Dear community,
I would like to present an overview of tags and tag usage on Discourse, specifically in the Support and Help category.
What Are Tags?
Think of tags as keywords that can help find topics or narrow down your own topic to make it more specific.
How Do I Use Tags?
If you are new to Discourse and began your journey by clicking on one of the support links on the Start Here page you will open up a new topic with the tag field auto-filled.
These are broad, general tags intended to get you started quickly.
If you started your own topic, then you have the option to select tags to attach to your topic that you think are the most appropriate to describe the issue.
Start typing a letter or letters and the tag should appear for you to click and add.
What Tags Are Available & How Should I Use Them?
The best way to use tags is to think of a broad subject with narrower, more specific keywords.
For example, you are having permissions issues after an update to your system.
Start a new topic in Support and Help , add the tags install-and-upgrade and permissions
It is really important to make your topic title as descriptive as possible to help users provide you with the best support.
The more detail you provide, the easier it will be to help.
Tags are helpers in this respect, narrowing down the scope so that you will hopefully get help about this specific issue and not about printing.
If you are unsure which tag to use or one does not exist that fits exactly, the best advice is to use the broader tag.
More Examples of Tag Usage
Use the tag printing for issues related to printing or printers; use with general-help or install-and-upgrade as relevant.
networking can be used for general issues related to the subject while networking-wireless is for more specific wireless-related issues.
grub can be used for problems specific to that bootloader, while the broader tag bootloaders can be used for other types of bootloaders.
snap can be used for issues with snaps, for example Support and Help snap permissions
server and hardware could be combined to get help for an issue related to this subject.
Where Can I See A Full List Of All Available Tags In One Place?
Unfortunately, since not all tags are currently assigned to topics this is not possible.
The screenshot below shows all 51 tags that can, in theory, be used in Support and Help at this time.
Since this list includes newly-created tags they may not have topics attached to them yet. We expect to see that change soon.
We hope this guide will prove to be useful for both new and experienced users.