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Although my current reputation bestows many other privileges, to be allowed to suggest a tag synonym requires that I first use the one I am suggesting should be obsolete, and gain 5 votes while using it, before I can even suggest it should be a synonym.

Why is suggesting synonyms a privilege that does not kick in for all tags at a reputation of around 1000?

In the meantime, while awaiting what I think would be a more workable system from proposing and voting on tag synonyms:

If you wish to suggest/discuss a tag synonym, please post a new question (rather than an answer to this one).

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    I don't know the basis for selecting this particular threshold: that's a question you would need to ask on meta. I have taken care of your suggestion, which is uncontroversial: thanks for catching this. (I review new tags roughly once a month, specifically for typos and minor variants like this, but don't catch everything.)
    – whuber
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 22:05
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    Good advice @whuber - I just found and voted for this over at Stack Overflow Meta
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 22:21
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    For those with sufficient reputation/privileges, for your convenience the tag synonym creation page is at gis.stackexchange.com/admin/create-tag-synonym.
    – whuber
    Commented Apr 24, 2013 at 14:38
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    Just FYI even with >20k rep that tag synonym creation page is unavailable to me. I think it's for mods only.
    – blah238
    Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 23:04
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    Here is another place that a vote can be cast to try and get at least you and a few other trusted users that privilege: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/79151/… It may also help to make that Question a Favorite. I'm adding an FYI to @whuber who provided that link which is 404 Page Not Found for us.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 23:23
  • Sorry about that @PolyGeo. I had no way of testing the availability of that page and am sorry that it is not offered to higher-rep community members.
    – whuber
    Commented Apr 1, 2014 at 14:07
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    I put this on hold (from where I expect it will go to Closed) because it is still occasionally attracting new answers unrelated to the question posed i.e. is causing some confusion. meta.gis.stackexchange.com/questions/3761/…
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 0:00
  • I have started a new Q&A to discuss how we want to handle this going forward, would like to see what you all think: Guidelines for proposing tag synonyms
    – blah238
    Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 6:00

12 Answers 12

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I suggest that & be made synonyms of each other.

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    +1 with file-geodatabase as master
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 14, 2013 at 13:31
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    (+1) I performed this action in January.
    – whuber
    Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 15:25
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Over time I have become less and less comfortable with using this Q&A as the place to add suggestions for new tag synonyms because the more there are here, the more likely they are to get buried, rather than assessed and implemented (where appropriate)

Consequently, I would like to encourage anyone reading this answer, to vote for a change in how tag synonyms are suggested over at Meta SE in:

Both are a higher threshold than the one I originally suggested but ones that I could live with.

In the meantime I would prefer to see new tag synonym suggestions made into separate Meta Q&As rather than just added as answers here.

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    In stats.se we had a similar discussion on this involving two issues: i) if synonyms suggestions should be posted on separated threads or a post like this one, ii) if answers with synonyms implemented should be deleted.
    – Andre Silva
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 2:10
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    Initially, I was reluctant about deleting answers, but after they got deleted anyway I felt it was a good decision. It was easier to follow unsolved suggestions (this is the post). I ended up deleting an answer here which suggestions had been implemented (got the disciplined badge).Perhaps, we could encourage deletion of solved issues to clean this post.
    – Andre Silva
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 2:14
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    @AndreSilva Deleting implemented answers certainly sounds like a good approach on this Q&A. I'll try to read that Meta Stats SE Q&A to see what else it may offer.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 2:30
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    In the early days of this question, when a suggestion was implemented the mod who did so commented as such. Solves the 'has it been addressed' bit, but not 'gets lost'. Keeping each a separate question (with standard title form of "synonym proposal: suggestion goes here?") solves that problem and probably helps draw more attention to the individual suggestions. The downside is more 'clutter' of questions, but I think the positives would outweigh those negatives. I've just convinced myself to support that approach; before I posted here to try and keep the 'clutter' in a single question.
    – Chris W
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 21:04
  • I disagree with deleting answers, strongly so if not for them still being around. They provide documentation, and are helpful for people considering other suggestions (pointing out number of questions, Wiki descriptions, and other factors) as well as details of tags under discussion. Tags have history but that shows only edits; not any discussion or rationale of why. Some suggestions have no real discussion or even detailed proposal logic, so not much would be lost. Others have a lot more to them. If each suggestion is its own question this becomes moot unless you propose deleting those Qs.
    – Chris W
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 21:13
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    I would prefer to see each tag synonym proposal in its own Q&A so moot may apply. Deleted questions and answers are technically not lost because they can be undeleted and athough our Privileges page does not say when the "able to see deleted posts" privilege kicks in, this Meta SE Q&A seems to say that happens at 10,000.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 21:35
  • If you click the privilege itself on that list, it goes to the full help page, where it does say 'view deleted posts' for 'access to mod tools'. I'm not a fan of the restrictions on the ability, since in cases like this the people who would most need to see it (ie bringing it up again) can't. In fact, without that rep level or being the original asker, nobody can see it (including if you commented or answered it, which really irks me). But that's a whole other topic. Suffice to say I think the discussion/rationale aspect is beneficial for all and oppose deletion for anything with such value.
    – Chris W
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 22:13
  • Oh, and I upvoted/support this answer if that wasn't clear. I say accept it when you can, assuming nobody opposes new synonym suggestions as their own question (which I'll do from here on out).
    – Chris W
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 22:19
  • I think I have been overzealous in deleting these answers without having further discussion on the merits of doing so as a separate Q&A first so that is now underway.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 22:22
  • Found this other Meta Q&A that talks a bit more about how things were intended to function: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/216080 In particular some of the 'synonym tagged posts should still be edited' and 'less overhead approach' points I thought were interesting/relevant.
    – Chris W
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 23:26
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Here is one more pair of tags that needs to be made synonyms:

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    The more popular one has been made the "master" tag.
    – whuber
    Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 15:17
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I would suggest merging the and tags.

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Yesterday I noticed we have:

x53 "The act or process of making a map."

x520 "The study and practice of making maps." (with 'map' as a synonym)

The use of 'mapping' appears to be all over the... board! (pun avoided), however per the description I would say it should be made synonym of cartography.

I could also see making a revision to the mapping description to make a subtle distinction between the two. Cartography would be about maps, as in the actual visual representation/presentation of data, while mapping would be specifically about the recording of information to a data set in some form not necessarily for presentation. That starts to sound a lot like 'survey' though, and since mapping can mean both the recording and the plotting of data it would have to be a conscious decision on our part to select one meaning over others for use on GIS.SE.

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  • +1 Let's see if there are any dissenting views added as comments and then implement the outcome of that discussion. I'm interested to see what you think of this answer too.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 4, 2014 at 22:14
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Glad I discovered this question. I recently tried to make (26 questions, no wiki) a synonym of (18 questions, with wiki), but was rejected.

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I suggest to make master of .

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    Done! There were 9 x demography with a tag wiki and only 1 x demographics with no tag wiki so I merged the latter into the former.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Nov 2, 2014 at 4:45
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I have a few other suggestions for tag synonyms:

Both of those are used equally, so either one could be the 'master.'

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    sextante is now the master. I could not find the purely numeric tags 10.1 or 9.3.1.
    – whuber
    Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 15:23
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currently has two questions associated with it:

  1. Can rgdal use an external GDAL installation?
  2. Custome QGIS application with WPS and GDAL/OGR

The tag in these cases is used to refer to the GDAL/OGR suite. However in most other cases on the site questions referring to the GDAL/OGR suite these type of questions are usually referred to with just or both the and tags. In my experience GDAL is how most people refer to the suite anyway.

I'd like to see become a synonym for if possible.

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  • +1 for bringing it up - gdalogr should according to our naming conventions have been gdal-ogr any way, and synonymising it with gdal I can take or leave. However, I probably prefer the raster/vector split of using both gdal and ogr alone.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Jan 28, 2014 at 6:04
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(8 questions) seems more clear and SE consistent than (2 questions).

(the wiki of which even says and refers to imagine) and Perhaps when one was the company and the other a specific software suite, but now? If both are kept it seems some wiki cleanup/distinction is in order.

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had four questions and no Wiki, and one question and a Wiki.

I was just going to edit the tags to eliminate stereo, but I did the first one and realized I'd mentally reversed or confused the counts (thought compilation had more). It was an improperly split tag anyway (stereo and compilation as two tags), so the edit I did was valid. I wasn't sure if I should just go ahead and change the others, so I elected to make a suggestion here.

After considering @blah238's comment, I would suggest both be made synonym of a new tag, . I would be ok with stereoscopy as well, but feel imagery to be more natural or accessible.

I think that would be better than merging to photogrammetry and on-par with the level of the orthophoto tag under the broader category of photogrammetry. While there are only a handful of questions right now, I think stereo a sufficiently distinct term to warrant its own tag as it's both a method of data collection/creation and visualization (ie, anaglyphs) while I've always heard photogrammetry as specifically "measurements from photographs".

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  • I think this may be too fine-grained. With only 3 and 2 questions respectively and even the broader photogrammetry of which I think they are a subset only having 15 I think both would be best made synonyms of the latter.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Jul 18, 2014 at 2:55
  • @PolyGeo Given current usage, I wouldn't disagree with that notion. All but one of the stereo ones seem to have been in the last year, so it could be an increasing trend (especially as it becomes more widely available/cheaper for the systems). Putting the stereo to photogrammetry would then lead me to question orthophoto, since that's another branch with its own 24 questions. That's a noun/data type, but it's being used in similar questions. And I should really stop picking at threads... :)
    – Chris W
    Commented Jul 18, 2014 at 3:04
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    Not sure we can guess at trends with such a small sample size. If there was more data it might change my opinion, but as it stands I believe they should be merged, but into a more generic tag such as stereo-imagery or stereoscopy.
    – blah238
    Commented Jul 19, 2014 at 3:11
  • I agree with @blah238 and as an expedient to await synonym creation I recommend that you simply retag the five questions involved accordingly.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Jul 20, 2014 at 1:35
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    @PolyGeo Done, and with a wiki for the new tag.
    – Chris W
    Commented Jul 20, 2014 at 18:13
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Another tag synonym offer: should be a synonym of .

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    There is no ol3 tag!
    – whuber
    Commented Aug 9, 2013 at 14:52

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