How to rename a tag?

Question

What do I need to do to rename a tag?

I see some people post a question here and ask for a tag to be renamed. Is there some other way?

Answer 1

Only moderators can rename a tag. If you think a tag needs to be renamed, get a moderator to do it. The normal way to contact the moderators is by asking a question on that site's per-site meta. If the renaming is a no-brainer (e.g. the current name is misspelled), you can ask in chat, but otherwise it's better to have a discussion on the per-site meta and wait a few days to see if there are any objections (maybe the name you prefer isn't the name others prefer).

If there are only a handful of questions, and you're sure the tag needs renaming, then simply retag the questions. Don't retag a too big batch of questions as this fills up the front page with relatively unimportant edits. If the name change would only add or remove hyphens or a final s, then you won't be able to create the new name; in that case, you'll need to get a moderator to do it even if there is a single question with that misspelled tag.

If the new name you're proposing for the tag already exists, that's not a renaming: that's making a tag synonym. Propose or vote for the tag synonym. If you don't meet the reputation requirements, or if the synonym is languishing because not enough people have paid attention to it, ask on meta.

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For moderators: the actual way to rename a tag is to merge it into a nonexistent tag. Go to the tag page (/questions/tagged/[existing-tag-name]), click the “merge” button, enter the new tag name, and confirm until done.

Answer 2

If I understand correctly, you need one of those privileges

• https://stackoverflow.com/privileges/retag-questions
• https://stackoverflow.com/privileges/suggest-tag-synonyms