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Not only does bring in people who's so far out-of-the-box that they don't even know where it is, and answers that generally don't make sense. But it's just plain useless. Take a look at the description for ;

Puzzles that generally involve thinking in unconventional ways, or overcoming some form of assumed restriction that is not actually present in the problem.

Now look at ;

A puzzle that involves thinking in unconventional ways, or disregarding what seems obvious. A puzzle tagged with this should only have one demonstrably correct answer.

Incredibly similar right? The main distinct difference is in brainteaser;

A puzzle tagged with this should only have one demonstrably correct answer.

But shouldn't that be present in any question? That's why I set up a synonym for to become . You can see this synonym here; https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/tags/lateral-thinking/synonyms

--Edited Below This Point--

At the time of this edit there's a whopping 50 questions with the tag . Many of which the tag was abused. Just take a look at;

https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/4304/how-to-get-to-an-island-with-a-tree-in-the-middle-if-all-you-have-is-rope

The 2nd answer should be enough to convince you. You may than scroll down and have the slowly take over your mind and eat away at your creativity to put up more random answers.

Being that is being abused oh so often and has become a habit, I think we should change to and not the other way around.

I'm open (and actually hoping) to get different views on this, if you have any points to bring up, feel free to place them in an answer.

Lateral Thinking actually has 57 now, whereas Brainteaser has 211! More reason for -> obviously we synonym the smaller one into the bigger one, right? (New edit)

Note; lateral-abuse is NOT a real tag!

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  • 2
    $\begingroup$ possible duplicate of Descriptions of the "brainteaser" and "lateral-thinking" tags $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 30, 2014 at 16:09
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Gilles My suggestion is to make them a synonym. That's asking about brainteaser being used loosely. $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Nov 30, 2014 at 16:12
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I'm totally with you on this. You raise great points. I must admit to having rapidly grown weary of the ubiquity of the phrase "lateral thinking," on this site. But I also can't deny its utility in having a distinctive meaning, as opposed to the ambiguity of the word "brainteaser." brainteaser should probably be burninated. (Hmmm, Chrome spell-check just suggested "urinated" there. Amazing but true. Should probably contact Google to add "burninate" to their dictionary...) $\endgroup$
    – tjbtech
    Commented Nov 30, 2014 at 23:58
  • $\begingroup$ I am not either for nor against any of the two. But I think that brainteaser tag is either being severely misused or that the tag's description does not match what it really is. $\endgroup$
    – Victor Stafusa
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 1:17
  • $\begingroup$ @tjbtech I suggested it for lateral-thinking be ause of how people are using it as an way use loopholes and make the answer valid. (As for the spell check. Wow. Just wow.) $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 2:15
  • $\begingroup$ @Victor That's also a good point to bring up, perhaps you should create an answer that elaborates more on how you feel, and make sure to bring that up in it. $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 2:17
  • $\begingroup$ Question edited. $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 2:33
  • $\begingroup$ @warspyking I will try to elaborate more on it later. But by now, I do not have much more to say besides that. $\endgroup$
    – Victor Stafusa
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 2:57
  • $\begingroup$ OK, keep brainteaser, then. Either way, one has to go. I have ambivalent feelings on questions like the one to which you link with the rope and islanded tree (new word alert!). On one hand, it's annoying when a question doesn't have a definitive (read "single") answer. But I particularly enjoyed all of the interesting ideas suggested on that question, hypothetical though they may be. $\endgroup$
    – tjbtech
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 3:02
  • $\begingroup$ I admit that I've been confused by brainteaser vs. lateral-thinking myself. I think the tag I was searching for was one to indicate "It is not an obvious solution, be creative". (In the sense of: It may LOOK like a XY-type puzzle, but do think of ALTERNATIVE ways of looking at it.) Another often-required usage is in the meaning of "be open!" without having a tag which is too much of a spoiler. I think instead of killing either or, we should work on the according wiki to give them a real distinction! (and potentially edit their usage so far.) $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 17:58

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