Revise wording of elisp tag description

Question

The current content of the elisp tag definition is:

Do NOT use this just because your question (or potential answers) involves elisp snippets. Use this for questions about Emacs Lisp as a language (conventions, programming, practices, etc) or for practical questions which go very deep into Emacs Lisp.

Drew corrected my use of the elisp tag on a recent question of mine Methods for examining large/complicated lisp objects. (revision):

"Do not use tag elisp unless you've read its definition and understand it. Thx."

I whole-heartedly agree. Tags need to applied accurately to be useful. Particularly elisp since it is easy for users to apply superficially. Since I've read it many times and still misused it I think there's room for improving the clarity of the intended meaning.

Some cursory thoughts:

1. s/snippets/code/ (parlance suggests that the length of code is significant)
2. Eliminate the conjunction in the second sentence. It is unclear how the former is different from the latter.
3. To emphasize that it should be used exactingly there should be no ellipses or "et ceteras"

What are your thoughts? Examples of topics marginally included and excluded would probably be helpful for discussion.

Answer 1

I think the definition is okay. Sure sometimes someone will read it and use the tag even in cases for which it is not intended, but it is still much more likely that someone uses the tag wrong simply because s/he did not read the definition at all.

But I guess we should not say things like "Do not use tag elisp unless you've read its definition and understand it. Thx." It is possible to misunderstand it without realizing it, and a remark like this can come across as a bit patronizing. But I am sure Drew didn't mean it that way, he probably just was a bit frustrated because many people do not even read the definition.

We could improve the definition to make things clearer, but I don't think the suggested changes make much of a difference. We would have to make the definition longer to be on the safe side. Unfortunately that might have the inverse effect; some people would probably not read it in full if it were longer and the number of invalid uses would increase as a result.

I guess we could append "If you are unsure whether you should use this tag, then don't use it". And maybe also "Nearly everything question regarding Emacs has something to do with elisp in some way, because that's the language used to extend Emacs. That doesn't mean that every question on this site should have the elisp tag - that would make this tag rather useless".

Then again, that might make the description "too long" and additionally this "clarification" could come across as patronizing if one found the preceding sentences to be clear enough.