There are currently no external users with enough reputation to even suggest new tags and/or synonyms yet the site is in Beta which is the perfect time to build such framework items.
Wouldn't it make sense to lower the thresholds for at least suggesting such items during the (private) Beta phase of the site.
Currently the tag creation threshold is quite low; as per the privileges page:
150 create tags Add new tags to the site
which if you look at the main SO privileges page you see it is significantly reduced (ie by a factor of ten):
1500 create tags Add new tags to the site
Any external users if they have a reasonable level of respectability will start of with 101 rep here; getting 50 rep is very easy - one good answer basically. So I see no need or benefit to even consider lowering it at all.
If a user with less rep than 150 wants to tag something they can just put it in as a notation at the bottom of their question and a user with sufficient privileges will get to it pretty quick - if it took more than 2 hours I would be very surprised.
I don't think any change is necessary.
We actually don't want "external" users coming in here with no idea how to use the site and messing up the taxonomy of tags. However during beta the thresholds are already very low to earn the prigs to do this.
If you are completely new to Stack Exchange you will need to earn 150 rep points an order to add tags. This can be done with just a handful of posts and that should give enough time to get the basic hang of things.
On the other hand if you come from any other stack exchange site where you have 200 rep already the system assumes you know some of the basic ropes so it fast forwards you 100 points. That leaves just 50 you need to earn in a now community that you just dropped into the first time. That is already VERY low.
These will go up after we get out beta and have more established taxonomy practices.
