deleted. The material seems quite relevant and with the link, the answer has value as it helps readers know of a new way to look up information on occultations.
If the answer is deleted for a serious reason (I can't even vote to undelete!) then I suppose it could be re-created by a different user, but the author is active here so it's probably more appropriate to recover the answer.

Since the whole answer is just a quotation, I believe it's deleted as plagiarism. The help center mentioned this: "Do not copy the complete text of external sources; instead, use their words and ideas to support your own. And always give proper credit to the author and site where you found the text, including a direct link to it." At this point, it's better for the answer to be deleted since it's a serious case of plagiarism, let the OP fix it, then they can flag their posts for undeletion after that.

@AndrewT. Plagiarism is when you try to claim that the material is your own work. "...posting the work of others with no indication that it is not your own..." Have another look at the answer again 1) Top line reads Circular No. 3051 Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION... and 2) the entire thing uses SE's standard block quote. The author clearly does not try to pretend that they are the IAU. This is not plagiarism by any reasonable definition. But I can imagine someone might call it plagiarism for lack of a better word or applicable rule.

Copying the text of an IAU Circular violates CBAT's terms of use.

Even if it is not plagiarism, a quotation-only answer is not the kind of answer that SE generally accepts and IMHO rightly deleted. But I'm no one here, so let's wait for regulars/mods to chime in...

@MikeG that's pretty persuasive, thanks! "Circulars must not be posted on your own publically-available Web pages. If you wish to refer to a circular from your own page, read these instructions." (although that link seems to be broken)

@AndrewT. yep, that works for me too, thanks! Note that that answer is written by someone who's currently a moderator here as well.

Access to moderator tools is granted at 2k, not 10k, on beta sites.

@DaRussianPotatofromAmerica duly noted, thank you! I've made an edit.

@DaRussianPotatofromAmerica From here (found in your profile): "Reputation thresholds for privileges are very very low. As a result, users are reviewing posts, casting close and reopen votes on questions long before they are familiar with the workings of the Stack" in particular goes to Is beta-graduation the goal here? With a limited reserve of high-quality answer-writers, might it present more challenges? Thanks for the head-up, intentional or not.

There's a proposed reason for closing the answer that is certainly sufficient. I don't think there's any need to find out if this was the exact reason or not in order to say that the answer should not be undeleted.
@MikeG's comment:

Copying the text of an IAU Circular violates CBAT's terms of use.

Mods tend to do things for good reasons.
Other comments above discuss plagiarism which doesn't seem to apply in this case, and quotation-only answer which definitely does apply. The usual remedy for a helpful but low quality answer is commenting and then down voting. There was a comment and the author did not follow-up. Quotation-only is probably not a reason for mod-deletion of an answer, but certainly a term-of-use violation would be.


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How to attract real-world radio telescopists to radio astronomy observational techniques questions?
Here are ten questions about observational radio astronomy that are either unanswered (eight) or have no accepted answer (two). These are selected from my own questions only so far, there may be others as well. Please feel free to add other examples!
Question: How can we can bring questions about radio astronomy observational techniques to the eyes of radio telescopists? I'm thinking a note in a radio astronomy newsletter, or tweet with this list or link to this meta question by some radio astronomer or group, or similar?
We get great support for optics questions for optical telescopy, but not so much at the longer wavelengths.
Bounties I've added and automatic tweeeting indicated
currently no answers:

Did Arecibo's secondary optics compensate aberrations when viewing farther away from vertical? +3/-0 +100 tweeted
How do radio astronomers avoid having their receivers burned out by ground-imaging radar from satellites? +6/-0 tweeted
(https://twitter.com/StackAstronomy/status/1164190572900470784)**
How does Canada's radiotelescope CHIME manage polarization-dependent apodization of the fast f/0.25 optics? +1/-0 +100
Is there work underway to push the long baseline capabilities of the Event Horizon Telescope to sub-millimeter wavelengths? +6/-0 +100 tweeted
How did Arecibo make radar images of ice on Mercury's poles? +3/-0 tweeted

answers but none accepted:

Why are the ALMA receivers' ADCs only 3-bits? +8/-0 +100 tweeted

Answered and accepted since this was originally posted:

What is a radio "homology telescope" and is the 500m dish in China one? +8/-0 **[tweeted]
Do ASKAP and ALMA have "fast dump" interferometric modes? Can they see and perhaps report Fast Radio Bursts in real time? +4/-0 +100 tweeted
Hypothetical CMB space telescope design problem, received power from extended thermal source versus receiver front end NEP? +0/-0
What telescope might this be a model of, with Sir Fred Hoyle? +1/-0

The community-ads tag says "Indicates a post used for submitting and voting on Community Promotion Ads. For discussion on these ads, please use the [advertising] tag." Since we didn't have one of those, I've created it, though I'm not sure that description is a perfect fit here. Is there a better tag for this?

I removed the advertising tag. The Community Promotion Ads are a specific thing that graduated sites host on their own site. It is not for advertising our community elsewhere. That said we have put up ads for our site in the Community Promotion Ads of other sites (like Physics and Skeptics) before. We stopped doing it when no one volunteered to do the graphic design for the ad.

@called2voyage Thanks for the assistance! I wonder if there is an alternate existing tag for general site promotion activities? If not, do you think one should be created? Without an applicable general site promotion tag I fear that the idea that a site can promote itself outside of SE will seem in appropriate. If it is inappropriate for some reason then my question is as well. But if we can talk about it, then perhaps there should be a tag for such a discussion?

I don't think it's inappropriate. We (the mods) have discussed some general site promotion ideas in the past. The tag for it is [tag:site-promotion]

@called2voyage I have no idea how I missed that, thanks!

@called2voyage May you elaborate on your comment about missing volunteers for a graphic design? I am willing to help, but rather new to the community.

@B--rian You can see our past efforts here: https://astronomy.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/161/off-site-astronomy-community-promotion-ads

@B--rian For the current design limitations, just go to the meta of a graduated site we have been hosted at before (like Physics or Chemistry) and search for "Community Promotion Ads".

@B--rian If you decide to make one, just drop a new answer at the  Astronomy Meta post I linked, and if it gets upvotes, you can go ahead and submit it to the Community Promotion Ad posts on the other sites.


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Should we have an observation-campaign tag and what is good usage advice for it?
I've just asked Is there a collection or list of all planned observations of 99942 Apophis during it's close pass to Earth? and added a new observation-campaign tag to it.
We have many questions that contain references to observing campaigns of one sort or another.
My understanding is that it is anything between a rally for amateur observers to try to photograph something to a highly coordinated and preplanned observing plan for ground and space observatories and facilities, but that's just my impression.
To establish more information on that I've asked the companion question in the main site: Is an "observation campaign" well recognized thing in Astronomy? Is it self-declared? Are there standard ways to announce or coordinate?
Question: Should we have an observation-campaign tag and what what would be good usage advice for it?

What is the extent of the "worldwide campaign" to observe near-earth object 2012 TC4?
Why weren't the Hubble light-echo images of V838 Monocerotis supplemented by ground telescopes?
How does V838 Monocerotis look today? Any subsequent light echo images, or is the party over?
How often are radio telescopes used to measure parallax? When was this first done?
"Who saw" the binary neutron star merger first? What was the sequence of events? (GRB/GW170817)
How (the heck) was this photo of Venus at inferior conjunction (between us and the Sun) taken?
Could stellar occultations be used to survey Kuiper belt objects?
Do some comets spin? If so, how fast?
How to find out which Messier objects are in the Kepler/K2 fields?
What complementary observation campaigns have looked at Kepler's field of view?
What might a CN filter be in the context of comet watching? Is it showing dust, or gas, or something else?
How can a Grade-11 Student avail TESS data and learn to process?
What does "forward facing" mean for space telescopes?

I am aware that there are SOFIA campaigns, and I heard about a neutrino observation campaign as well (used possibly colloquially by friends in the field - I do not have a written reference for that). My defintion would be something like a  coordinated observation effort for a certain time interval, but that's just my personal definition.


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Should this question about touching event horizons really be closed as duplicate?
The question If two black hole event horizons overlap (touch) can they ever separate again? is well received with +32 upvotes currently and has two well received answers with +32 and +24 votes as well.
There are now two votes to close as duplicate of highspeed black holes or neutron stars on (almost) head-on collision course and kinetic energy where votes on the question and its two answers added together are +3. +5 and +2 respectively.
The new "event horizons overlap" question and its answers have all generated substantial, on-topic high-level discourse in comments as well.
I wonder if the first vtc as duplicate simply found something that sounded related and was older without attention to the relative quality. Based on votes alone, if one felt to dupe anything one might chose to vtc in the opposite direction.
The topic is sophisticated and I can't judge the degree of overlap to make any call about the necessity of closing either question as duplicate of the other, but I think the current vote is unproductive and will steer attention away from some very well received posts.

The questions and answers are extremely correlated to the degree I would feel uncomfortable unilaterally reversing a close action, but I agree both discussions seem helpful. Just keep tabs on it, and it if gets closed cast a reopen vote. Duplicates don't go away anyway.


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Why was my comment deleted, and this this replacement comment okay?
I'd left a "lead by example" comment addressed to the user who wrote an extended comment about why they'd chosen to immediately close What would happen if a Sun-like star were to consume a Jupiter-like planet? rather than ask for clarification or propose an edit, and a comment to another user who suggests the question "falls under the hypothetical scenarios rule". (There is no such "rule", we only have suggested guidelines for on-topic-ness which is subjective and needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis)
As I see it, on a site with a low question rate, there's no benefit at all to insta-closing a good question that simply needs a bit of work. "Leading by example" means showing a new user, posting their first question, the best way to improve it by making an edit. Having an example is likely much easier for a new Stack Exchange user to understand than to simply close and point to help.
Yes, that was the old way, but it's far less welcoming than being helpful.
Question: Why was my comment deleted, and this this replacement comment okay?
My new comment is

I've voted to leave this question open. Rather than voting to close, I've made an edit to improve the question. Closing would have blocked anyone from answering further. There were 4 vtc votes; one more vote would have instantly blocked this excellent, thorough and authoritative answer from being posted!

Luckily at least one of the vtc were retracted, possibly in response to my two (now deleted) requests for vtc retraction. This likely facilitated @RobJeffries opportunity to post the answer.
I'm pretty sure my way is better in these cases (helpful comments and exemplary edits versus insta-closing) and I think facilitating the linked answer is evidence of this, so I'm interested to understand what was delete-worthy in my comment, and how could I have composed it differently to encourage keeping good questions open.

The original comment was seen as being too confrontational, and I could see where they were coming from. The new one looks fine.

okay, I'll (continue to) work on that, thanks for the feedback.

@uhoh The part that troubled the user was "Let's stop insta-closing everything". They read it as targeting them specifically as being malicious. In my opinion, your new comment avoids this impression, which is why it's better.

Oh, seeing it now, yes I concur.


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Can we  to have emoji in posts?
The well-received and hot network question If a massive object like Jupiter flew past the Earth how close would it need to come to pull people off of the surface? includes the phrase

I understand this is a silly hypothetical but I'm asking for a 7 year old so please  with me.

Currently there is a pending edit replacing the emoticon with the word bear.
The emoji/emoticon shown is a representation of a bear, and bear (noun) is a homophone for bear (verb) which according to the Queen's English Society† can be understood as follows:

Bear with me definition: Bear with me is an expression that means hear me out or be patient. A convention speaker might say bear with me if his or her slideshow isn’t working, or a minister might use the phrase while turning to the correct scriptural passage.

Is it too early to have a discussion about the use of emoji to replace written English in situations where the written text would already be concise and clear?
note: This question is not about the use of an occasional humorous or decorative instance as a tiny aside to an otherwise clear passage written in English as demonstrated in the footnote below. It's only about replacing or substituting clear English by homophonic emoticons or similar.
†Queens, NY English Society; not what you thought! ;-)

Take note that emoji will not always be rendered properly on some system (especially text-only browser). They will see "so please  with me" ("so please square with me") instead.

@AndrewT. So all those invitations to square with people over the years might have been something else all this time? (insert a smiling/winking emoji indicating the sentence is meant to be humorous)

I would not substitute emojis for actual speech, as that provides an additional obstacle for non-native English speakers and could potentially cause the question to be misunderstood in any case. If an emoji is used in this way, please edit out the emojis and replace with the appropriate words.
I would not recommend casual use of emojis, like smiles, etc. either because that invokes a chatty tone that we try to avoid here.
There is an acceptable use of emojis: when it is actually relevant to the question. This may not happen often here, but if an emoji got used in astronomical discourse (e.g. a Twitter post by a professional astronomer) in such a way that its use was actually relevant to astronomy then the emoji should be included in the post asking about that here.
E.g. Why is the symbol of Vernal Equinox ♈?
You originally asked this on Space Exploration, though it seems you intended to ask it here after all, but that also brings to mind a situation where Elon Musk or someone like that might use an emoji in a rocketry post in a context having to do with the rocket--the emoji might be suited to a Space Exploration question in that case.

Let's just hope Musk doesn't get the bright idea to name his next piece of hardware Big  Energy.


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Do we need the [nomenclature] and [naming] and [terminology] tags?
The new question Is "monochromatic source" different than "monochromator" in astronomical instrumentation? included a nomenclature tag I hadn't seen before, I usually use terminology:

nomenclature 17 questions

The nomenclature tag has no usage guidance, can you help us create it?

terminology 128 questions

Questions regarding specific terms, names, or naming conventions.

naming 64 questions

Questions regarding the process of assigning an identifying set of characters to an astronomical object.

Question: Do we need all three of these tags? Should they be merged in some way, or do they have sufficiently different meanings and usages?

They make sense to be distinct when they are used distinctly.
On the English SE there was a question about the difference between 'nomenclature' and 'terminology': https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/20234/difference-between-terminology-and-nomenclature
The 2nd answer explains imho quite well the (tiny) difference: terminology is often a broader term while nomenclature less so and the better word to describe naming patterns for groups of thing like craters, stars, or comets. With this argument the question would need tagging 'terminology'.
Generally there are not many naming patterns in astronomy other than 'these objects take names from this mythological background and suggestions are decided by the IAU'. However these patterns are often asked or there are questions on the name of particular objects. So a separate tag for this does make sense - but it likely should be 'naming'. It's tag description could be like

naming: Questions about the names of actual celestial objects or naming conventions of a certain type of celestial objects. E.g. "how are comets named?", "what is the brightest nameless star"? etc.

Distinct from that, one then would keep the tag 'terminology' with a tag description possibly similar to

terminology: Questions about technical terms, differences in classification of objects. E.g. "what is the difference between an asteroid and a comet" or "what is a planet"?

Given the tiny but existing differences between terminology and nomenclature makes me think it falls in between these two suggested tags - and I would remove the tag altogether (or make it an alias of 'terminology').
One can argue that these two suggested remaining tags are still too similar, but with a proper distinction drawn similar to suggested, they can fulfill their role, even when sometimes the wrong one will be chosen initially.

Please go ahead and amend / extend as needed for the sake of this discussion.

I rewrote parts of my answer with a somewhat different conclusion given the edit to the original question with now three tags. So whoever voted may want to reconsider :)