How to handle sub-tags that lack appropriate parent tags?

Question

So, a new user just posted a question that had the warlock tag, without any other tags. The warlock tag is defined as such, on its page:

This tag is for questions pertaining to the D&D warlock class, in editions where it exists.

I attempted to add the appropriate parent tag to the question (namely, either dungeons-and-dragons or dnd-5e, since the text of the question refers to class features that are only present in the DnD 5e version of the class), but it keeps getting reverted by other users. I can't delete the tag, either, because it's the only tag that the question has, and a question with no tags isn't allowed by the system.

The question obviously can't be left in its current state, but my attempts at fixing it are getting instantly reverted by other users, quoting other meta discussions about guessing systems for questions that don't have a system tagged - but this one does have a system tagged, just indirectly. How are we supposed to handle this, so that the question is properly tagged?

Answer 1

We wait until OP confirms the system

We don't know whether or not OP knows that the tag they did add included information about a system and there are multiple other Metas about not guessing or assuming system until OP confirms specifically.

What to do when an edit guesses the system being used rather than waiting for the querent to clarify?

What qualifies as guessing on a system?

Revisiting our "never guess the game system" policy

Explicit statement of system by OP is required

Our policy here is to wait for OP to confirm system explicitly and not make assumptions based on tagging or language in the question. Please do not add system tags without OP stating which system it is that they are asking about.

Non-system tags shouldn't have system info in them

Tags are also flat. There are no parent/children. System tags are a bit different because they provide some very specific direction.

One way around this (great idea BESW!) is to remove system info from these other tags. Many systems may utilize similar terms and those tags shouldn't be specific to a system. This will also remove the confusion of 'thinking' someone has stated a system when they may not have.

Answer 2

There are no subtags. Any tag wiki that says or suggests a tag is, is wrong and should be edited to eliminate that suggestion. If that is not possible, it is a strong indication that there is probably something wrong somewhere. One of the primary tests for a tag’s quality is that it something that can be used as the sole tag on a question. See The Death of Meta Tags, where dependence is literally the first listed signifier of a problematic code tag.

In this case, it was warlock that was wrong; it never should have claimed that it was specific to “the” D&D class (more on the scare quotes here in a bit). There are a number of class tags with this problem, some of which have been cleaned up as they got noticed/as they were desired for use in another system.

On our site, because of the way system tags work, a number of tags probably can’t stand alone without a system tag—because you can’t ask about warlocks without knowing what a “warlock” is and that’s going to be system-dependent. This is a problem, but as far as I can tell, an unavoidable one. But while tags relating to such details are necessarily going to have to be paired with some system tag, it should never be precisely one system tag that it gets paired with—that is, it should not be a “subtag” of any one system.

Therefore, use of an alleged “subtag” is not an excuse for guessing a system tag—since there are no subtags to begin with. There are no excuses for guessing a system tag. You simply should never, ever do it.

Also, since it came up in the discussion, please read the tag wiki for dungeons-and-dragons. The question that was asked was not answerable as a dungeons-and-dragonswarlock question. Honestly, considering the changes in the descriptions of what is referred to by the term “warlock” across the editions of D&D, it’s hard to imagine that combination of tags ever being viable for a question, aside from a question literally asking for a history of that term’s usage in D&D and how the warlocks from each edition differ from one another. Hence my use of scare quotes earlier when referring to “‘the’ D&D class,” since there is no such thing as the one and only D&D warlock class.