# The new [0.999] tag

Some one has decided to create a new tag for the whole (0.999) questions, and then tag 13 questions within a short time.

I've left that user a comment regarding this behavior, but I wanted to raise the question whether or not we need that tag at all? Is (0.999) a reasonable tag?

• No. It is not. It is not even correctly typed: the questions to which it is applied generally concerns the repeating $0.\overline{99}$ and not the number $999 / 1000$. It probably should be merged into number-systems. But I haven't looked carefully at all 13 to see if there are any exceptions. – Willie Wong Nov 21 '13 at 13:43
• Maybe the little-used decimal-expansion is a better merge target. – user642796 Nov 21 '13 at 13:56
• @Arthur: I think it might be wise just to nuke the tag and go on. It seems mostly about $0.\bar9=1$. And I mean, how many questions are we going to have on the topic which are not duplicate? Like five or six? All the rest could be reduced back to those and the plethora of answers they have received. – Asaf Karagila Nov 21 '13 at 13:58
• I think that we do not need this tag. The only use it has is to collect all these questions and, if not burn them, then at least close all but the first as duplicates. – Jyrki Lahtonen Nov 21 '13 at 22:01
• @Jyrki: Should we also shoot the authors of these questions as well, or perhaps just cut off their fingers would suffice? :-) – Asaf Karagila Nov 21 '13 at 22:03
• @AsafKaragila Cutting of $0.\bar{9}$ fingers will suffice. – N. S. Nov 22 '13 at 0:19
• I think you mean $0.\overline{9}$ finger. – Joel Reyes Noche Nov 22 '13 at 0:58
• This question needs a $(0.999)$ tag too. – Lord Soth Nov 22 '13 at 1:49
• In response to the concern raised by @WillieWong I suggest we change the tag to (1.000). – Karl Kroningfeld Nov 22 '13 at 7:15
• @ArthurFischer: That sounds fine. One of us should go ahead and do the merge. – Willie Wong Nov 22 '13 at 8:54
• @Willie: I yearn for the days where moderators could have just deleted a tag... – Asaf Karagila Nov 22 '13 at 11:06
• @WillieWong, when I attempted to create the tag "0.999..." the dots got deleted and the tag "0.999" was created instead. The questions mostly concern the issue why the string "0.999..." evaluates to 1. In other words, the string itself is the issue and not the real number it evaluates to. Thus renaming it "1.000" is not too informative. Having such a tag will make future duplications on this subject easier to spot. – Mikhail Katz Nov 25 '13 at 15:17
• @user72694: The point is that there are generally two or three non-isomorphic questions, and those were asked and are easy to find. – Asaf Karagila Nov 25 '13 at 15:24
• @user72694: see Jyrki's comment. I somehow doubt users would be so kind as to tag their questions 0.999 is it becomes clear that that tag just collects duplicates. Much easier to just write up a canonical answer on the subject and tag it as (faq), and close all trivial permutations of it as duplicate. – Willie Wong Nov 25 '13 at 16:20
• @user72694: This is why I said that the majority of the questions are isomorphic to a small handful of questions which are easy to find. I do agree there are a few other interesting questions, but not enough to merit a whole dedicated tag. – Asaf Karagila Nov 25 '13 at 16:51

## 3 Answers

In view of the discussion and vote counts above, I have merged (0.999) into . The choice of target tag is due to

1. Arthur's much upvoted comment above.
2. 10 of the 13 questions using the tag already uses , so this is the minimally disruptive way of removing the tag.

No way. This is a micro-interest tag. It is not worthy of a category on this forum. We all know that some base expansions are just not unique. We all get over this.

• An optimist, are you? – dfeuer Dec 4 '13 at 13:35
• When I see a great pile of horse-dung, I keep digging until I find the pony. – ncmathsadist Jan 26 '14 at 1:18

The only advantage I see to having a tag like this is that I can add it to my 'ignored tags' list.