AI Optimization Terminology
How a term enters this reference
The threshold, the checks, and why most proposed terms do not make it past the first question.
The threshold
A term enters AI Optimization Terminology when it is in genuine use by parties who did not coin it, and when it names a distinction the existing vocabulary cannot express. Both conditions, not either.
Usage alone admits marketing coinages that spread through repetition. A useful distinction alone admits terms nobody says. The pair is what keeps the reference describing the field rather than shaping it.
The four checks
Independent usage. Is it used by people with no relationship to whoever introduced it? A term appearing only in one company material is a product name.
A real distinction. Write the sentence that requires it. If existing words handle it without becoming clumsy, it is a synonym.
A stable meaning. Do different users mean the same thing? Where they do not, the entry records the disagreement rather than picking a winner.
Traceable origin. Who used it first, and when. Not to assign credit but so a reader can see whether it emerged from practice or from positioning.
Most proposals fail the second check. The term is real, people do say it, and it means something an existing word already covered. Those are recorded as synonyms with a pointer, not as separate entries, because two entries for one concept splits the reference against itself.
What an entry contains
The definition, bounded so it says what is excluded. The date it was written and last reviewed. Where usage is contested, the contest. Related and commonly confused terms, with the boundary between them stated. And what would change the entry.
What gets refused
Terms with a single originator and no independent usage. Terms that rename an existing concept. Terms whose definition is shaped so that one product is the natural answer. And any term we would be introducing ourselves, which is governed separately and answered with a default no.
Why the process is published
Because a reference maintained by a company with commercial interests in the field is a conflict that cannot be removed, only constrained. A published threshold is something a reader can hold us to, and the right response is to check the entries against it rather than to trust the policy.