Shaken tag for Savage Worlds

Question

Shaken is a status effect for Savage Worlds that creates a lot of confusion. We have 5 questions so far that explicitly cover it in some form, and others that mention it in passing.

I created a shaken tag for it as the use of it in game gets a lot of people confused and I know it would be helpful to be able to search for all the questions covering clarifications as to how and when to use it. However, another user has gone through and removed the tag from all of the questions I added it to.

Based on the answer from @BESW and various comments in chat, I believe there is a strong case for the tag's creation and use. There is precedent with other status effects having tags, e.g. grapple, hit-points, and the fact that Shaken is used across a number of systems strengthens the argument for the tag. The fact that the tag use in SE is supposed to be emergent is another strong point.

I feel very strongly this tag is useful, and given that tag use is supposed to be organic and grow naturally, I don't understand why the other user acted in the way they did.

Answer 1

It seems fine to me.

1. There is utility in having it tagged instead of just letting the full-text search find it, as you've said in a comment:

   It is mentioned in passing in a lot of answers where the question doesn't explicitly cover the mechanic. Having it as a tag would allow you to filter these and find only those questions that explicitly cover an aspect of how to use it – Wibbs

   And tagging is about what's useful and what's inherently the topic of a question.

2. We have niche tags for other games, especially the 100 lb. gorilla that is D&D. Yesterday I saw aarakocra created, sighed in a knee-jerk way at its tiniest of niches, and left it to be because it's fine as a tag.

   Savage Worlds might have many fewer questions here than some games, but as a core mechanic that is often the direct subject of questions, a tag for the topic seems fitting even if it couldn't apply to other games. But it will certainly apply to more games than aarakocra ever will, and to more of our current questions at this moment too.

So I say let the folksonomy bloom. It is better to let the tagging folksonomy grow slightly wild and then occasionally trim it back — with a commensurately better view of what is used how — than to try to keep it bonsai-like and only growing in controlled ways.

Answer 2

I've edited your tag wiki to not be SW-specific. Shaken is used by other games including Pathfinder, Spycraft, and at least two editions of D&D.

Answer 3

Thought I'd chime in as the "other user" here. First of all, Wibbs, I didn't mean to whack at your effort. I'm sorry if it seemed like that.

Tags are a very useful tool in filtering the content that interests you from other stuff that doesn't. Here, in rpg.se, that distinction mostly occurs among game systems and settings, with exceptions being much more general topics like gm-advice rather than specific.

When a very specific mechanic of a single game happens to get its own tag, nobody follows it, it just sits there. People follow the game/system/setting tag, but see all these very-niche keyword tags so they take example and make more of them. At some point it gets confusing which tag stands for what.

Such tags also squat on a word. Many other games could use the same word for completely different concepts, and it may be impossible to list all of them in a tag wiki properly. Besides, if you list the tag's questions, you may end up with a set of completely unrelated questions, or not find what you are looking for, thinking that it doesn't exist. A good example is the powers tag that is dominated by the D&D concept of powers, but could well have been used by a number of superhero games out there with wildly different concepts of what "powers" are.

That's why I think such tags are unnecessary at best, and polluting if they happen to get out of hand.

I believe we would have a tidier and more usable tagspace if we clean up such tags. IMO, the best practice would be to mention the related game concept in the title of the question.

If a specific sub-part of a game gathers enough focused attention to warrant its own tag with some followers, then the better approach would be to namespace the tag to the specific game it refers to, so that the collection of questions it represents can show some consistency. So, dnd-powers instead of powers, and savage-worlds-shaken instead of shaken.

Having a more understandable and usable tagspace would make the site better for all of us, don't you think?