Confusion in creating a tag

Question

I recently attempted to create a new tag and a corresponding description for it. Not every step was clear to me and, whilst I think I simply did it wrong, I'd like to check the process before I iritate people. I'm worried about the actual outcome this time, but I would like to know what to do another time.

The steps were:

1. Typed the new tag name into the tag field of a question, this one. The new tag was "Science-fiction" and I applied it as an edit to a question raised by someone else.
2. After completing the edit an automatic dialogue invited me to create a description. I typed "Questions originating from a stated interest in some concept of science fiction and seeking its relation to real world space exploration or technology". I think that there are lots of questions like this already and it suggests to me that many people might be encouraged to take an interest in real space exploration because of curiosity beginning with sc-fi. Sometimes the posters are given short shrift, sometimes they get a respectful answer. The idea of a tag is intended to offer more credibility to such questions.
3. At this point I may have done something wrong, there appear to be two text boxes to type in at this point, I chose the first because I was using a small screen and didn't see the lower one until I had completed the description.
4. Nevertheless I pressed the orange "submit/save/post" button and got a dialogue box saying "your tag description will now be reviewed", or something like that.
5. In the mean time the question that I had edited was anonymously edited again and the tag was removed. I understand that at this point the tag description had not yet been approved so the editor couldn't have seen it.
6. In due course I received a reputation +2 saying "Tag Wiki suggested edit was approved" though following the message leads to a "Page not found".
7. Similarly, looking in the tag cloud under "Science" lists three other tags but not Science Fiction.

Questions:

• What should I have done?
• Is a Tag Wiki the same thing as the description that appears under each tag in the cloud listing?
• Does a tag disappear if its only use-instance on a question is deleted?
• How does one prevent people acting on a tag before its description has been approved?

Answer 1

It looks like this was a rare case where the tag did indeed disappear because there is no question with the tag. I wouldn't worry about stuff happening with a tag before you are done in general - there isn't normally an awful lot of action with them. You had done the right things, and normally everything would have worked fine.

If you think a science fiction tag is useful, you could look through the other questions that you have seen in the past that strike you as deserving of the tag, and create the tag on one of them. That would get it back into the system.

Worldbuilding is a place for people who are working on a science fiction piece and want to know how to make some aspect of it realistic or scientific. It seems to me that people who want their fiction to follow reality especially closely ask here instead of there, which seems fair enough to me. This tag shouldn't interfere with directing people to the best place for their questions. There seems some potential for instances where the tag's existence might confuse that issue a bit. But that should be easy to catch and not at all common.

The question that made this come up is an interesting case, still. Although the asker had made reference to use of the concept in Star Trek, they didn't feel the question had to do with that. It was inspiration for the question, but immaterial to it. I'd say they were right that it didn't apply in this case. Questions that come from whether something in a movie is realistic would be candidates for a science fiction tag. The issue is whether the tag makes it easier for someone looking for that information to find it in the future, I'd say that is the standard to consider primarily.