As of this writing, 40 questions are tagged word-choice and 35 are tagged versus. Almost everything tagged versus could also be tagged word-choice (except for a couple which would be word-order). My instinct is to kill the versus tag altogether since I don't feel like it adds any value, but I don't want to do that without checking with the community.
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1I have prescriptivist leanings -- y'all have no idea how difficult it is for me to start a discussion instead of arbitrarily and capriciously creating a rule and insisting that everyone follow it.– J.T. GrimesCommented Aug 24, 2010 at 23:25
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2 Answers
I think that versus should be used on questions where users ask about one word / phrase against another one ("right" versus "correct"), and word-choice when the question asks which word to use without to offer two alternative words / phrases.
The two questions are different. In the first case of questions, users who ask the question only want to know if to use the first word, or the second; in the second case, the user doesn't have a clue of what word (or phrase) should use.
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1An interesting point, but then again, whenever I was looking for a word myself, I was rather tempted to tag my question "looking-for-a-word" or some such, but never "word-choice". "Choice" implies that there are several alternatives, that there is, well, a choice. However, when I am looking for a word that means X, I have no idea whether I will be offered several words to choose from, or in fact any at all. Commented Aug 25, 2010 at 13:27
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Also, I feel like "word-choice" is best applied to single words. When I am looking for a word combination or an entire sentence, "wording" would seem more appropriate. Commented Aug 25, 2010 at 13:38
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I think that versus should be kept if there is a reason to group that set of questions together. This is the main purpose of using tags, IMO. Clearly, a tag is useful if users understand what the purpose of the tag is. Commented Aug 25, 2010 at 15:26
I must admit that when I first started contributing, my subjective impression was that the versus tag was being used more often than the word-choice tag. Shame on me, I didn't bother to actually check the stats, and ended up tagging at least three of my own questions versus (and none of them word-choice).
In other words, if it weren't for me, the versus tag would be even less popular (and the word-choice would be used even more).
I also think that while versus is shorter, word-choice is a bit more self-explanatory, probably even more so to foreign learners.
I will thus start re-tagging my own questions accordingly (though not too hastily, so as not to pollute the front page).
I also suggest that someone with enough rep adds versus as a tag synonym for word-choice, so that future questions tagged versus are automatically re-tagged behind the scenes.
Oh, and do cast your votes for all the other tag synonyms out there! (If you have more than 1000 rep points, that is.)
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@Kosmonaut: Unfortunately, only nine other people can vote on it. When the temporary moderators are appointed, they will be able to instantly approve synonyms, so we may have to wait until then.– mmyersCommented Aug 25, 2010 at 12:32