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I've noticed the tag is being used both to refer to questions about selling stocks short in the stock market as well as the real-estate/mortgage concept of selling a property for a value less than what is owed on the mortgage. These concepts are distinct enough to warrant different tags.

What alternative tags could we use for one or the other to disambiguate the two?

UPDATE: This has been completed. I've created master tags and . There are also synonyms in place as follows:

I think those synonyms are reasonable, but please comment if there's a better approach.

2 Answers 2

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This tag really needs to be split -- the two concepts are different and unrelated. A person thinking in one context won't naturally think of the conflicting meaning, even if they know about it.

I propose the master tags become:

shorting-stock

short-sale-property

These are slightly long, but synonyms will help that. They are long to be explicit, which is important when entering tags on the "Ask Question" page because it is the master tags which show up in the drop-down list of tag options. This cues the user that a distinction must be made.

Synonyms should probably include shorting --> shorting-stock and short-sale --> short-sale-property.

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  • +1. Better than my suggestions.
    – gef05
    Commented Jun 13, 2011 at 19:30
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    A variant is using shorting-securities instead of shorting-stock, the point being it might be covering securities other than stock, such as bonds, which can also be shorted.
    – mgkrebbs
    Commented Jun 13, 2011 at 20:56
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The first thoughts that come to mind are all compromises:

Option one

short selling (m) | short selling (s)

Looks a little busy to me.

Option two

short selling mortgages | short selling stocks

Starting to get mighty lengthy.

Option three

short-selling | shorting

The original tag stays but its use is narrowed to mortgages. Shorting is more often used for stocks. If we changed the tagging, and I agree with Chris we should, this is what I'd prefer (at least at the moment...).

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  • The Option 2 Sounds better; Short Selling Mortgages & Short Selling Stocks ... Shorting-stock to me doesn't sound right.
    – Dheer
    Commented Jun 16, 2011 at 5:38
  • When it comes to stock options, the way its most often described in general conversation is to "take a short position" or to "go short", or as an action, simply "shorting". As such, shorting-stock seem appropriate, or maybe short-position-stock.
    – jrista
    Commented Jun 16, 2011 at 22:21

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