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When editing a question today, I realized that, for whatever reason, we don't really have a tag for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, and really, we should. Unfortunately, however, the obvious choice,

is one character too long (26 for a character limit of 25), so it doesn't fit. There's a number of alternatives but in a brief chat exchange with the mods we didn't really come to an agreement on what is the best, so I'll just float a few ideas below and see which ones go to the top.

Ideally we should make as many synonyms as possible, which will redirect to the main tag and help make the main tag show up on the autocomplete, but we still need a main tag for the cluster ─ which will display on all questions with the tag ─ and they all have tradeoffs. So, vote on the one you think is less bad as the main tag, and we'll make the rest synonyms (plus whatever other synonyms people care to suggest).

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    $\begingroup$ And just to be clear, this vote is to determine the main tag, not to determine which synonyms will be created...? It might be worth emphasizing that, as I'm not sure it's so easy to tell the way it's written. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 17, 2017 at 12:31
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    $\begingroup$ NMR is an extremely well known abbreviation, and likely used much more often than the full version. Chemistry.SE uses nmr for the tag. I see no reason to use any chopped off version if a widely used abbreviation is available. $\endgroup$
    – Mad Scientist - on strike
    Jul 17, 2017 at 14:05
  • $\begingroup$ Sorry Emilio, but I don't see how "nucl-mag-res", "nucl-magnetic-resonance", and "nuclear-magnetic-resonanc" are viable tag synonyms of "nmr". As @MadScientist correctly points out, these aren't synonyms, they are (very weird and uncommon) truncations that no one is ever likely to use, if there is an "nmr" tag. Could you please clarify in the question, why we need so many synonyms for this tag? $\endgroup$
    – 299792458
    Jul 17, 2017 at 15:56
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    $\begingroup$ @TheDarkSide extra synonyms do essentially zero harm, and they can be set to redirect completely. I would argue that nuclear-magnetic-resonanc is useful for autocomplete reasons, but otherwise we can drop off the ones with negative score. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jul 17, 2017 at 16:04
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    $\begingroup$ And now we hear that somewhat longer tags are supported meaning that nuclear-magnetic-resonance would be just fine. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Aug 8, 2017 at 23:15

7 Answers 7

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Pros: Allowed as of today.

Cons: There aren't any cons. This is the solution we wanted.

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Pro: the abbreviation is widely understood and recognized.

Con: it's better to have longer tags that are self-explanatory instead of just initials.

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    $\begingroup$ The tag description/wiki can take care of the con. $\endgroup$
    – 299792458
    Jul 17, 2017 at 15:49
  • $\begingroup$ Imho this is the best + there could be tag synonyms inserted to all of the alternative ideas. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 18, 2017 at 20:05
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    $\begingroup$ July 21, 2017: Chosen as master tag. $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic Mod
    Jul 21, 2017 at 12:48
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Pro: actual grammatical phrase with correct spelling.

Con: loses some impact and recognizability.

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    $\begingroup$ This has another pro: it encompasses also other type of magnetic resonance, not only the nuclear one, and many phenomena are in common. $\endgroup$
    – Massimo Ortolano
    Jul 17, 2017 at 14:19
  • $\begingroup$ This would be naturally understood to include MRI (which is an application of NMR). Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. Probably good. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Jul 17, 2017 at 18:45
  • $\begingroup$ @dmckee It would also include EPR, not sure if there are any questions on that here. $\endgroup$
    – Mad Scientist - on strike
    Jul 17, 2017 at 19:06
  • $\begingroup$ @MadScientist That's one of the reasons I'm not keen on this option. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jul 17, 2017 at 19:12
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    $\begingroup$ July 21, 2017: Created synonym. $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic Mod
    Jul 21, 2017 at 12:48
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Pro: gets most of the full name in.

Con: lopped off bits make it none-too-pretty.

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    $\begingroup$ I am strongly in favor of having this as a synonym if we adopt nmr as the tag because over the whole network we work pretty hard to train users to write out the tag in almost every case. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Jul 17, 2017 at 19:08
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    $\begingroup$ July 21, 2017: Created synonym. $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic Mod
    Jul 21, 2017 at 12:48
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Pros: gets basically the full name in without weird abbreviations, fairly recognizable for original term, will show up when people type 'nuclear...' so harder to skip as an abbreviation

Cons: I mean, it's not the actual term, so nothing's perfect =)

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Pro: gets most of the full name in.

Cons: lopped off bits make it none-too-pretty. It won't show up on autocomplete if people type 'nuclear' fast enough (though with the right synonyms in place it's less of a problem).

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Pros: gets most of the name in. Abbreviations for each word are common in other contexts --- for example, mag. field, res. freq. All words are abbreviated to the same number of "significant figures". ("significant syllables"?)

Cons: Ugly. Won't show up in autocomplete for "nuclear" (but clever synonyms may help).

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