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I recently suggested the following tag wiki excerpt for the diablo-3-crusader tag:

Crusaders are the sword and board class for Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls. These champions of the faith are expert in the use of shields. Tag meant for questions specific to the Diablo 3 Crusader class.

I get the standard rejection notice: "This edit does not follow any of our tag wiki guidelines and is unlikely to help instruct future visitors in the appropriate use of the tag."

So I follow the link and get the guidelines:

  1. Keep it short! Yep, under 500 characters.

  2. "Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is highly specialized." No, not generic and yes, highly specialized (only for the Diablo 3 Crusaders). It gives the parent game (and notes that it is from the expansion). It explains what differentiates Crusaders from the other classes (they are the "sword and board" class and thus expert in the use of shields). It is quite specific to this game.

  3. "Concentrate on what a tag means to your community." It only provides enough detail to identify the Diablo 3 Crusader's place in the world.

  4. "Provide basic guidance on when to use the tag." It explicitly spells this out -- the tag is only for questions specifically about the Diablo 3 Crusader class.

  5. "Some tags are common knowledge." But this one isn't. Unless you are interested in Diablo 3, you likely have no idea what a diablo-3-crusader might be.

It's a tag wiki excerpt for one of the classes in a serious, top line game that already has more than enough questions to maintain the tag. It should exist. As discussed elsewhere, it is better for a weak excerpt to exist than no excerpt at all.

And yes, I'm still aware of this post. I don't see how it applies though. My excerpt looks much more like the examples of the good excerpts than of the bad ones. There's no opinion in it.

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  • Out of curiosity, did you check the other class specific tags, to use as an example? For the Monk, the excerpt looks very different than what you're proposing.
    – Frank
    Jul 1, 2014 at 23:06
  • Also related: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/7837/… (though it only applies to game tags)
    – 3ventic
    Jul 1, 2014 at 23:07
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    @Frank I looked at the Witch Doctor actually (which is wrong -- direct quote from Blizzard sources). Looking at the Monk, I would argue that it too is wrong. I can easily find those exact words on the internet, but they are not attributed (perhaps they come from the Diablo Wiki source?). The biggest problem though is that those excerpts try to explain the class. As per #2 and #3, tag wiki excerpts shouldn't be giving information about the subject; they should be identifying the subject so people can tag questions with it.
    – Brythan
    Jul 1, 2014 at 23:37
  • Stray thoughts/opinions: That link is pretty darn generic to the whole network. Point 1 is longer than what you copied, and does suggest some info on the tag beyond usage. Many people who don't play Diablo could definitely use the sort of information in the Monk excerpt. Regarding the actual suggestion, 'sword and board' is too gamer-jargon-y, and may not be widespread enough to be used without explanation. The sentence at the end really doesn't provide much usage information, should be more explicit about when not to use the tag.
    – Billy Mailman
    Jul 2, 2014 at 1:08
  • Also, somewhat hypocritically, the "champions of the faith" line from the suggestion sounds (to me anyway) like the exact sort of "giving information about the subject" you seem to think shouldn't be there. Certainly, it won't help anyone identify the subject.
    – Billy Mailman
    Jul 2, 2014 at 1:08
  • I'm not saying that there should be zero information on the subject in the excerpt. But does anyone look for the class wearing saffron robes when choosing a tag? Sword and board is about 50% more common than saffron, even though it means fewer things (saffron is a color in that context but is primarily a spice). The first sentence in the monk description is mostly all right, but it's fading by "rather". The second sentence starts weak and gets weaker. And while a perfect tag might better explain when not to use it -- none of the others do. It's not like the blank space gives that info.
    – Brythan
    Jul 2, 2014 at 6:24
  • And the link may be generic to the network, but it is also the feedback given. If you think a more specific link should be the feedback, then you should ask for the feature request. It wouldn't be that hard to allow each site to override the default link (to where though, since the standards are missing). Finally, if you can write a better excerpt, then why not do it? The whole point of suggested edits is to educate people. A generic message to the network-wide standards isn't much of a an education. An improved excerpt at least has the virtue of being a good example.
    – Brythan
    Jul 2, 2014 at 6:33
  • @Brythan There's already a request for more specific info. See it here. As for saffron vs. Sword and board, I tried to get a graph of their relative usage, and even with casing changes, it's too obscure even for Google's n-gram viewer. And I might write something myself, except I don't play D3.
    – Billy Mailman
    Jul 2, 2014 at 14:19

3 Answers 3

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As the other reviewer who rejected, my reasoning was exactly the same as TZHX's, however allow me to expand a little bit further.

  • The first sentence of an excerpt is the most important sentence, as it is the one people will be more likely to read (if they read them at all). Above all else, the first sentence should instruct users on the proper use of their tag.
  • Tag excerpts should be clear in their wording. Avoid slang, in-jokes and nicknames.

Following on from this - lets take a closer look at your proposed tag wiki:

Crusaders are the sword and board class for Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls. These champions of the faith are expert in the use of shields. Tag meant for questions specific to the Diablo 3 Crusader class.

  • 'sword and board' (slang/nickname)
  • 'Champions of the faith' (nickname, possible in-game joke or reference?)
  • Point instructing people when to use tag is the third sentence in, (too low priority).
  • Third sentence too informal (it's missing a couple of words "This tag is meant..."

Any one of these by themselves I might have let slide, but adding them up make it a pretty poor quality tag. I also disagree with the notion that "poor quality is better than none at all", because approving these poor quality edits tends to promote the wrong behaviour in our tag editors, and send the message that "Yes, this quality is ok".

You mention in the comments of TZHX's answer that we should compare it to the other Diablo 3 class tags. I don't find this a good measure of a tag's quality, and after viewing all of them I can safely say I would've rejected them all had they come up in the review queue, because all of them go into too much detail about how the class operates, and none of them instruct people on the proper use of the tag.

For example:

  • Witch doctors are spiritual warriors who summon dead souls and crawling creatures to do their bidding. By surrounding themselves with conjured zombies and vermin, witch doctors are free to assault their enemies with exploding skulls, acrid poison clouds, and wasting curses.

It explains what the class does, but not much else. However, it goes into too much detail - The first sentence would've been enough.

  • The Monk is a melee fighter, with an emphasis on speed, combos, aura bonuses, and tactics, rather than the brute force of the Barbarian. Many of the Monk's skills have an Eastern martial arts influence, while his appearance is a mixture of European medieval monks with saffron robes and fashions drawing from the Eastern, Shao Lin style influence.

Why does it dive into what real-life things the monk's character is influenced by?

If I were to rewrite these tags:

  • Witch Doctor: This tag should be used for questions specific to the Witch Doctor class - a spiritual summoner in Diablo 3, Blizzard's action role-playing game. Witch Doctors summon dead souls and crawling creatures to protect them whilst assaulting enemies with a variety of spells and curses.

  • Monk: This tag should be used for questions specific to the Monk class - a speed based melee fighter in Diablo 3, Blizzard's action role-playing game. The Monk focuses on speed, combos, aura bonuses, and tactics, rather than brute force.

And the Crusader class:

  • Crusader: This tag should be used for questions specific to the Crusader class - a sword and shield fighter in Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, the first expansion pack for Diablo 3 by Blizzard Entertainment. Crusaders focus on defensive play with an emphasis on the use of specialised 'Crusader shields' and holy magic.
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  • As shown in the comments to this question, I'm not arguing that the existing class tags are great. My point was that by THZX's criteria, mine was at least as good if not better than theirs. Note that both of the examples you list are plagiarized, one is copied from Blizzard's Game Guide and the other from DiabloWiki.net. In the source material, the lines made more sense.
    – Brythan
    Jul 4, 2014 at 9:18
  • I used "sword and board" rather than "sword and shield" for two reasons: first, it's the term for the play style; second, "sword and shield" is wrong. Crusaders can use a sword but they actually specialize in flails. Champions of the faith is the Blizzard term and also indicates that these are a religious based class, which is part of their base identity. I think it's wrong to open with how the tag should be used. That's implicit in the tag wiki. In my excerpt, it would be easy to add how it should not be used. In yours, the contrast is lower.
    – Brythan
    Jul 4, 2014 at 9:25
  • Users are exposed to the tag excerpt when selecting the tag, not the full tag wiki, thus having how & when to use the tag in the excerpt is paramount. As I've stated earlier the first sentence is the most important, thus having the how & when in the first sentence makes sense. Everything else is nice-to have, but gets cut off when previewing the tag at ~200 characters. Sword and board is slang, straight up. Not everyone that views the tag will know the slang. We also don't need to implicitly state 'do nots' unless the tag is being chronically misused.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Jul 4, 2014 at 10:51
  • And I also stated that if I had reviewed the other tags, I would've rejected them just as quickly, so I don't get why you're pushing the point that yours was 'as good or better'.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Jul 4, 2014 at 10:54
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    +1 for getting my name right. <3
    – TZHX
    Jul 4, 2014 at 11:45
  • I'm not pushing that point. You keep asking why I said it in ways that show that you are missing what I'm saying, and I keep answering you. If I did want to push the point, I'd note your concern that a bad tag encourages people to make other bad tags. My tag was actually the best of the six by TZHX's criteria. It would have encouraged people to make better tags in comparison. As it is, people are most likely to think that the best way to make a class tag is to copy and paste text from other web sites, as 3 of the 5 tags do so.
    – Brythan
    Jul 5, 2014 at 2:56
  • I havent asked why you said it certain ways. I wondered why you were driving home the point that "by THZX's criteria, mine was at least as good if not better than theirs." - You're absolutely right, the other ones are crap. Yours is slightly better, so you're again right that logically, your tag would've encouraged 'better' tags than what we have currently. But your tag was still bad. I gave my reasons why I rejected it, and it had nothing ti do with the other tags. Continuing to compare against other tags that got approved by other reviewers that weren't me or TZHX is a moot point.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Jul 5, 2014 at 5:16
  • If you wanted, you could take some of the suggestions we provided and apply them to the crusader AND the other bad tags as well, and make them all good tags.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Jul 5, 2014 at 5:16
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As I was one of the reviewers, I'll give my opinion here.

Crusaders are the sword and board class for Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls.

"Sword and board" doesn't explain well what they are.

These champions of the faith are expert in the use of shields.

"Champions of faith" -- what? That provides no real information.

Tag meant for questions specific to the Diablo 3 Crusader class.

Ok.

Better for a weak excerpt than none at all? I'm not sure I agree there. I certainly don't take it as the consensus from the thread you linked to. I don't think anyone is going to be confused by the tag and absolutely need a wiki excerpt to stop them applying it incorrectly.

But, of course, this is just my opinion, and it matters no more than any other.

If I were to care, I'd suggest more along the line of the following:

Introduced in 2013 'Reaper of Souls' expansion, the Crusader is an available player class in 2012s Diablo 3 from Blizzard Entertainment.

TL;DR -- it was too flowery for me.

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  • 1
    You might compare it to the other five class specific tags for Diablo 3. It's actually the closest to what you propose and the least flowery (perhaps excepting the Demon Hunter). Also, the Crusader is not an available player class in 2012's Diablo 3; it's only available in the expansion. Note that other things introduced in the expansion are available in the original game (e.g. dynamic difficulty).
    – Brythan
    Jul 4, 2014 at 1:53
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    if I were to care suggests I don't.
    – TZHX
    Jul 4, 2014 at 7:16
  • Also, I didn't review those other edits (that I recall). They weren't relevant to my decision-making.
    – TZHX
    Jul 4, 2014 at 10:17
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So we now have three proposals for how to write tag wiki excerpts for class and race subtags (as opposed to the more common game tag whose standard is here). I propose that people try to standardize on one, so that the rules are consistent. More entries are welcome if anyone wants to propose one.

Mine:

[Class] are [play style] for [Game]. [Extra info not found in first sentence]. Tag is meant for questions about [Game] [Class]. Tag is not meant for questions about [other possibilities].

The "Tag is not meant" sentence should be left out if no other possibilities are known to be a problem yet. That's where it should go though once needed (e.g. if Skyrim adds a class that Diablo-3 already had).

The other two should probably be in their answers but currently aren't.

Robotnik's:

This tag should be used for questions specific to the [Class] class - a [play style] in [Game or Expansion of Game], [Publisher]'s [Genre]. [Extra info not found in first sentence, perhaps expounding on the play style].

If an expansion, it should show in a format like "[Expansion], the [first, second, etc.] expansion pack for [Game]". Play style needs to use normal English words, not gamer-specific names.

TZHX's:

Introduced in [Release Year] [Game or Expansion], the [Class] is an available player class in [Release Year]'s [Game] from [Publisher].

No extra flavor info should be included.

No one is currently advocating the existing format (at least not in an answer), which is more free form. I find it frustrating that at least one comment argues that my excerpt should have been more like the existing ones while both of the answers view that format as unacceptable. That suggests that whether an excerpt is approved depends heavily on the subjective opinions of those who happen to see it rather than on objective site standards that people can learn.

Please upvote this answer to pick my proposal or upvote one of the other answers if you prefer that person's.

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