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The current excerpt of the tag is:

For general questions related to musical genres and how they are defined, grouped or marketed. Do not use for questions about a specific genre or what bands or songs count as what genres.

Do we agree with this excerpt?

I see that the tag is often used for questions about specific genres, e.g., about the differences between two specific genres, or the definition of a genre, etc., for example:

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    I feel like both tags should be used if asked about a specific genre - people looking for a question about electronic can find it easily, while the tag "genre" can be used for any one of them.
    – DJ Aftershock
    Mar 26, 2015 at 10:18
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    ...how they are defined... - ...about the differences between two specific genres, or the definition of a genre.... That's exactly what they're being used for. I don't see the problem.
    – Darrick Herwehe
    Mar 26, 2015 at 12:40
  • @DarrickHerwehe: The second sentence starts with "Do not use for questions about a specific genre […]". It’s "general" vs. "specific".
    – unor
    Mar 26, 2015 at 12:45
  • I guess I'm just not really clear how we would use the tag, outside of these examples. Can you add what good usage would be?
    – Darrick Herwehe
    Mar 26, 2015 at 13:01
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    @DarrickHerwehe: Well, this question is for discussing what this good usage should be :) In my answer I proposed one way: In my opinion, a question about the rock genre does not gain anything by adding the genre tag (the rock tag already implies that the question is about a genre, and rock experts would follow rock, not (necessarily) genre). Furthermore, if every question about a specific genre would have the genre tag, it would be hard to find general questions about/related to genres.
    – unor
    Mar 26, 2015 at 13:23
  • Related: How to use tags for specific genres (like [rock], [jazz] etc.)?
    – unor
    Apr 9, 2015 at 20:57

3 Answers 3

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The tag was defined by one user. The tag definition is not set in stone and especially this early in the site we can change it as we need to.

Personally, I think if we're talking about the difference between two genres or sub-genres the tag works fine as we're just talking about defining genres in depth. We still are referring to the "concepts" of genre, just not the general concepts. I don't know any tag that is limited to "general concepts only".

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  • So you suggest to use genre for questions about the differences of specific genres. What about genre definition questions?
    – unor
    Mar 26, 2015 at 16:17
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    @unor What I'm saying is they are still questions about genre and using the genre tag fits them fine.
    – Dom Mod
    Mar 26, 2015 at 16:31
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    I see. Could you describe why you think this would be useful? To me it sounds like tagging every question about a specific programming language on SO with the programming-languages tag. Not "wrong" (a Java question is also a programming language question), but not useful (muddles the water for finding the conceptual questions). Just like SO’s "java" tag implies that it’s a programming language question, our "rock" tag implies that it’s a genre question.
    – unor
    Mar 26, 2015 at 16:48
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    @unor The primary benefit is that it helps people who want to follow certain categories on the site. Some people will like those types of questions. Since the category is far from overly broad, I think it should stay
    – Zach Saucier
    Mar 27, 2015 at 0:50
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I would argue for using for any discussion of definitional characteristics, whether to distinguish between two or to characterize one.

I'm don't find the current tag excerpt particularly clear, but genre definition can be divisive. Some people love it, some hate it. Using the tag serves both.

In short, I would agree with using for all four of your examples, and I don't have a clear idea of any other way to use the tag.

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I think the tag should only be used for questions about the concept "genre", not for questions about specific genres.

So questions like these should use the tag:

But as soon as a question is about one or more specific genres, it should not use the tag, but specific genre tags (like , etc.) instead.

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