Tag wikis which just define the word(s) in the tag are bad

Question

I've been looking at the tag wikis again and I've come across a couple that just seem like dictionary definitions rather than describing how the tag should be used in this Stack Exchange site. Definition tags are one of the things the SE people say is bad and I agree:

Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is highly specialized. The “email” tag, for example, does not need to explain what email is. I think we can safely assume most internet users know what email is; there’s no value in a boilerplate explanation of email to anyone.

Here's a blog post with advice on how to write smart, effective tag wiki excerpts by Jeff Atwood.

And here's a couple of the definition tags I noticed so far:

• pets
  An animal kept for companionship and enjoyment, as opposed to wild animals or to livestock or laboratory animals.
• sex
  the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction.

OK that clears it up for any of us who were unsure what sex or pets were but does it tell us what kinds of questions we should ask about them or when to use these tags in our questions?

I'm starting to think we should build a nice community wiki question on meta about tag guidelines unless Stack Exchange has one already besides the blog post I already linked to above. What do my fellow contributors think?

Answer 1

As an example I just rewrote the pets tag to this:

Questions on taking pets on transportation, pet-friendly accommodation, pet-specific customs and immigration, etc.

I'm going to add any other "defining" tags to this answer from now on, with some suggestions on what's wrong and what might be better:

• tickets
  A ticket is a card or a slip of paper or something similar that can be used to gain the privilege to enter a location or event or to use a service.
  • Instead of telling us what a ticket is, which we all know already, tell us what kind of ticket questions have been or should be asked here.
    ^{It's also a bit long and uses the word "is", both of which cause it to be truncated in an ugly manner of the Tags page.}

Answer 2

Absolutely, tag wikis and excerpts should always relate to the topic of the site. hippietrail's rewrite of pets is a very good example. Definitions that come straight from a dictionary or Wikipedia don't help anyone; please don't propose them, and don't hesitate to reject them if you're reviewing the suggesting edits queue. Unfortunately, they have to be combatted on every site.