Tag naming conventions

Question

We should make an effort to keep tags fairly uniform in their construction. I'm thinking:

• Actions with a proper -tion noun form should use that form (navigation, water-purification)
• Actions without should be a gerund (camping, hiking, sailing).
• Nouns with a plural that makes sense as a tag should be pluralized (boots, emergencies, rivers).

Exceptions:

• nature
• fire
  • Can be either collective or discrete, I suggest we keep the collective (singular).

Ones I'm not sure about:

• disease
• climate

If you come across a tag that doesn't fit this, fix it.
If you have a suggestion, please do post it and we'll discuss.

Answer 1

Important quote from the meta tags article

How can you tell you’re using a meta-tag? It’s easier than you might think.

If the tag can’t work as the only tag on a question, it’s probably a meta-tag. Every tag you use should be able to work, more or less, as the only tag on a question. Meta-tags, like [beginner], [subjective], and [best-practices], are useless by themselves — they tell you nothing at all about the content of the question. If the tag commonly means different things to different people, it’s probably a meta-tag. In a cruel, ironic twist, the meaning of the tag [subjective] itself … is actually subjective. Ditto for [best-practices] and [beginner]. Best practices to whom? Beginner by what criteria? These tags are impossible to define by anything remotely resembling an objective metric. In comparison, the the meaning of tags like [java], [c#], and [javascript] are crystal clear to all but the nuttiest of nutbags.

Answer 2

It seems like your suggestion is mostly summed up with "use nouns; plural form if possible".

I think that's a good guideline, but you probably don't need to maintain a list of all possible exceptions if you phrase it that way. :)

And of course, do your best to avoid creating meta tags, whether they conform to these guidelines or not.