According to this answer there can be issues when there are two tags which are singular and plural form of the same term.

However it seems we have both and .

It looks like the 4 questions with the plural form could just be tagged with the singular and the plurals deleted. The tag would then quietly disappear to wherever unused tags go.

Any objections to this?

  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Sightly better is to use the synonym function, which automatically matches them :-) $\endgroup$ – Rory Alsop Jul 12 '19 at 13:21
  • $\begingroup$ @RoryAlsop okay I've started the ball rolling, thanks! i.stack.imgur.com/H64rQ.png I'd tried to do it once before elsewhere but didn't have sufficient number of tagged question or reputation or something. For everyone else, here's the FAQ: meta.stackexchange.com/a/70718/303080 $\endgroup$ – uhoh Jul 12 '19 at 14:12
  • $\begingroup$ The rules for managing tags makes no sense to me. Only 150 rep can create a new tag. Answering questions (but not asking them?!?!) on a given tag gives some power to suggest and vote on that tag. But someone at @uhoh's rep level can't suggest or vote on a tag? That's messed up. It ends up making more work for the moderators. $\endgroup$ – DrSheldon Jul 12 '19 at 22:46
  • $\begingroup$ @DrSheldon that link points to a different SE site where I have less rep, but I think it had more to do with not having sufficient posts associated with the tag. SE functionality has evolved over millions of questions and hundreds of thousands of individually irrational human users. I wouldn't knock a given function's implementation until you've read through all of the meta posts associated and see what chain of events and thinking lead to a given situation. There are almost always good reasons for everything. $\endgroup$ – uhoh Jul 12 '19 at 22:51
  • $\begingroup$ @uhoh: The rest of SE works quite smoothly by having experienced-enough users vote on various issues. I don't see why tag maintenance has to be different. Considering the number of meta-posts here on tag maintenance and the number of times mod intervention has been needed, the system doesn't work well. $\endgroup$ – DrSheldon Jul 12 '19 at 23:17
  • $\begingroup$ @DrSheldon each of the nearly 200 different SE sites can't have a different implementation. One UI has to work for all SE sites. It's true that there are some (many) things that could be streamlined for a well-moderated, small, and healthy community like this one, but it wouldn't work for sites with 10x or 100x the traffic and a constant influx of new users wanting to "move fast and break things". But there is always room for improvement in SE. But why don't you formulate a specific change and post it in the main meta? Perhaps it will take! $\endgroup$ – uhoh Jul 12 '19 at 23:30
  • $\begingroup$ @DrSheldon here's an example of a question I asked there Editing bounty messages, is it finally time for a little “Love”? (anti-Doh! feature request). You have to make your case, cite specific examples of where the improvement would be substantial, and consider any possible negative impacts. There are about 23,206 questions tagged feature-request with votes ranging from +1127 to -119. You can be 23,207, go for it! $\endgroup$ – uhoh Jul 12 '19 at 23:34
  • $\begingroup$ @DrSheldon but I recommend you start with a standard question without the feature-request tag (those are high-flying targets and often get shot-down very quickly). For example, in Does the post editor secretly delete other links when posting an image? If so, why? I ask about a behavior without complaining about it or proposing someone re-code a section of SE for me. This way, knowledgable people are drawn out and explain that yes this is weird and we know it. Then if you like, you can consider carefully feature-request question, or not. $\endgroup$ – uhoh Jul 12 '19 at 23:42
  • $\begingroup$ In Is dropping the final period in a bare url done by-design? for example, I asked about a behavior and was told this is done on purpose, or status-bydesign. A feature-request about changing this one would not have survived 15 minutes. $\endgroup$ – uhoh Jul 12 '19 at 23:43

I've gone ahead and approved the synonym and made the merge.

  • $\begingroup$ excellent, thank you! $\endgroup$ – uhoh Jul 13 '19 at 12:47

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