Do we want a [plot-explanation] tag?

Question

We already have meaning and symbolism tags, for questions about the meaning or symbolic significance of specific passages or objects in works of literature. After seeing the recent question What happens at the end of The Scar by China Mieville?, I've been wondering whether we need a tag such as plot-explanation to complement these, specifically for questions about the plot of a story, rather than e.g. the meaning of a passage or the symbolism of an object.

If we do want this tag, it will probably have to be added to quite a lot of existing questions - I haven't checked, but I'd guess perhaps a few dozen. Hence why I'm posting to meta rather than just going ahead and creating the tag - it would be a big enough addition to the system to not come under the "this minor tag is too small an issue to worry about at present" Standard Meta Answer.

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Context: at least two of Literature's closest sister sites have experimented with a plot-explanation tag.

• On Movies & TV, despite the occasional burnination request, it's currently the top tag on the site, with over a quarter of all questions.
• On Science Fiction & Fantasy, it was a frequently-used tag, despite the occasional burnination request, until the Great Tag Cleanup of 2016, when it was proposed for removal and ultimately burninated by staff.

SFF's argument for nuking it was essentially that it was being used inconsistently, and the community opted to remove it from the 500-odd questions with the tag rather than adding it to the however-many plot explanation questions without the tag. Note that Lit is a young enough site not to have this problem: adding the tag to as many questions as need it is a feasible endeavour, if we decide that this tag is worthwhile, so I can't see it going the same way as SFF's tag further down the road.

Answer 1

Here are the reasons why I think that tags such as meaning, symbolism, and the proposed plot-explanation aren't really worth having around.

1. Tags are supposed to help people find questions that they can answer. These tags don't do that. There isn't such a thing as being an expert in meaning, or being knowledgeable about plot-explanations. Answering a plot-explanation question can involve anything from close reading to critical theory to explaining a basic grammatical question. Contrast that to a tag such as the-canterbury-tales, where questions with that tag, more likely than not, will require knowledge of The Canterbury Tales to answer.

2. These tags are broad, unintuitive, and unspecific. For example, meaning can mean anything from "What does word x in this story mean?" to "what is the meaning of character y's obsession with idea z?" Symbolism: does that only refer to questions about objects in stories (e.g. what does the white dress symbolize)? Or does symbolism refer to, to quote from a meta post on the subject, "Any time there is something that represents more than its literal meaning"? In that case, can I use the symbolism tag for plot-explanation questions, e.g. what does the ending symbolize? And plot explanation: plot can refer to stages of a story, e.g. ending or beginning, it can refer to specific actions characters take, it can refer to the order of events in a story... you get the idea.

3. In practice, these tags are used inconsistently, which probably is due to them being broad and unspecific. To use some my questions as an example (simply because they're easy for me to find), I've asked many questions that could be tagged with symbolism and meaning. But while people have retagged my questions on many occasions, no one has bothered to add the meaning or symbolism tags, perhaps because people don't have a clear definition to use when deciding whether the tags are appropriate.

   For example, the question What is a "Cristopher"? could very easily be a symbolism question--it's about an object--but no one retagged the question, despite the question getting a relative amount of attention. Mathematics or gibberish? Understanding a description of an alien message in His Master's Voice, Why is the future "a safe, sterile laboratory"?, and How much French does Madame Eglentyne know? are all questions about the meaning of a specific passage that received a fair bit of attention, but again, no one felt confident enough to retag the questions. I could go on and compile a whole list; these are just a few of the questions on my profile.

   As a matter of fact, looking through the symbolism tag, I see a lot of questions that could also be tagged with the meaning tag. Just on the first page of the tag, I already found Does the poem 'In Just' (e. e. cummings) allude to innocents being led astray by the devil?, which could also use the meaning tag. And from the meaning tag: In the song "Ja is Playing Jazz" (Джа играет джаз), who is Ja? could very easily be reworded to "what does ja symbolize". It's a mess!

Let's not add a plot-explanation tag. Let's remove meaning and symbolism instead.