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When asking questions, should we tag the variant they belong to (European Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese)? Most of the questions may refer to Portuguese as a whole, but questions such as this are primarily aimed at Brazilian Portuguese.

2 Answers 2

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I think we should mark questions which ask about a particular regional variant by tags. Most language sites just use the name of the country, so

etc.

I think this is probably easier than , because (1) it's shorter and (2) it's not clear what to call European Portuguese, or or =)

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    I strongly recommend the two-word region tags. One can always tagsyn if needed.
    – tchrist Mod
    Jul 15, 2015 at 1:46
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    @tchrist Do you want to share any particular reason?
    – Earthliŋ
    Jul 15, 2015 at 1:47
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    Because a single-word tag doesn’t make sense when talking about languages as distinct from regions. Questions about regions are different from questions about the language of that region. Consider how ELU has tags like british-english, australian-english, american-english, indian-english. It would not make sense to just name the country. Moreover, it might sometimes be reasonable to group rather than split the lusophonic African countries’ dialects. You also have in-city concerns, like carioca versus fluminense, as well as the lisboeta diphthong realignment of /ei̯/ to [ɐi̯].
    – tchrist Mod
    Jul 15, 2015 at 1:56
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    @tchrist I don't see why that's not posted as an answer, as you have a strong stance and reasons to back it up... Personally, I'm not convinced that ELU's decision to go with [australian-english] over vanilla [australian] has much to teach us. I mean, the site has "English" in it's name; it is more than a little redundant to also put it in tags. And it's not like they have to keep it distinct from some other tag [australia], because region tags make no sense on a language site except for their connection to dialects/languages.
    – Frank
    Jul 15, 2015 at 5:09
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I believe tchrist has a point in the two-word region tags, it's not just about distinguishing an area, but also about properly identifying the context. Consider the following:

  • a question about an expression used in Brazil that refers to European-Portuguese influences in a certain region of Brazil would have, for example, and .
  • a question referring to another language in Portugal and its connections to the main language would have, for example, and .

Edit

There is another issue: foreigners that specifically want to learn either Brazilian or Portuguese expressions and accent, they would have a hard time searching questions/answers only by the country's tag. It gets worse if the question is tagged only by a region of the country, which would even not appear in a country's search.

Furthermore, there are online courses specifically to learn and and those are distinct for a reason: foreigners that need to learn fast for a living, they only want to learn the way people communicate in the environment they are living. It's truly undesirable to be influenced and confused by alternative ways for expressing the same things, specially in the initial learning stage.

Maybe these searches will provide a better reasoning for most of you, critics, than just words (2015-07-18):

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    What does it mean for a question to be "about Brazil" in a way that is important for a site about language and yet distinct from dialect? This is not a geography site, so such a tag is not needed here. Anyway, that's a counterargument, and I'm curious what your response would be. (Maybe it refers to the speakers there, independent of their dialect?) I think brasil and português-brasileiro should be synonyms (both indicating the dialect), but don't have a preference for which one is primary.
    – Frank
    Jul 18, 2015 at 0:10
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    With "about Brazil" I meant a localized expression usage of the Portuguese language, which is not or rarely used elsewhere. But let me edit that to clarify. In order to understand the etymology of words, regions and cultures provide invaluable references.
    – Armfoot
    Jul 18, 2015 at 0:22
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    Can you come up with examples of these hypotheticals? We've been using just the country/region name in Spanish.SE for over 3 years, and to my knowledge never wished we had done otherwise, and we have a far greater diversity of regions than Portuguese (or likely any other language in the world, with the possible exception of English).
    – Flimzy
    Jul 18, 2015 at 1:20
  • @Flimsy Let me make the 1st one non-hypothetical Farnizim is an expression used in Brazil that was derived from the European-Portuguese frenesi, here's the question I just wrote. The Brazil and Portugal tag wouldn't properly identify the issue. Now, I ask you the same, give me a concrete example in sp.SE where a region-language tag would be preferable to solely regions tags. And please, don't tell me there are none
    – Armfoot
    Jul 18, 2015 at 9:22
  • @Armfoot The question now is, do we need to provide such information in a tag? The coupling of etimologia with brasil and portugal should suffice and could hardly bring any confusion if the question itself is well written. Do note that tags are only a part of the question.
    – E_net4 the comment flagger
    Jul 18, 2015 at 16:32
  • @E_net4 if you're learning European Portuguese, how would you possibly find related questions exclusively through a Portugal tag? The same applies to Brazil, and it gets worse if the question is tagged only by a region of the country. You can find online courses specifically to learn Brazilian or Portuguese expressions and accents - let me tell you, those are distinct for a reason: foreigners that need to learn fast for a living, they only want to learn pt-br when they live in Brazil and pt-eu when they live in Portugal. Unlike Spanish, there is still a big gap in the way people communicate.
    – Armfoot
    Jul 18, 2015 at 20:21
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    @Armfoot introducing a new set of tags does not help users with that goal either. In fact, mixing brasil and português-europeu does not tell us in the question whether the user wishes for an answer applied to PT-BR or PT-EU. Rather, your example just makes a secondary remark that it might be influenced by PT-EU. Even if we define the tags properly beforehand, they will be unclear just by name, and too hard to memorize, leading to a lot of mis-tagging.
    – E_net4 the comment flagger
    Jul 18, 2015 at 20:43
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    After a second look at that question, I wouldn't even put any tag related to portugal. With the tags we have right now, a user wishing to learn European Portuguese can contemplate all questions except for those with brasil.
    – E_net4 the comment flagger
    Jul 18, 2015 at 20:46
  • @E_net4 well, all of your well founded reasoning is turning all of it into a conundrum. But since you're into it, it seems you'd tag any question that specifically distinguishes a pt-br and pt-eu expression with just one country tag, and that impov leaves just a contextual void in referencing/marking the question. Btw, I'm done reasoning with you... I will delete my suggestion and my support for tchrist's idea if it pleases the community.
    – Armfoot
    Jul 18, 2015 at 20:55
  • @Armfoot If the question actually wishes for a distinction between them, then it is ok to tag it with both. That is not what bothers me most. The problem is that you are suggesting the use of extremely similar tags for different purposes, and so far I have not seen a better attempt of your part to address this.
    – E_net4 the comment flagger
    Jul 18, 2015 at 21:01
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    And by the way, those searches only suggest that we should have synonyms for those cases, not tags with different semantics.
    – E_net4 the comment flagger
    Jul 18, 2015 at 21:04
  • Deleting recommendations that aren't well-received sort of defeats the purpose of meta. You shouldn't take downvotes on meta personally; they're just an expression of opinion on this issue.
    – Frank
    Jul 18, 2015 at 23:21

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