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Let's not kid ourselves - no one actually uses the "suggest tag synonyms" feature.

It's slow, obscure, and difficult to obtain the relevant privileges. I even took the liberty of writing up a Meta Stack Exchange post about this under the Magic Wand Time Question. So for now, I think it might be more effective to circumvent this inefficiency by having this big Meta question where tag synonyms can be proposed. Then, they can be either voted upon like normal or simply brought to the attention of the users who possess the power and experience to make these changes. I'm thinking that each suggestion would be submitted as an answer to this question post, where they can be evaluated individually. I'll see if I can round up some examples.

I'm not usually a fan of dodging around the existing Stack Exchange protocols. SE seems to run very smoothly on the whole. So if this is something you, the moderation staff, or the community at large thinks is a bad idea (or if there is a better way to handle this), I would love to hear it. I'm just suggesting an idea here, I'll let the community judge its merits.

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    I'm absolutely fine with this - it is an area various mods have been dissatisfied with over the years for the reasons you mention above.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Aug 18, 2021 at 8:02
  • I would certainly welcome this. I proposed a synonym in November that languished until July the next year. Thanks for doing the legwork on this!
    – Aaron
    Aug 18, 2021 at 14:44
  • One of the problems is that very few users can actually vote for the synonym - only the ones who have score at least five in the master tag. Here is a SEDE query listing the pending tag synonyms. (The list on the site only displays the ones where you can actually vote.) The same query returns no results on meta.
    – Martin
    Oct 9 at 5:08

11 Answers 11

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The loop tag has 4 questions, none of which are any different from the 29 other questions under looping. There is no reason to have the smaller loop tag since everything can be covered by the larger looping tag.

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    Completed 10 Aug. Synonym created + merged
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Aug 19, 2021 at 14:55
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Common and formal terms for the same thing.

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    Completed 1 Sep 2021. Synonym created, and tags merged.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Sep 1, 2021 at 12:36
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Since the two words are completely synonymous in musical usage, the more easily searchable "expression" should prevail to encompass "expressiveness" as a derivative synonym (even though the expressiveness tag has more questions).

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  • completed 1 Sep. Synonym created and tags merged.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Sep 1, 2021 at 12:37
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A question from January 2021 discussed merging the two tags together under a better name, but with no convincing joint name emerging, the 6 questions of [fingering-and-positions] could all live peacefully among the 400+ questions tagged fingering (only one of the six is about trombone slide position, the others are all string instruments and piano).

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    Completed 10 Aug. Synonym created + merged
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Aug 19, 2021 at 14:54
4

Two instruments in the same family without significant differences other than size.

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  • The other small difference is that the alto recorder is lower-pitched by a perfect fifth. But yes, I agree that they are similar enough not to warrant separate tags.
    – user45266
    Aug 25, 2021 at 5:59
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  • Note that guitars is already a synonym of guitar (click "synonyms (1)" on one of the links). Same with guitar-picks - already a synonym of picks - and hollow-body-guitar being a synonym of semi-acoustic-guitar. Note that whenever one clicks on any link to a synonym tag, one is instantly redirected to the original tag's page instead, and the synonym tag has zero questions since all its questions are automatically retagged under the original. I'll take the liberty of editing out those already-completed requests from this answer, if that's okay with you.
    – user45266
    Aug 27, 2021 at 2:25
  • For the remaining ones: while I don't see much need for electric-bass-guitar when we already have bass-guitar (all the acoustic bass guitar questions can handle being grouped with the electric questions, I wager), 5-string-bass-guitar I think is fairly unique. It has 7 questions, but I think there is some evidence of / potential for 5-string bass questions that don't intersect much with regular 4-string bass expertise. Would love to hear some other opinions on whether the site should keep the 5-string-bass-guitar tag, though.
    – user45266
    Aug 27, 2021 at 2:32
  • solid-body-electric-guitar, I think, is definitely obscure enough to be wrapped into electric-guitar. Out of the three questions, only two are open, and only one actually requires any specific knowledge about solid-body electrics in order to answer. Personally, I'm very willing to trade a bit of the searchability of that one question and its one short answer for a cleaner tag landscape; let's hear some other voices on this. Thanks for finding these!
    – user45266
    Aug 27, 2021 at 2:42
  • Sorry, one more thing about the 5-string bass tag: I think the big reason it doesn't have many questions under it is because the questions asked here about 5-string basses simply neglected to use the 5-string-bass tag in the first place. I tracked some down just now and added them in, and if anyone wants to go tag-and-release fishing, search here for a good start: music.stackexchange.com/search?q=5-string
    – user45266
    Aug 27, 2021 at 2:49
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    @user45266 Thanks for the comments. I don't disagree. Actually I realize we may have opened a Pandora box: 6-string basses are popular as well, similarly 7 and 8 string guitars. A name that is sometimes used is extended range guitar/bass. It is not free of ambiguity (one can also extend range of a 4 string bass by changing tuning), but perhaps it's the best main tag available?
    – user1079505
    Aug 27, 2021 at 3:31
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An acoustic is the default type of drum kit/set, so I don't think it deserves a distinct tag. However should be kept seperate.

Also, to be inline with other specific instrument tags it should not be the plural.

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These seperate tags have been used for the same type of questions, the former has only 3 questions, verses 62 for the latter.

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There is 1 just question tagged with , this should be made a synonym of (149 questions). There are a few notable Bach's, but when the particular Bach is not specified, it's fair to assume that JS is being referred to.

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There are only 10 and 8 question with these tags respectively, 6 of these have both.

I suggest that these tags should be merged into the more general tag (recently created, and which currently has only 1 question).

This new tag should be used for questions about other types of cymbals such as: hi-hat (of which there are plenty of questions), splash cymbal, and China cymbal, etc.

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These tags have only 3 and 7 questions respectively, and would probably be better grouped into the more general tag.

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