I think it would be a good idea to force people to actually describe the tag that they are creating when they create it. This would lead to consistent usage of the tag, and make it more helpful to users.
As is, tag creation can be (and I suspect sometimes is) accidental. When a user types in a plural of something, it could easily be that they mixed up the tab and enter keys, and created a new tag by mistake.
This would prevent that hopefully.
Typing a tag wiki wouldn't do anything to ensure that users check thoroughly for duplicate tags.
This also goes against the philosophy that everything on SE is optional -- asking, answering, voting, commenting, flagging, editing, creating new tags -- and I think it would result in negative behavior. Users will either abandon a tag or just type nonsense to get the prompt out of their way so they can just ask their question.
I would have to agree with Matthew here, further restricting tag creation (by forcing them to create a tag wiki) would only really prevent people from asking their questions.
The creation of tags is already limited to users above 200 reputation so those users should already have at least a small idea of how the site works and there are also additional restrictions:
The new tag will now be available for all other community members to use, without needing the new tag privilege. It will also show up in the moderator tools new tag report.
However, note that:
- new tags will be automatically culled and removed from the system if they are not used by at least 1 other question in a 6 month period.
- meta tags, tags that cannot stand alone as the only tag on a question, are not allowed.
So as well as the moderators being informed that a new tag was created (so it can be quickly deleted if needs be) if it is left unused on any other questions it will be deleted as well.
I think the current level of restriction is a happy medium between preventing their creation and allowing responsible creation.
