It's probably been suggested a quadzillion times, but what with all the image and tagging issues we're currently ruminating on:
Why don't we simply make tags mandatory ''when uploading''? Add a ''mandatory'' list form to [[Special:Upload]] -- so that you can ''only'' upload if you pick a choice. Then automatically insert the corresponding tag depending on what the user picks (the tag should still remain editable later, of course, but at least it's there for starters).
Let's be generous at first and include ''all'' the tags in that list, even the ones we don't really like that much. -- At least we're going to ''have'' tags (where we previously often had none.) I'd even add a choice of "Other" to the list, whereby, if you pick that, you gotta make a mandatory entry into a freeform field and, say, an {{other}} tag will then be attached as well.
We can still become more restrictive later, but isn't it high time we took this simple step?
I for one was just about to upload some image and I shamefully realized that I've often simply forgotten a tag in the past -- simply because it's not mandatory.
Thoughts?
- Jens