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I'm at a loss about how to propose a tag synonym.

The FAQs do a good job explaining what a tag synonym is, who can propose it and who can vote it.

Users with this privilege and a total answer score (total upvotes minus total downvotes) of 5 or more on the tag, can suggest tag synonyms. Users with a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag, can vote for tag synonyms.

This post What are tag synonyms and merged tags? How do they work? also clearly explains what tag synonyms are.

Now, I understand what synonyms are, but I don't understand how I can practically operate the UI to propose one.

By digging in the comments (not conspicuous!) of the linked post, and some other similar questions in here and on Meta Stack Overflow, I saw tips about clicking on the tag I want to create the synonym for.

English not being my first language, and I don't have any idea what that means. I need to make a concrete example. Let's make an example from Chinese.SE, where I have more than 2500 reputation points:

I have and . Let's say I want to suggest a synonym that results in being remapped to . In other words, the tag will appear as having 0 questions; if I attempt to type in the tag bar, will show up instead.

In the UI I can navigate to a URL like https://chinese.stackexchange.com/tags/finals/synonyms, and the page looks like the pic below.

The label of the input field reads:

Suggest a [finals] synonym.

This language is not clear enough for me.

If I write "pinyin" in that input field right there, will the outcome be to remap [finals] to [pinyin], or should I go the other way around?

In other words, when I type something in this input field, am I proposing to map [finals] to [pinyin] and hide [finals] or to map [pinyin] to [finals] and hide [pinyin]?

Enter image description here

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  • Does this answer your question? What are tag synonyms and merged tags? How do they work?
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 15:07
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    @πάνταῥεῖ No it doesn't, as I clearly indicated in my post above
    – blackgreen
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 15:08
  • Heavily related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/69263/…
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 15:08
  • @πάνταῥεῖ thanks, but I'm still confused. I'm looking to ascertain what are the semantics involved in this UI, as the language I find everywhere describing this process is ambiguous (to me). When I type something in that input field (pic above), am I proposing to map [finals] to [pinyin] or to map [pinyin] to [finals]?
    – blackgreen
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 15:14
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    FWIW, this is confusing to me too, but thankfully (for me) I have not had an opportunity to mark a tag as a synonym anywhere. A proper answer to this question would help many people, I'm sure.
    – user313042
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 15:23

1 Answer 1

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You're not the only one confused by this, I was too. Somehow, my brains interpret 'synonym' as a (symmetric) relation between two tags, so if X is a synonym of Y, Y is a synonym of X. This is not how it works here. A 'synonym' is the lesser of the two tags (also called the 'source' tag, at least in SEDE) and the main/canonical one is the 'target'. The tag synonyms page has a nice arrow indicating this:

enter image description here

If I write "pinyin" in that input field right there, will the outcome be to remap [finals] to [pinyin], or should I go the other way around?

That action will map [pinyin] to [finals].

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    Thanks! So it's exactly the opposite of what I was thinking... by "proposing a synonym" for [finals] in the https://chinese.stackexchange.com/tags/finals/synonyms page I'm saying that [finals] is the target tag, and what I write in the input field is the synonym, i.e the lesser tag. Right?
    – blackgreen
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 15:42
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    Yes, that is correct. The page says Incorrectly tagged questions are hard to find and answer. If you know of common, alternate spellings or phrasings for this tag, add them here so we can automatically correct them in the future which more or less indicates that you're on the target tag's page. But again, like I said, it's non-obvious for me too.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 15:53

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