I recently posted a question targeted at beginners and I stated so in the question. Shortly after it was asked, a high rep user answered the question. It was an honest mistake, they answered before reading the flavor text explaining it was for low rep users, and they removed their answer until a low rep user could answer. Still, it begs the question, is there a way I can tag a question as "beginner" or "low rep users" to avoid this in the future? If this tag doesn't exist, should it? Personally, I think having a way of quickly finding "intro-to-puzzling" questions would help engage new community members.
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A tag like beginner or low-rep-users is what would be considered a meta-tag. Meta-tags are generally frowned up on on Stack Exchange; tags are meant to describe the content of a question as opposed to information about the question.
I think what you did is sufficient, and if you clearly label the question as "beginners only", a tag shouldn't be necessary.
I suggest starting the question with something like this (you can use your own words, of course, or feel free to copy mine):
Low-reputation users only!
This puzzle is intentionally aimed at those who are new to this site and/or those who haven't had much opportunity to participate because experienced users tend to answer questions fairly quickly. If you are an experienced user, please refrain from answering this question.
answered Nov 15, 2017 at 16:13
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5$\begingroup$ Makes sense, a tag though would make it easy for new users to find a bunch of questions they might be able to answer. $\endgroup$– BarkerCommented Nov 15, 2017 at 17:06
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$\begingroup$ A tag like "easy" would arguably be describing the content rather than the context of the question and hence not be a meta-tag as such. I suspect it still wouldn't be very well received, though, not least because what counts as easy is very subjective. $\endgroup$– Gareth McCaughan ModCommented Nov 15, 2017 at 17:46
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1$\begingroup$ Possibly relevant: puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1437/…, puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4574/…, puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4714/…. $\endgroup$– Gareth McCaughan ModCommented Nov 15, 2017 at 17:47
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1$\begingroup$ What about something like "single layered" or "straight-forward", sort of an opposite of "enigmatic"? That would still be describing content, but it would also indicate that the puzzle isn't going to require a bunch of steps or layers of abstraction to solve it, meaning it will likely be better for new users. $\endgroup$– BarkerCommented Nov 15, 2017 at 19:44
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1$\begingroup$ I have a feeling a tag like this would lead to a lot of low quality puzzles $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 16, 2017 at 19:49
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$\begingroup$ @BeastlyGerbil "Easy" $\neq$ "low-quality". You can have an extremely well-thought-out and well-presented puzzle that is nonetheless easy to solve. Maybe such puzzles would appeal to certain demographics (e.g. children (or teachers of children)). $\endgroup$– GentlePurpleRain ModCommented Nov 16, 2017 at 20:18
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$\begingroup$ @GentlePurpleRain that is true, however I imagine that unless a user with a reasonable amount or rep already created the puzzle - which I doubt many will - the tag I believe will be used by new users as an excuse to post a low quality puzzle to gain quick rep. This might not happen of course but that’s how I imagine this would end up $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 16, 2017 at 21:32
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$\begingroup$ I can see a possibility of high-rep users creating a new account just to participate in this restricted puzzle... why discriminating in the first place? (Having multiple accounts without interacting each other is permitted on SE) $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 5, 2018 at 9:27