Incorrect tagged question without a real motivation locked

Question

I asked a question and while the answer is there and everything else is fine, it's incorrectly tagged.

The reason for the incorrect tag is that if one doesn't put effort in actually understanding the text or if (as I suspect) someone is influenced by others' claims, it's easy to make the mistake of missing the main point with the question. (Which is the reason of a very clear disclaimer at the top.)

A user who didn't understand the question re-tagged the question which means that at the moment it's incorrectly marked-up.

A moderator has now locked the question without any valid motivation. Or, to be extra clear, the motivation given lacks relevance, which I politely explained. After the explanation provided by me, there's no additional input, just a lock-down and the incorrect tag reintroduced.

The whole matter isn't that crucial, of course. However, it's still quite embarrassing to the site that a well-reputed user who claims in the comments that he fails to understand the question and still takes the liberty of correcting the OP who apparently does know the intended meaning of it.

It's even more worrying that a moderator votes according to who's got the highest reputation and not the contents of the post. To be extra clear, what I postulate is that having high reputation and/or being a moderator doesn't constitute guarantee of being right.

Should we do anything to prevent such misconduct and if so what?

NB If this is going to evolve into a discussion regarding if I was clear enough and/or what I meant to ask about, I'll just assume that I'm unable to get through (possibly due to linguistic limitation) and stop answering. It's not a sign of being impolite - I just prefer not to waste others' time. Or mine, for that matter.

Answer 1

A question lock happens for several reasons. This is a standard practice when a "rollback war" or "edit war" occurs. A tag dispute falls into this category. It gives everyone a chance to take the discussion to the community. It provides time to discuss the question on Meta and helps the OP compose a clearer question when the post is receiving a lot of attention. A lock is not intended to be punitive; it is meant to be helpful. In these kind of situations, OP can end up feeling hounded while trying to edit a post and having others try to 'help'. A lock makes this all stop until we can get our heads together and stop working at cross-purposes.

Looking at the edit history and the comments, I agree that a lock was prudent. I am disappointed that there was not a Meta question about the post as a follow-up, but you can certainly post one now, and I encourage you to do so. The lock expires soon. Ideally, you would post a Meta question asking for help clarifying your question so that the proper tags can be applied. As it stands now, I don't understand why you think singular-they doesn't apply; that means I must not understand what you are asking.

Although you have an answer that you say is acceptable, I still strongly encourage you to edit your question. You may get more answers, and a clearer question will be more helpful to future visitors. A post on Meta can get you some assistance from experienced editors.