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Two posts I read today made me see what seems to me to be an inconsistency between the guidelines for the for the proof-explanation and solution-verification tags.

The post with the solution-verification tag is Prove that $[G;G]$ is a normal sub group of the group $G$. A comment points out that this post does not meet the guidelines for this tag, because the OP does not point out the specific steps in the proposed solution that he or she is unsure about. I felt that this was a bit harsh as the proposed solution is quite short and the danger signs are easy to spot, but I cannot disagree that the post is not consistent with the guidelines as they are stated.

The post with the proof-explanation tag is On each move, keep one pile of stones and divide it into $2$ or $3$ piles. Find winning strategy.. This is a fairly typical example of a post that quotes a proof and then just says words to the effect of "please rewrite the proof so that I can understand". The guidelines for the proof-explanation tag don't say anything about pointing out which parts of the proof the poster has problems with.

I think we should have a consistent position on posts that quote an argument and don't give us any help to focus in on the points in the argument that are of concern. (The proof-explanation example I've cited above also doesn't really contain enough information about what the poster has tried, but that's not my point.)

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    $\begingroup$ I basically want something better than "here's my proof, take a look" and "here's my proof, I'm shaky on my whole argument, please take a look"; both are broad. Ideally what happens in the first post is : "I'm shaky on the lines I've highlighted" (currently, just "I'm shaky on the second part" is too broad, that's my opinion) and the poster highlights some argument or highlights. I'm pretty sure that the second post can't really be improved from the author's response, which is answered by "that's the definition of perilous". The author probably wants to know how the solution was found. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 27, 2023 at 12:40
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    $\begingroup$ I think what we cannot be consistent on is how broad does a request need to be for it to be closed, which is why we have a voting system, but we can definitely try to argue that no pointers is unacceptable and asking for a complete proof verification is also probably unacceptable. Between that you're not getting much consistency except for some edge cases. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 27, 2023 at 12:43

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