BUG: tags not checked for unique names

[AlexAnguix]

To reproduce:

1. Go to people's page on any course
2. Select Manage Tags
3. Create new tags
4. Use the same name for all the tags you create
5. The system has no mechanism to stop names being duplicates

I logged this with Support and was told this was "intended behaviour".

I cannot think of a single use-case where this would be useful to have the same tag names. Please fix this.

[C_Miller]

Reproduceable following Alex's five step instructions.

[robert_hollenbe]

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I cannot think of a single use-case where this would be useful to have the same tag names.

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Imagine a situation where application of tags is automated across thousands of courses. You might find you need multiple system-generated tag_ids which all map to the same semantic meaning. In that case, forced uniqueness on a label field would be extremely frustrating. And then I would have started this thread instead of you. And we would be having the exact mirror-image of this discussion. 😃

There is also a UX aspect to this. It's fairly standard across Canvas that label/informational fields allow duplicates (e.g., course names, user names). From a system design perspective, consistent UX behaviour across many features is (IMO) arguably more important than the implementation details of any one feature.

[C_Miller]

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And we would be having the exact mirror-image of this discussion. 😃

The positions are not mutually exclusive. I took the OP to be about duplicate tags within a group. You're talking about duplicates across the service.  Having duplicates within a group could produce unintended consequences further down the line in applying the tags to items. Students emailing course leaders asking why they do not have access to course content, when their peers do, is one I'm thinking of.  

[MadeleineToh]

Agree there will be consequences down the line.

I had a similar issue when I noticed duplicate tags accidentally created in a single class (created by SIS import). Only one of the tags had users assigned, while the other duplicates had no students. Since our instructors are using tags to assign work to tagged students, the instructor could assign work to a duplicated tag with no students assigned to it instead of the correct one. I really hope the development team would fix this soon to avoid a big support headache in the future.

[robert_hollenbe]

Ah - that makes sense. So a suitable solution would require uniqueness inside a group, but not across groups.

[MadeleineToh]

I have a similar situation. If I create a single tag for a course via SIS upload, then reupload the same csv file, the class now has:

1. One tag with the same name

2. One tag set with the same name

Do note, nothing in the csv file changed between the first two uploads. The headers of the file are simply:

tag_id

course_id

name

status