Do touch spells deserve a tag?

Question

So I noticed when I was writing an answer to this question that we have a lot of questions about “touch attacks,” which are used for certain magic abilities in D&D that require touching the target. I imagine other systems could easily have analogous options. It seems to be a confusing topic, and we have several questions about it.

At what point (and why) does it become useful to add a tag for something like this? Someone searching “touch attack” would probably get everything in the tag anyway, without a lot of false-positives, and obviously there hasn’t been emergent usage of such a tag. Still, I wanted, when writing my answer above, to be able to link to those questions – a tag would have been useful for that purpose. Instead I referenced the Related questions on the right.

So, does this topic deserve a tag of its own? Are there any guidelines for when something like this crosses the line from “something a fair few questions have been asked about” to a real “specific topic that deserves a tag of its own”?

Answer 1

I'd say this deserves a tag, yeah.

At what point (and why) does it become useful to add a tag for something like this?

It becomes useful to create a tag when someone says: ‘hey, it'd be useful to have a tag about this,’ and creates it. There's not many clear rules of thumb around them, since they're mostly done by feel, but this passes as being a good tag. It's a distinct and clear topic area, people can actually have expertise on it here, etc.

Are there any guidelines for when something like this crosses the line from “something a fair few questions have been asked about” to a real “specific topic that deserves a tag of its own”?

There aren't really, given the really loose basis on which tags get created. But you're dealing with a tag that would collect a bunch of questions on one clear topic together to make them more accessible, so it offers plenty of utility as a tag.

Answer 2

I'd argue against creating a tag for such a narrow topic.

Think of it this way. Tags help other users of the site keep up with questions they are interested in. You say things like "Hey, I'm an expert on tag-x so I'll add it to my favorites list and try to help people with it" or "I'd like to learn more about tag-y so I'll keep an eye on it." or even "I'm fed up with all this tag-z clutter, I'll add that to my ignore list"

When creating a tag, I ask myself the question: Would someone add it to their favorite or ignored tags list? If yes, then it may be a candidate for consideration. If no, then dropping it is probably the best idea.

So ask yourself the same question; would you like to follow or ignore all touch-attack questions?

I wouldnt…