Since both are probability functions, they are synonyms. Since black and white are both colors, they are synonyms. Sorry, I do not agree. It wouldn't bother me except that when I called a pmf a pdf incorrectly, it contributed to a cascade of down votes in a short time. The two colors are related, but the contrast outweighs the similarity.

Tag synonyms are not always 100% synonyms. We often group similar concepts under one umbrella tag. Anyway, as I said, in this particular case I don't have a strong preference. By the way, I downvoted your answer NOT because you confused PDF and PMF. As I said there, I am fine calling PMF a PDF, even if it's a bit sloppy.

As elsewhere, it has been my experience on multiple answers and even on closure votes on questions that unreasonable downvoting occurs like a flock of geese landing on a pond, more of a follow-the-leader activity, a group mind-meld, as starkly contrasted to independent, original, individual thought. What this lacks is the common decency of allowing me to change my answers to account for criticism, when frequently I am the first to respond to a worthy but neglected question.

I do have a strong opinion here. I do not mind sloppy group-think as long as it is not a problem. In this case, i.e., pmf and pdf, it was not only problematic but completely overreacted to by people who know better than doing that.

@Carl: (1) That's not your experience, but your surmise. (2) Your answer was simply wrong, regardless of the slip in terminology. (3) No-one's preventing you from changing it. (4) No harm done - you've a high reputation from your many good questions & answers. (7) Despite our use of the perhaps inapt term 'synonym', the tag wiki quite clearly distinguishes PMFs from PDFs.

@Scortchi It is my experience that downvoting occurs more rapidly than upvoting. I was changing it, just not fast enough and without any real guidance from downvoters. The harm done was permanent as even when whuber deleted my response, at my request BTW as I had my fill of it, the downvotes damage to rep continued because of a bug in software. That is, my answer was accepted so there was no way I could delete it myself. Not just inapt, wrong, and I cannot downvote that, now can I?

@Carl: Your answer got 4 down-votes over 3 hours - rather a small flock of geese descending in leisurely fashion - & you lost 8 rep. points from your total of nearly 5k, which in any case I'm confident will be restored to you when the script for automatic recalculation next runs. Your real reputation is doubtless unaffected - no-one remembers or cares about the odd blunders or misreadings we've all committed from time to time once they're effaced or put right. I submit that you're the one over-reacting: what bothers me is your casting aspersions on the motives of people who ...

... in all likelihood are simply agreeing that the answer is 'not useful'. Anyway, you could suggest a better phrase than 'tag synonym' on Meta Stack Exchange. 'Tag mapping' perhaps? Though the reaction might well be "You're right, but developers have more important things to be doing".

@Scortchi 16 reputation points lost, think will not return; bug in software. Yes, a rather small skein flew up my engine in a short time after days of inactivity and I could not finish what I started. Not casting aspersions, trying to fix stuff. I actually think pdf and pmf are different enough that they are not synonyms. Will propose new structure in detail later, so you can downvote to your heart's content.

@Carl Your inclination to make strong statements accusing other people or in this case even things (software) in wrongdoing without compelling evidence is disconcerting. Why do you claim that there is a bug? You had +15 for having that answer accepted. Then you got -8 for four downvotes. After the answer was deleted, all of that should have been rolled back, leaving you with 15 less than before. You earned yourself additional -1 for downvoting whuber's answer (I presume). That's -16. Where is the bug?

@amoeba, just curious "leaving you with 15 less than before". Wouldn't it be -6 (the net rollback result?), instead of -16? For example: +15 - 1 - 8 = +6 (after rollback, then -6?). meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5221/…

@AndreSilva "Than before" in that sentence meant "than before several days ago". Of course you are right that after the answer was deleted, Carl lost only 6 points. But 9 more he lost shortly before the answer was deleted.

@amoeba 1) Strong statements concerning "other people." I said unreasonable downvoting not "unreasonable people." Another link. This is a concern raised by myself and others that I consider a failing of the democratic process.

A downvote is a rather poor information content communication, that is of low reliability. That is, dowvoting is improperly motivated based on misunderstanding as frequently as it is based on solid concepts.

@amoeba stats.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4783/99274 another one.

@amoeba Ad 2) The bug is that my accepted answer could not be deleted by its creator, me, as I have no moderator privileges. Not the first moderator agreed to delete this. When it was finally deleted (more negative rep later) the points subtracted were not returned by the system upon refresh.

@Carl: (1) That's not a bug - see meta.stackexchange.com/q/5221/225179. (2) You asked in your first flag whether your answer was deleted or not - it wasn't clear from that that you wanted it deleted. (3) You got all the points back that were due to you, as explained above by amoeba.

Guys, it doesn't seem that this discussion leads anywhere. What would you say about stopping in this place?

I accept your Dirac delta and raise you a spherical cow. @Tim Not my bad.