<p>With moderating it is hard to define strict rules. We are humans and dealing with humans, so there are always exceptions.</p>

<p>I don't feel it is that confusing. As a general rule, this tag should be added by the OP &amp; first of all you should comment on that. You should <em>not</em> just add <code>[self-study]</code> tag and leave the question as is. On the nother hand, if you are already making other edits, no harm will happen if you add the tag <em>while commenting that you did so and why</em>.</p>

<p>I myself have different solutions for different <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/self-study" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;self-study&#39;" rel="tag">self-study</a> questions:  </p>

<ol>
<li>In many cases I just close them with <em>self-study</em> close reason. I do this mostly for the low quality questions from users that are new to the SE network (reputation 1).</li>
<li>If a user made some effort and described the problem the greater detail, but it is still inconsistent with our self-study policy, I comment on this and ask for edits rather then closing it.</li>
<li>If everything is according to the policies, if needed I make small edits (including tag), including the tag and usually comment about my edits.</li>
</ol>
