Pluralize these singular tags

Question

Motivated by Stefan's prompt reaction to Rename {script} to {scripts}, I went through the first five pages of tags looking for singular tags to pluralize, once again with the question Our set of tags in mind:

The following kinds of tags are recommended:

• ...
• Specific topics, e.g.: macros, fonts, graphics, errors, floats, ... (Note: prefer plural nouns)

Whenever I wasn't sure if a tag could or should be pluralized, I tried to put it in a sentence: "This question is about {tag}" (without any articles!). If singular sounds sensible, it won't be included in my list here.

So I propose to rename the following singular tags to their respective plural form and make the singular tag a synonym of the plural tags. (Updated list in accordance with the discussion)

• documentclass to document-classes
• index to indexing
• url to urls
• external-file to external-files
• mathoperator to math-operators
• background to backgrounds
• path to paths, but that tag still needs some attention at any rate.
• graph to graphs

I'm not sure what our policy on creating synonyms is; if we only create synonyms when they become necessary, we can probably skip most of the synonyms (not renamings) proposed above. If we create synonyms preventively, then let's roll!

_{(http://memegenerator.net/X-All-The-Things)}

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As tags can't be crossed out with <s>, I'll list the declined proposals down here so that we'll only have the "good" proposals above:

• color (further advantage: it'll be clearer that this tag is not only about the color package, but about any color-related questions)
• index to indices/indexes
• width and height (not sure)

paper-size is a tag that could be pluralized but I don't think it would be appropriate because it (usually) deals with paper size as an abstract property of a single document and not with e.g. comparing A4 to letter paper.

Answer 1

I renamed as suggested by the updated proposals. Synonyms can be created if such tags would reappear, for now I did not add synonyms. For example, external-file is not really needed as a synonym to external-files, as it is too similar. Auto-completion of tags helps to hit the right one. Other more obvious choices such as index might be made a synonym at some time.

Answer 2

opposed to pluralizing index to indices because "indices" has the alternate meaning in a math context of sub- and superscripts. if you want to use indexes though, that's okay (even if not elegant).

width and height are concepts; the plurals are specifics. i think these should stay as they are.

Answer 3

I've made this an answer since it's a bit long for a comment.

I'm strongly against pluralizing "color", which is normally a mass noun, and should remain so. The same objection holds for "width" and "height". The confusion with a package name could be better solved by adding a -pkg suffix.

If index is to be pluralized it should be "indexes" and not "indices" which I would bet most people don't use. In fact, in my field, "indices" means something else.

documentclass should remain the same too, because it matches what people type in the source; if we want to pluralize it, it should then be "document classes".

Answer 4

While I don't have a strong opinion about singular v. plural tag names in general, I'd rather not rename the color tag because there's already a bronze tag badge for it.

Answer 5

Whilst unifying the format of tags seems like a good idea, the tags are intended to be somewhat ad hoc. Pluralising them in many cases will not break them, but in certain cases like index -> indexes or indices (I didn't even know indexes was a word until today) it simply confuses matters. Thus my opinion is; if the pluralised tag is just as obvious as the original, and unambiguous, then by all means make the change. In any other case,

If it ain't broke; don't fix it!