Synonymise [influences] and [inspiration] tags?

Question

The tags influences (23 questions) and inspiration (26 questions) both seem to have roughly the same meaning: they're both for questions about where an SF/F author's ideas came from, what influenced or inspired them to write the things they did. Examples:

• Is James T. Kirk known to be based on Horatio Hornblower? influences

• Was the Hulk based on Jekyll/Hyde? inspiration

• Erebor's architectural influences? influences

• Who are the architects of the buildings on which these fictional buildings were based? inspiration

Shall we synonymise and merge these tags?

They also bear some similarity to the origins tag (now synonymised with the history-of tag), but I think the latter is different enough not to be synonymised: it's more about the history of the genre as a whole, e.g. "where did X first appear in science fiction literature?", whereas the influences/inspiration tags are more about the history of a specific idea, e.g. "where did author X get this idea?" (Admittedly the tag wikis should be edited to make this clear [hint hint] ...)

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Note: PLEASE DO NOT start editing the tags on these questions manually before a consensus is reached here. The community has expressed their disapproval of multiple tag edits cluttering up the front page, and it's entirely unnecessary in this case: if we do agree to merge these tags, we can do the retagging automatically without bumping any questions at all.

Answer 1

Yes, synonymize them.

There is, as you said, almost zero difference between them - they're just two different words.

inspiration should be the one that goes, as it seems to have a slightly smaller scope than influences.

Answer 2

We are now using inspiration for questions about where authors got their inspiration, while using influences on questions about the real world being influenced by SF&F works.

An example of the latter would be the waterbed that couldn't be patented because Heinlein had already described it in Double Star.

This change took place after the initial versions of the tags were merged.