So the Wiki page for crossing_ref has a warning that the page contains “questionable, contentious or controversial information” and this is leading you to conclude that crossing=zebra is the preferred tag?
That is understandable, but I don’t think it’s intended. It’s actually ironic, if crossing_ref was invented in 2007 specifically to avoid the issues with crossing=zebra.
Maybe the page for crossing=zebra needs a similar warning, or simply a note that crossing_ref=zebra is a more popular way of saying the same thing?