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Relevant recent Meta: Appropriate response to questioning which version of D&D I'm asking about

The user for that meta is describing a difficulty they're facing on this site where use of the tag is netting wrongful comments and close votes to the effect of "please specify which system you're using" despite the fact that, by the intended use of the tag, it is meant to refer to a very specific version of Dungeons and Dragons, and is not an umbrella tag for all D&D.

However, given that we already use , , , , and , which makes the edition being used quite explicit, I would like to argue that leaving as-is is going to continue inviting these kinds of wrongful responses to users who create questions for that edition, because the tag's name seems ambiguous and "at-a-glance" does not indicate that it's intended for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' First Edition.

Disclaimer: I am definitely one of the people who got tripped up by this kind of mistake, and wrongfully left a comment + close vote on at least one such question. Yes, I am Boo Boo the Fool. Yes, I retracted my comment + close vote once I realized my error.

So as a result, I would like to propose that we do the following to try to end this issue:

  • Make the proper, official tag for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition questions
  • Make an umbrella term intended to describe AD&D editions 1 or 2.
  • Switch the descriptions in the tag wiki to reflect this new use
  • Switch the historical use of these tags in existing questions

Does the rest of the community agree with this change? If not, what are good reasons that we should prefer to keep the tags the way they currently are?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Related: Terminology - Does AD&D (adnd tag) specifically refer to AD&D 1st Edition? and Proposed tag synonyms for [dnd4.0] (this one established the dnd tags, despite the apparent 4e focus of the title) \$\endgroup\$
    – Someone_Evil Mod
    Commented Jul 23, 2019 at 22:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ Note: I added a clarifying parenthetical to the [adnd] tag wiki regardless of how this meta goes: "(For questions about AD&D 2nd edition, use the tag [adnd-2e] instead.)" \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast Mod
    Commented Jul 23, 2019 at 23:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for taking the initiative! +1. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Jul 24, 2019 at 12:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ I tagged this [status-completed], but technically I went with KRyan's suggestion rather than the one in this question. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast Mod
    Commented Aug 1, 2019 at 19:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast Excellent! \$\endgroup\$
    – Xirema
    Commented Aug 1, 2019 at 21:35

2 Answers 2

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Don’t make another umbrella tag—we don’t need another. handles that situation just fine, just like it does for questions across WotC-era D&D editions. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of clamoring for that distinction. Moreover, already exists as a synonym of , and breaking that synonym relationship will just cause more headaches.

Instead, all we need to do is switch to be the “main” tag, and leave as its synonym—which I agree is a good change.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Agreed, we don't really need an "umbrella tag" for AD&D when there are only 2 editions it could refer to and there's already a cross-edition [dungeons-and-dragons] tag. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast Mod
    Commented Jul 23, 2019 at 23:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ Agree. I'm also having trouble imagining the sort of question that would properly prompt an "umbrella" adnd tag. Maybe something about how the 1e/basic fork influenced 2e development, or business matters at maturing-->late TSR? Certainly nothing that dungeons-and-dragons+adnd-1e+adnd-2e doesn't capture. Perhaps it's a tag tax, but proposing adnd as an umbrella for 1e+2e just seems (to me) like a solution in search of a problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – nitsua60 Mod
    Commented Jul 24, 2019 at 0:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ Agreed. If I want to ask a question that covers both 1e and 2e, I'm likely to tag it with both, to be specific. Tagging it with adnd to cover both will still probably be confusing and not solve the "what edition are you talking about?" problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – munk
    Commented Jul 24, 2019 at 3:42
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    \$\begingroup\$ As an original proponent of leaving “1e” off the tag (with the reasoning that “nobody calls it that and we should follow community usage”), I agree with this now. The usage seems to have adjusted as more people play D&D without any familiarity with AD&D, and its fans have needed to confirm for clarity; and the practical need to avoid confusion on the site has become more significant than during that original conversation. +1. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Commented Jul 24, 2019 at 4:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ I've gone ahead and made this change. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast Mod
    Commented Aug 1, 2019 at 19:45
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Does the umbrella tag materially help any question? Sure, it has a tag description clarifying that it means 1e, if someone bothers to look, but how common is that?

It seems far more straightforward to convert to and obliterate , discarding the synonym. Questions that honestly concern both and (but not the all-encompassing ) can be tagged with both.

As a bonus, this also brings symmetry to our D&D tags.

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