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I am uncertain of the place of "ethics" in the workplace, both the site and, you know, the actual workplace. I hasten to add, this is because ethics are incredibly subjective, and a cursory glance of ethical philosophy will show this. This is not because I'm all for looting the office supply cabinet1.

Having an "ethics" tag tacitly encourages questions with "ethics" related issues.

This has been raised before, where the consensus was that "ethics" related questions were better answered with a "logistical and strategic perspective".

Given that the general consensus is that ethics isn't part of the scope of this site, can we remove the tags?

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1: I prefer the term "aspecific repurposing for an unknown duration"

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  • possible duplicate of Are Ethics part of our purview?
    – Jim G.
    Feb 6, 2015 at 18:08
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    @Jim this is... this is the same question i mention in my own question. I'm pretty sure it isn't a duplicate, I want to remove the tag.
    – bharal
    Feb 6, 2015 at 18:36
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    Would something like this work? It could have a bit of text pop up warning users about questions related to ethics?
    – enderland
    Feb 7, 2015 at 1:37
  • @enderland yes, i like that a lot
    – bharal
    Feb 7, 2015 at 18:22
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    @JimG. This is meta and the question you refer to is over 2 years old. It is permissible to bring up this subject again.
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    Feb 10, 2015 at 4:45
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    @ReallyTiredOfThisGame for the sake of completeness, I believe it's generally okay to dupe-close, even on meta, even after two (3, 4 etc) years. But in this specific case, I am really with you, because "preemptive de-duplication" has been done fairly thoroughly
    – gnat
    Feb 10, 2015 at 20:44

2 Answers 2

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I would vote for not removing ethics.

Although we can't answer a full-blown, should I do X or Y question, questions falling under the ethics tag often seem to lead to a general consensus from answerers. Most of the time, people are concerned about fairness in the workplace, or whether there is a consequence to their or a colleague's actions that they may not have considered. I think these are fair questions to be concerned about and usually reasonable.

As the answer people linked to said, answerers then tend to approach it from a logical point of view, but I think "ethics" is still a reasonable tag because it tends to mean "is this action appropriate for the workplace?", which I think is answerable on this site and not just opinion-based.

However, some ethical questions will not be in scope on this site, and will then be subject to the various close reasons (company specific or opinion based). I don't think this is a reason for deleting the tag though.

Edit: enderland's suggestion of a pop-up to address these caveats would, in my opinion, be a good idea.

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Given that the general consensus is that ethics isn't part of the scope of this site...

There's a past discussion where the consensus differed.

As long as the questions have enough detail to where they can be answered from a strategic view or focusing on consequences, then I don't personally see a problem with the question.

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    Um... is this the same question linked again? Is that a record for question links? Nobody should have a problem with the question linked - it is a fine question. But it has an "ethics" tag when it isn't about ethics (at all - look at what the OP there asks). It has an "ethics" tag and none of the answers answer in terms of ethics. So we have a tag that does nothing. Let's just remove it!
    – bharal
    Feb 6, 2015 at 18:38

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