I won't reveal more than that on the topic for now.
That said, I can put this on the staff team's next meeting agenda for discussion. I don't really have an opinion about whether this info should be readily available OOC and I feel it's fairly easy to access ICly through RP. Others might have different opinions.
If knowing which tags are better or worse are supposed to be something based on skills/abilities, then I think they should be baked in to the code. Maybe I only see them if my character makes certain rolls or something. But it seems to me they are OOC elements meant to tell players how impressed their characters should consider various clothing. If so, then I would much prefer it if this was just laid out in a help file or similar.
Also it's tangential but several clothing descriptors are not points on a scale, they're just qualifiers for particular objects that are not necessarily better or worse.
It might not be an adequate comparison, but the best analogy I can think of is language and culture. Were I an irl tailor moving to a country in the EAC with no knowledge of French or Swahili (two official languages of that bloc) then I would have to learn if I wanted to communicate fashion speak in those circles. What word is "bespoke" in Swahili? How does it compare to other words that Swahili has for judging fashion? Where does it land on the gradient of good or bad with relation to other adjectives?
Like I said, not sure it's the best analogy but maybe it can help some to think of it that way. In other trades, it's widely understood that Withmore has different tech and language unique to its various industries.
In short, pretending like you're learning the unique vernacular specific to Withmore's tailoring industry could be a way to bridge IC hangups with OOC expectations.
I'm not saying it's THE answer (though to me, it certainly sounds like a fun way to generate RP and find a mentor), but it could be AN answer. If anyone out there absolutely needs one.
And ultimately my use caseis much simpler than that - gauge dress pecking order without trying to decipher material (and it's value) out of glancing over someone's description. For that doing a deep dive like this is… A bit much and I'll simply go back to not doing it.
First, things added descriptors to the shortdesc of a character (like well-dressed) are a good gauge of generally how stylish they are but is not always required as there are some conditions where someone can be dressed amazingly stylish but such descriptors don't show… but when it does, it's a good clue.
Second, if you look up the actual definitions of the words that are used to describe one's fashion in the descriptions when you look at them, you can get a pretty nice idea of what their style is like. As stated by another commentor it's not just a ranking system like skill levels but sometimes it's more of a descriptor of the type of fashion in addition to a clue as to how nice or stylish their dress is. Unless you are a regular dealer in or collector of fine fashion, or a tailor, you are not likely to ICly have a detailed guide to what is what in fashion as the unskilled often have trouble telling the difference between truly fine fashion and cheap knock-offs so not being able to tell is not unrealistic.
