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For a very diverse world, an answer fitting the culture of the USA might not be the best parenting advice for someone in a radically different culture.

So to me it makes sense to tag questions with the country, when cultural/legal matters can be best answered by people with knowledge of said cultures and legal systems.

One example is Being told I'm father to a son I don't want

It touches legal issues that are best explained by someone that knows how the UK system works.

I went out on a limb and created the UK tag for that question.

Should we continue to do so?

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I'm going to say no. In pretty much every instance I can think of, the culture is either a detail someone can adapt the answer with, or it indicates the question probably doesn't belong here.

On StackExchange, we want answers to be useful forever. And not useful to just the asker, but to others who visit the site. I understand the usefulness of knowing where someone lives to be able to tailor the answer appropriately (and that isn't a bad thing at all), but the meat of an answer should be applicable across cultures. For example, say we are given a question where a parent is dealing with a grandparent who is undermining their parenting in some way. A good answer would probably answer with something about setting boundaries, being firm, having a conversation when everyone is calm, etc. etc. And the answer may very well indicate how to do that specifically for an Indian culture. And that's fine. But that advice overall (if not the culture specific details) will be useful across the world. I can apply that same advice of setting boundaries, etc. in the USA or the UK or Germany or ... but exactly how I go about that will be different. I don't feel like it really adds much. I also worry that it might discourage otherwise good answers from those not familiar with the given culture.

I also feel like a culture or location tag indicates a question that doesn't really belong here. If someone needs to know how to handle social services in the UK or a divorce case in Russia or any other legal matter, they need to contact a lawyer. Period. Much like we can't offer medical advice and direct people to their pediatricians, we can't do legal advice either. We aren't qualified. We don't know all the specifics and nuances of their situation. And the answer we give today could be completely wrong tomorrow. If the core of the question is a legal matter like that, it doesn't belong here. If it's more of a detail or tangential to the question, we just need to direct someone to a lawyer for that part.

Overall, I don't see the value in adding and maintaining them.

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  • I agree with this answer. I do feel we should take into consideration cultural differences, though, but that, to me, is expresses in respectful tone of answers, or asking for clarification, not requiring a label for every culture.
    – anongoodnurse Mod
    Jul 29, 2017 at 15:35

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