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[PROJECT] Remove tags from front-matter across mdn/content #262

Description

@hamishwillee

Proposal

Tags in front-metadata were one, many years ago, used for generating dynamic page lists in the old wiki UI.
Currently they are used to generate sidebar icons for API state (deprecated, experimental, non-standard) and for sidebar organization: Reference, Method, Property.

However the advice for applying tags assumes that they are still used for generating page lists - it suggests adding a many reference keywords that might refer to the page as possible - including the name of the page itself. All of this information can be inferred from the page slug and is pointless.

The proposal is to completely remove all tags, replacing with specific metadata where necessary, and provide much simpler instructions for users.

Specifically

  • Remove all tags that that aren't used for any UI generation - e.g. API name, API group, likely keywords

  • Replace Reference, Method, Property, Type, Event with page types for any pages using these for sidebar organization. (this work is already in progress for web APIs and Javascript. Needs to also happen for CSS, SVG, WebExtensions.

  • Replace "state" tags Experimental , Deprecated, Non-standard, Obsolete (may not exist) with specific metadata tags:

    status:
      - non-standard
      - deprecated
      - experimental
    

    Note, these default as false, and are only defined if true.

  • Remove "Junk" & "Important' - These are used by the SubpagesWithSummaries macro but none of the pages with that macro have them.

  • As part of the updates any macros that use the tags should be update to not use them or use the page types.

  • Contribution guidance updated.

This could be split into parts based on particular tags and/or web area - CSS, web APIs etc.

Task list

Additional information

These are all the places tags are used in KS: https://gist.github.com/wbamberg/1381c5c9c20752c89fed32b66c991230

We need to check whether this will cause problems for translations - I understand that translations rely on metadata from the english site, just not sure if it is Tags or all metadata.

Are you willing to support this work?

Yes.

Depends on

Page types being rolled out.

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involves: ContentRequires the attention of the Content team.involves: EngineeringRequires the attention of the Engineering team.projectproject issues

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