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When proposing a synonym one need to comply to:

Users with more than 2500 reputation and a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag, can suggest tag synonyms. Users with a total answer score (total upvotes minus total downvotes) of 5 or more on the tag, can vote for tag synonyms. Suggestions will be automatically approved when they reach a score of 4, and automatically deleted when they reach a score of -2.

I agree with the reputation requirement: it makes sure that the user is aware of the (inner) workings of the site.

I suppose that this reasoning is similar to the tag score requirement: one needs to provide (s)he has knowledge about the tag.

But I do not agree with this second (tag score) requirement.

Without knowledge of the tag subject it is not a problem to detect synonyms (for most of the tags):

All of these above requests (and there are loads more) can be done by a trusted user without any knowledge on the actual topics.

So, I do not really understand the tag score requirement and would propose to remove the tag score requirement.

Additional thought: If the moderators are afraid of misuse of the synonym request system, the reputation requirement could be increased instead, so only 'more responsible' users have the permission to propose a synonym (although I do not think it is necessary to increase the reputation requirement further).

Edit: Daniel Fischer came with an improved proposal: Low reputation users keep the tag score requirement and high reputation users do not require it. So low-reputation users are still able to suggest synonyms for the tags they have enough knowledge and high reputation users are trusted enough to suggest any tag synonym.

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    Requirement for suggesting a tag synonym (total rep >= 2500 + tag score >= 5) or (total rep >= 5000)? [or 10K, whatever] Jan 8, 2013 at 16:59
  • @DanielFischer I do not understand your comment completely, but my proposal is to only keep the total rep >= 2500 requirement (or any other reputation score). SO trusted users are able to provide synonyms for any tag.
    – Veger
    Jan 8, 2013 at 19:45
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    My suggestion is to still require a tag score for users with not-so-much reputation, but allow users with higher reputation to suggest synonyms regardless of whether they have any participation in the concerned tags. So if you have less experience with the site, some experience with the tag is required, but if you have enough overall experience, you are trusted not to make [many] nonsensical synonym suggestions even if you have no particular experience in the tag. The numbers are of course open to discussion. Jan 8, 2013 at 19:54
  • @DanielFischer ah! Good idea, I'll update the question
    – Veger
    Jan 8, 2013 at 19:55
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    Or one could make it total rep + C*tag score >= threshold. Jan 8, 2013 at 19:56
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    related (not a duplicate): Does the tag synonym suggestion system work? "I've never seen a tag synonym created via the voting mechanism and I see evidence that the system isn't working to create synonyms without moderator intervention..."
    – gnat
    Jan 11, 2013 at 12:51

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