Why do so many identify-this questions feature odd or archaic words for landscape features?

Question

Consider:

Where's this skiier on snow hills with tors behind? by Ghreu

Where's this cwm and mountains in Nunavik, northern QC? by Accounting

Where's this tarn in Mt Garibaldi? by Mark da Silva

Where are these wild flowers, in front of dell and evergreens, in Mt Rainier National Park, WA? by Pamela Lee

Where's this mere with board walk and cherry blossoms in Japan? by Matthew Lau, who also asks about a hummock, some hovels, and a beck in three other identify-this questions.

Tors? Cwm? Tarn? Dell? Who talks like this? Not the people in the places being asked about. This is just the first two pages of identify-this. Are these all the same people? Why would anyone make multiple sock puppets to ask about photogenic locations around the world? Is there some sort of ESL issue that leads people into using highly specific words (often associated only with one part of the world) for landscape features, but not for anything else?

I ask because I mostly want to edit these. The word tarn doesn't make sense outside northern Britain; we should say "small lake". We could similarly edit in more familiar synonyms for all of these. But first, I really wish I knew why this was happening. Anyone know?

Answer 1

My guess is that these keywords are "get into HNQ" cards.

I think that this is just a strategy to game the HNQ (Hot Network Questions)/reputation system. Using an obscure word will give your question much more exposure. Compare what happens when you see these two hypothetical questions on the front page:

• "Where's this small round hill in Idaho?" (Never been to Idaho, next question please.)
• "Where's this flubbub in Idaho?" (What the heck is a flubbub? Click!)

The latter gets you loads of views and interaction in no time, thus likely HNQ exposure, thus loads of rep in no time.

(Whether these are all the same person or several people using the same approach is a different question.)

IMHO the best course of action is to edit these words out and see what happens, especially whether the OP pushes back. If they don't, then it was probably just an odd translation or something.