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The and tags are used on 63 questions and 20 questions respectively. I've asked two questions that seem to be about the US space program and government positions, so I've created for them.

Was this a reasonable extrapolation and thing to do? Do country tags have a clear role in Space Exploration SE, and are we using them for the purpose for which they are designed?

I don't see any problem myself, but since I've just created one, I wanted to double check that this was reasonable. There is a possibility that the Russia tag was created because of the historical changes in the space program from the Soviet era to current times, and that the China tag was created simply because it was thought that people would not start typing CNSA when asking about the Chinese space program.

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    $\begingroup$ Excellent question. There certainly seems to be some inconsistency. Another example is there is [isro], but no [india]. [japan] and [jaxa] exist separately. I created [germany] for a question, but the tag was removed. $\endgroup$ – DrSheldon Nov 17 '18 at 0:29
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    $\begingroup$ This is an important and useful meta question. What do you think about creating community wiki answers, one for each country? Each "answer" would highlight the issues with that country's tags, comments can be used to discuss those issues, and votes can be used to show approval for that country to have a tag. $\endgroup$ – DrSheldon Nov 17 '18 at 1:28
  • $\begingroup$ @DrSheldon let's wait a bit to see what happens first. It's possible someone will think about this and write an answer that's reasoned and well received. Wiki's can go sideways and offer nothing conclusive. Since you've already been looking around in country-tag space, consider adding an answer explaining what you've found and if you think the status-quo is okay or not. It could be that all is well. $\endgroup$ – uhoh Nov 17 '18 at 1:36
  • $\begingroup$ @DrSheldon That's probably because there wasn't considered to be enough germany-specific questions to necessitate a germany tag at this time. $\endgroup$ – called2voyage♦ Nov 19 '18 at 13:35
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    $\begingroup$ IMHO, country tags are different than agency tags because not all space actions that occur in a country must necessarily be associated with the agency. This is certainly not an exception for the US, so I think there is no problem with your united-states tag, uhoh. That said, I am curious what the community has to say about that, so I look forward to answers. $\endgroup$ – called2voyage♦ Nov 19 '18 at 13:37
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    $\begingroup$ Related meta question: space.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1115/26446 $\endgroup$ – DrSheldon Dec 1 '18 at 4:17
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Country tags can be useful, but only in limited context.

A good case-in-point is China and their nascent commercial space launches, which are arguably a national priority for China. Thus, if you wanted to ask about China's broader push for space (still #3 behind the US and Russia), you would need a tag for that.

Another case might be Scotland, which has a dedicated rocket launch site but no formal space program. You'd need a country tag here to discuss the launch site and/or the regulations placed on it.

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  • $\begingroup$ These are very good points, thank you! $\endgroup$ – uhoh Nov 27 '18 at 16:40
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    $\begingroup$ I've gone ahead and asked Does Scotland need a space agency? Is there one in the works? and sure enough, there is no scottish-space-agency tag ;-) So I've created a Scotland tag. $\endgroup$ – uhoh Nov 28 '18 at 3:22
  • $\begingroup$ I would have thought the existing uk-space tag should cover it. $\endgroup$ – JCRM Nov 29 '18 at 8:01
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In most cases I consider country tags superfluous. If you are asking about an agency in country X, there's no need to tag X also.

The only questions that would benefit from a country tag are those that are about something more general happening in that country:

Why was the space program in X put on hold during the 10 years before the second world war?

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