My take on this is that the tag should only be used for requesting a specific reference. For example, questions of the following ilk:
- I read a hadith once about where the prophet gave farming advice and was wrong. Can anyone provide the hadith?
- Did such-and-such scholar ever give a ruling on this particular situation?
The answers for these questions would essentially be little more than quoting the reference in question, probably with a bit of context, but not a whole lot of anything else. These questions are objective and answerable, with very little room for interpretation. Such questions and answers are distinct enough that having their own tag makes a lot of sense.
Compare the above questions to these following symmetrical examples, which I use to illustrate when one should not use the tag:
- Did the prophet ever make mistakes?
- Is this particular situation permissible?
Even if the answers to these questions would quote the same hadith/ruling as from the first two examples, there would (read: should) be significantly more to the body of the answer itself. Perhaps other references would be quoted, or scholarly interpretations of what each particular reference means, or even logical deductions by the poster themselves.
Even though references would be supplied for both sets of questions, the nature of the questions and subsequent answers are very different.
