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Currently, is a synonym for . ColdFusion (sold by Adobe), Railo, and OpenBlue Dragon (among others) all parse/interpret/etc "CFML", which is an acronym for "Cold Fusion Markup Language".

Is it possible to remove the synonym of CFML to ColdFusion?

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    I knows nothing about ColdFusion. Nevertheless, can you explain why there is a need to differentiate them?
    – nhahtdh
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 3:03
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    @nhahtdh Because cfml can be handled by Railo and OpenBlue Dragon as well, so it's not unique to CF.
    – Jack
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 3:03
  • @Jack: Lol, really need to get some sleep...
    – nhahtdh
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 3:07
  • Unfortunately I don't have the power to do anything about it, so here's an upvote :)
    – Jack
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 3:12
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    I think this synonym is still valid. There are tags for the other CFML engines yet most users still tag the question as "ColdFusion". While CFML is technically not ColdFusion I don't see how removing the synonym would benefit anyone as CFML specific questions should be tagged as the correct engine, ie Railo, BlueDragon
    – Travis
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 15:17
  • ColdFusion represents a subset of the CFML "universe". Plenty of CFML language questions aren't confined to just one engine, and we shouldn't want SO taxonomy to imply the primacy of one engine over an alternative.‡ I think there's justification for all the tags to exist. ‡-I am not affiliated with any of these engines and have received no compensation for my opinions on this subject!
    – Jeromy French
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 15:35
  • I'm undecided on this, but I think leaning towards removing the synonym ... will put more detail in an answer.
    – Peter Boughton
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 15:59
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    Not knowing that the synonym replaced the original tag, I agree. Being that the synonym replaces the original tag I can not say in good faith that most users still tag the question as "ColdFusion" as I did above. +1
    – Travis
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 16:24
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    That would also mean the cfscript synonym is invalid as well.
    – Travis
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 16:34
  • Check out the last line of the BlueDragon tag excerpt: stackoverflow.com/edit-tag-wiki/57400
    – Jeromy French
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 16:46
  • And Railo's: stackoverflow.com/edit-tag-wiki/19829
    – Jeromy French
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 16:46
  • I've asked for a moderator to take a peak at this. Meanwhile, I propose the following: remove CFML synonym association with ColdFusion. Establish CFML tag. Repoint CF/CFSCRIPT synonyms from ColdFusion to CFML. Sound good to all? Should I start a new "question" for this activity? (I'm not trying to be a rep wh*re)
    – Jeromy French
    Commented Feb 27, 2013 at 15:14
  • @JeromyFrench I removed the cfml->coldfusion synonym and created the cf->cfml and cfscript->cfml synonyms. You might want to create a decent tag wiki for cfml now, and maybe retag some older questions (though this isn't strictly necessary).
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 4:46
  • @AnnaLear: much appreciated.
    – Jeromy French
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 5:32
  • If you are going to suggest edits that add this tag, please take care of the rest of the post issues at the same time. Remove thankyou, fix the grammar and spelling, fix formatting issues etc. Otherwise the edit is too minor.
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 14:49

2 Answers 2

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According to This post, yes. the question must be tagged with and to be seen and discussed by the community.

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    Well I added discussion tag. Not sure if I should have removed the support tag when doing that or not, but I guess someone will correct that if necessary.
    – Peter Boughton
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 18:17
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When I originally suggested the synonym, it was a combination of pragmatism and misunderstanding of how synonyms worked.

At the time, Railo was still generally considered an "alternative" to CF -- rather than a solution in its own right, which it is now, (or at least is tending towards) -- and I don't know that it was possible to easily monitor multiple tags, so it made sense to have the already most common "coldfusion" tag as the main one, since that's what most people used.

I also thought the tags would simply pointed/aliased to each other rather than be replaced, so the original tag would still be visible.

Given the way tags actually work, that it is easy to combine tags in search/bookmarks, and that Railo is more and more its own thing, I think I'm in favour of removing the synonym, so cfml can be a standalone engine-agnostic/parent/overall tag.

There's still a part of me saying that the masses will still just use/look at [coldfusion], and this would simply be extra work for those of us that monitor/fix CFML questions, but in general I prefer doing things correctly and educating as necessary, rather than dumbing down for the lowest common denominator.

A quick note for the uninitiated, a rough comparison is:

C#             <-> CFML
Microsoft .NET <-> Adobe ColdFusion
Mono           <-> Railo

It's not a perfect analogy, but hopefully gives an idea...

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    I also thought the tags would simply pointed/aliased to each other rather than be replaced, so the original tag would still be visible. I didn't realize that until just now either so yeah, I agree.
    – Travis
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 16:19
  • @PeterBoughton: we sure have crossed paths alot in the past 12 hours! Gratitude for your participation and thoughts...
    – Jeromy French
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 16:42
  • That said, none of us are answering the question: can synonyms be un/re-mapped? How?
    – Jeromy French
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 16:43
  • It's been done before, so guess it's a question of waiting for an admin to see it.
    – Peter Boughton
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 17:14
  • Late to the party... I'm not sure where I am on this one. Perhaps the tags are backwards. Maybe CFML should be the base tag and ColdFusion, Railo and BlueDragon should be synonyms for it? Unless, like you say, the synonyms are not an alias but actually replace the original tag. Is that correct?
    – Miguel-F
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 21:38
  • Doing that would mean not being able to tell what engine is being used by tags. They need to stay Disassociated
    – Travis
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 21:59
  • I guess I don't understand how the synonyms work then. I will trust you guys and go ahead and upvote this as well.
    – Miguel-F
    Commented Feb 22, 2013 at 12:53
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    The tag synonym functionality is as a way to have a single canonical tag, and remap common variants to that canonical one. It does not deal with related aliases or parent/child, so (at the moment) if you tag a question with cfml cfscript the result is a single coldfusion (due to both of the former being synoynms of the latter) which is losing information that may be relevant. If CF/Railo/BD tags were synonymed to CFML, a similar change/loss would happen.
    – Peter Boughton
    Commented Feb 22, 2013 at 13:12
  • Ok, I see. I always tag things with ColdFusion so I did not realize that if you used the other tags, cfml cfscript, then it would change the tag to ColdFusion. Thanks for the explanation. And now I agree with you guys.
    – Miguel-F
    Commented Feb 22, 2013 at 14:07

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