Should we tag questions based on age?

Question

I created the young-adults tag for this question because it seems like the answers to a more general question could be different for different age groups, and this clearly pertained to teenagers. I think that there are similar cases where such categorization could be useful, such as in questions on romantic relationships (a teenager's may not be the same as, say, a middle-aged person's).

My proposal is that we consider having some tags to be used on questions where age is a relevant factor. Not all questions need them, certainly. But I think some would benefit, possibly including

• How to be accepted back into a friend group
• How to manage someone flirting with my partner at a party?
• How to develop romance in a casual, interrupted relationship?
• How to politely convey that you don't want to get tagged in irrelevant social media post?
• How can I politely tell someone that they should take a shower?
• How to nicely reject someone who is hitting on you in the United States?
• Inquiring of someone of a senior person how they're faring after surgery
• Will interacting on an electronic forum, tend to improve or deteriorate my real life interpersonal skills?

Some of these are borderline, but I hope they support the premise that we need to make sure that the age group of the person with the problem is clear. Tagging would help categorize the questions.

Here are some ideas of tags we could use:

• children
• adolescents
• teenagers
• young-adults
• adults
• senior-citizens

There's some overlap here, which we'd need to avoid in a consistent tagging system.

What do people think?

Answer 1

I think there are a lot of potential issues with this.

I know that classification of questions is beneficial and I certainly think we should mention these things when we ask the question but I'm not sure I think tags are necessary for it.

I'm not sure why knowing when looking at the Questions List that the OP is a teenager or a senior when trying to rekindle an old relationship matters.

Why does it matter if you're 30 or 60 when someone's flirting with your partner? Is the response different? Should you be flattered when your 60-year-old partner is flirted with instead of being insulted at 30? Are we trying to imply that a 60-year-old shouldn't consider fighting but a 30-year-old should? Is my answer as a 35-year-old less valid when talking about what a 12-year-old should do?

Additionally, what someone considers a "young adult" or a "senior" is sort of dependent on the person. My mother would pale at being considered a "senior" despite being 63. Not because she's not of that age but because she doesn't feel like a senior. What's the difference between a young-adult and an adolescent and a teenager? These overlap to a degree I wouldn't often know which to pick.

So, my question is, what benefit is added? What do we gain? Does it overcomplicate things?

I think this over-complicates things unnecessarily. If age really starts becoming a consideration in questions, perhaps we can reconsider but, at this point, I think these tags are unhelpful.

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None of this is to say that I think these are generally bad tags. I can certainly imagine a question that would be worthy of them... If you have a question where you're having to interact with a specific group of people, then they might be useful tags. For example:

My teenaged step son has a group of friends who come over all of the time and they leave a mess that we then have to clean up, how can I get these kids to respect my home and clean up after themselves?

This makes sense to have a teenagers tag. It should not also have a adults tag simply because I'm an adult...

So, use the tag if it's inherent to the question but not if you're simply trying to classify your own age group.

Answer 2

No these are meta tags and not what tags are intended for. If the problem is actually about the age that may be fine. But when the problem is just a problem but may have an age component to it then it is not appropriate.

Answer 3

Personally, I think it's a very good idea, because the same question can easily be asked in different aspects, including age.

The unsolved issue would be the case when a question is about interaction between two different age groups: which one would and/or should you use to define the question with the tag?

EDIT: moreover, az @Catija suggests, this feature should be used with caution. Not every question need specifying age, as, of course, some question are not related to age groups.