- I had originally made the ab-initio tag.
- Very soon afer, someone made the ab-initio-calculations which (to me) seems redundant.
- I asked to have a tag synonym created so that ab-initio-calculations maps to ab-initio: Can we have some tag synonyms created? The request was granted, but the other way around, basically because the former has the extra word compared to the latter.
I could understand why dft -> density-functional-theory was the best choice, because it turns something from ambiguous to non-ambiguous. The point here though, is that everyone using the dft tag is talking about density-functional-theory. Claims have been made that "discrete Fourier transform" questions will come up, but I doubt it, and in the rare case when it does, the user may quickly see that "dft" was switched to "density-functional-theory" and if so, they certainly will change the tag to discrete-fourier-transform.
Regarding ab-initio, I was less keen on the synonym being created in the direction towards ab-initio-calculations rather than the other way around. I think "ab-initio" contains enough meaning, and I cannot foresee anyone mis-applying the tag. ab-initio-calculations is something even more specific though, and many question might have to do with ab-initio-methods in general.
In this question today: Can DFT be considered an ab initio method?, the user was talking about the "concept" of ab-initio, not even the calculations or even methods, but just the concept.
As a follower of the ab-initio tag, I would have liked to see this question for sure. However the user didn't tag ab-initio because the available tag was ab-initio-calculations, which didn't quite feel right.
To the followers of the ab-initio tag(s): I wonder if there would be any objection to having an "ab-initio" tag, and having ab-initio-calculations, ab-initio-methods, ab-initio-concepts, ab-initio-theory, or anything anything else related to ab-initio, mapped as synonyms to the base tag ab-initio? If there is an objection, what is it about the ab-initio tag on its own, that is problematic from a practical standpoint?