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I wanted to search for questions on extended attributes, then I found that there seem to be at least two tags: and .

The mentioned tags seem to refer to the same topic, but they are not aliased.

Should extended-attributes be an alias for xattr? The latter seems to be used (much) more frequently. Or should this be streamlined in a different way?

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    Seems reasonable to me -- retag the extended-attributes Qs to xattr, then make it a synonym of xattr.
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 17:03
  • @JeffSchaller I've now retagged the extended-attributes Qs to xattr — peer review is pending. However, for creating a tag synonym I'm lacking the required privilege.
    – King Thrushbeard
    Commented Aug 31, 2017 at 11:41
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    I think I approved most of them; don't forget to look for other improvements (tags, grammar, formatting, etc) in posts as you're editing.
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2017 at 12:19
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    @JeffSchaller Of course. I'll do my best. Will you care for creating the tag synonym?
    – King Thrushbeard
    Commented Aug 31, 2017 at 14:16
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    I don't think these should be synonyms; xattr is a tool and "extended attributes" is a concept and filesystem feature that is accessed many ways, mostly not through that particular tool. It would be better to separate them and have the excerpts be clear on which to use. It's reasonable for somebody to have expertise on the tool, but not the general concept, and vice-versa.
    – Michael Homer
    Commented Sep 2, 2017 at 3:32
  • @MichaelHomer, I agree. You should put that as an answer.
    – Wildcard
    Commented Sep 7, 2017 at 4:05

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I don't think these should be synonyms. xattr is a specific tool, provided out-of-the-box on some platforms, and "extended attributes" is a concept and filesystem feature that is accessed many ways, mostly not through that particular tool. It's unfortunate that there's a collision, but there's a clear disambiguation to be made.

It would be better to separate the tags and have the excerpts be clear on which to use. is a not a good name for the extended-attributes tag in any case - it's an incomprehensible abbreviation if you just knew "extended attributes" were what you were looking for - and if they were to be unified, it should be in the other direction.

It's reasonable for somebody to have expertise on the tool, but not the general concept, or to be searching for questions about one in particular, and vice-versa.

I propose for the xattr tool, and for the feature. To that end:

  1. should be renamed to (regardless of whether they are merged or not).
  2. A new is created for the tool, and relevant questions are re-tagged with it (possibly in addition to , possibly instead).
  3. The excerpt for should state "This tag is for questions about the xattr command-line tool. For questions about extended attributes in general, use .".
  4. For , perhaps it could be omitted from the excerpt and only in the wiki, but somewhere at least: "For questions about the use of the xattr command-line tool, [also?] use .".
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  • xattr is not just that one tool: it's the name used in system calls, kernel structs etc. in at least Linux and macOS/Darwin.
    – deltab
    Commented Sep 7, 2017 at 17:18
  • Agreed, though many questions about those things are off-topic. It doesn't have another name and the broader concept does.
    – Michael Homer
    Commented Sep 7, 2017 at 17:56
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    Any consideration for making the tag for the tool xattr-tool, or something more descriptive than just xattr to make it very clear that the tag is not referring to extended attributes in general?
    – David Z
    Commented Sep 11, 2017 at 5:01
  • And the end result of all of this was there is no tag for xattr, and there is no tag for extended-attributes? Wow,
    – Seamus
    Commented Jul 28, 2022 at 18:22

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