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As noted above, we have a tag and a tag. These seem a little redundant, given the name of the site. I just re-tagged a question from to , but a tag would be much better. What are your thoughts on the first two tags?

Update: I edited the question, removing the tag and adding in the tag.

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    $\begingroup$ Since the question relates to history then why use "history of terminology" over "terminology" $\endgroup$
    – Jasser
    Nov 7, 2014 at 15:29
  • $\begingroup$ @user291957 Because it's more specific. And using both would be doubly redundant. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Nov 7, 2014 at 15:30
  • $\begingroup$ So shall we mention for any specific thing xyz to be "history-of-xyz". But I understand your point of specificity. $\endgroup$
    – Jasser
    Nov 7, 2014 at 15:37
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    $\begingroup$ @user291957 I really just think we should have a terminology tag, but I wanted to bring it to meta first. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Nov 7, 2014 at 15:38
  • $\begingroup$ Yes let's wait and hear what other people want to talk about it. $\endgroup$
    – Jasser
    Nov 7, 2014 at 15:41
  • $\begingroup$ There is a difference, terminology is about the terms meaning, history-of-terminology would mean something closer to etymology, the history of words/terms, their origins. I agree that 'terminology' instead of 'history-of-terminology' is more aesthetic for the eyes. $\endgroup$
    – WaWaWa
    Nov 7, 2014 at 17:05
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    $\begingroup$ The (history) tag is sitewide redundant, as all questions are questions of history. The (terminology) tag seems useful, and I tend to agree, considering the site topic, that it should replace (history-of-terminology). I cannot think of a reason why the word history should appear in a tag fragment on a history site, as that word is the leading word in the site title. $\endgroup$
    – J. W. Perry
    Nov 7, 2014 at 19:17
  • $\begingroup$ Note though, that (history-of-terminology) is a major improvement over (history), but pretty much anything is an improvement over (history) as a tag. Not all questions have to be about say, (mathematics), thus this is a good tag. However, all questions must necessarily be a question of history, or they are by site definition off topic. $\endgroup$
    – J. W. Perry
    Nov 7, 2014 at 19:26
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    $\begingroup$ As a sidenote, should we ever decide that we need a tag for the terminology of the discipline history of science (or similar), we should name this one hsm-terminology or similar instead of renaming the tag about the history of terminology. $\endgroup$
    – Wrzlprmft
    Nov 9, 2014 at 10:47

3 Answers 3

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On could make a case that "history-of-terminology" is for questions of the historical development of terminology or old terminology while "terminology" would be about current terminology, and could be used in questions that concern history of science as a current discipline.

However, making such fine distinctions is not very useful in my opinion. Mainly, since in practice it is hard enough to maintain some basic standards of tagging throughout the site, and subtle distinctions worked out in theory can all too rapidly be blurred beyond recognition by imprecise usage in practice.

I am in favor of having one tag "terminology" for all things terminology. At least for now. Once we have 20 or 30 question with it, we might check if we want to split the tag.

The tag "history" is way too broad, I agree. I think we might even ask for it to be an intrinsic tag of the site. This would mean it cannot be created, but is accepted when questions are migrated here (which is not yet relevant though).

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    $\begingroup$ I'm generally against accepting answers for meta questions, but you summed up the situation very well. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Nov 8, 2014 at 22:33
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is indeed a bit silly for this site. Makes about as much sense as on Stack Overflow or on Arqade. We usually automatically blacklist tags corresponding to the site's topic, but in this case the system happily threw down a ban on , which was... not optimal. In any case, is manually blacklisted now.

Actually, any tag even containing the word "history" is now blacklisted, which means that is off the table as well. Fortunately, it seems like using as a catchall is working out just fine in practice. If it becomes a problem in the future, just bring it up here on meta.

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Now it is time for someone with rep greater than or equal to 1250 (and other requisite requirements) to create the tag synonym for this situation. While one could go in and just replace all of these examples with the appropriate tag, and let the tag with the redundant "history" fragment just go away, it would be most appropriate for someone with the required rep to just use the tag synonym power now and make (history-of-terminology) simply (terminology). I see no actual arguments or digress from other community members.

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    $\begingroup$ I've proposed that the tags are synonyms of one another. Now we just have to see what the votes are. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Dec 10, 2014 at 22:21

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