How can we link tags for spelling variants to existing tags?

Question

This comes from the chat, and I’ll be as brief as possible:

How would one go about to add tags that are linked to existing tags, such as mediaeval-latin = medieval-latin?

The above example covers British to American spelling conventions (and I am sure there are more). I was surprised when typing up a mediaeval question and not finding any existing tags for it; then I realised my mistake.

I am sure there are other instances where this would be useful, such as for author names: pliny-the-elder, plinius-der-ältere and plinius-den-eldre could all be linked to the tag gaius-plinius-secundus; cicero and ciceron to marcus-tullius-cicero and so forth.

Such a system would make it much easier for people of all countries to take part in the discussion; often-times it is hard to remember what the English way of spelling an author’s name is, or remember how a specific word is spelt in American English.

My question thus is: How can we link tags for spelling variants to existing tags?

Answer 1

This is quite common on language sites, e.g. on Spanish Stack Exchange, where we have the tags verbs (English) and verbos (Spanish). You'll notice that both links, though slightly different, end up on the same page, because they're synonyms. When you ask a question and type a synonym, it is automatically replaced by the master:

A list of already approved synonyms on Latin Stack Exchange can be found here.

On some of the largest sites in the network, like Stack Overflow, the community does a decent job of suggesting and approving tag synonyms. The entire process requires a couple of users with a certain amount of reputation and posts in the tag (see the linked Help Center article), so this is not practical on smaller sites like Latin Stack Exchange. Here, the best way is usually to post a Meta question (like you did) and ask the ♦ moderators to perform the necessary actions; they can do so single-handedly.

What you describe for authors (preemptively creating a tag synonym) isn't common practice; most users don't have the privilege to create tags anyway, so the risk of them appearing is quite small. If you type 'plin' in the tag box, the system will already suggest one of the two applicable tags:

so you must be quite determined to create a new one.

Answer 2

We cannot create spelling variants directly. The new variant has to be created first as an independent tag and then combined with the other one. To create a new tag, you need to simply add it to a question.

As Glorfindel, there is a community-driven mechanism for creating duplicates. If you go to a tag page like that for numbers, you should see a link "Synonyms" which takes you to its synonym page. There you can see and suggest and vote on suggestions.

The simpler method for synonymization is to let the moderators know. You can do so on meta, in chat, or by flagging a relevant question with a custom flag.

If the two tags are truly identical in meaning, we will merge them, which is a step forward from synonymizing.