# Should the tag (fractions) be a synonym of (rational-numbers)?

I have noticed that in the list of suggested synonyms there is a suggestion to synonymize and . See also here.

I am not sure this is a good idea. For example, I can imagine question tagged as + (if it is a question about a limit of the type $f(x)/g(x)$), but if the same question would be automatically retagged to +, it would look strange to me.

I would like to know the opinion of other MSE users whether they consider this tag synonym to be reasonable.

I did not find some older discussion about this on meta, but I found this discussion in chat.

• A also oppose synonymization of these. – GEdgar Dec 23 '13 at 14:33
• I think they should not be synonyms. Not only because of the syntax vs. semantics difference, but also because the term "fraction" is used in many other fraction fields besides $\Bbb Q$. – Gone Dec 24 '13 at 0:01
• I'm against this too. When a post is appropriate for the tag fraction, it usually falls into following cases: \begin{align} 1.& \text{elementary - i.e. for students who haven't touched the concept of rational number.}\\ 2.& \text{specific - i.e some specific subset/representation of rational numbers. e.g. Egyptian fractions.}\\ 3.& \text{others - constructs that has nothing to do with rational numbers, e.g field of fractions.}\end{align} IMHO, the overlap of the applicable domain for these two tags are pretty small. – achille hui Dec 26 '13 at 12:38
• I agree with Gerald, Bill, and Achille, and would like to add that having looked over some of the articles tagged fractions, I saw that many of them were concerned with manipulation of expressions of the form $A\over B$, and had nothing at all to do with rational numbers. – MJD Dec 29 '13 at 3:58
• Shouldn't we remove the pending synonym proposal? – Bart Michels Mar 23 '15 at 12:07
• @barto I am not sure whether something like that is possible. The users with score 5 or higher in (rational-numbers) tag can downvote the proposal. (I cannot vote - I do not have enough upvotes in the particular tag.) It says that: Suggestions will be automatically deleted when they reach a score of -2. (To be approved, they need score of 4.) – Martin Sleziak Mar 23 '15 at 12:41
• Mod-votes are binding there too. – quid Jun 16 '15 at 15:07
• After the synonym between the two tags was created, a post requesting the removal of the synonym was posted in the tag-management thread. However, a separate post on this question might have more visibility. – Martin Sleziak Jun 24 '15 at 8:26

Since it might not be entirely clear what the votes on the question mean (e.g., some user might just vote +1 = it is a good thing to bring up), I will post a separate answer where users can vote whether they are for or against the synonym.

Vote for this answer if you think that should not be a synonym of .

• Does the fact only one of the answers CW mean something? – Asaf Karagila Jun 24 '15 at 22:26
• I wanted to mark both of them CW. I must have forgotten to check the box. – Martin Sleziak Jun 24 '15 at 22:48
• Well, I hope that you didn't shoot Kevin Spacey after checking what was in the box! :-P – Asaf Karagila Jun 24 '15 at 22:51
• I have marked this answer as accepted after the tag-synonym was removed by a moderator. – Martin Sleziak Jul 7 '15 at 21:28

Since it might not be entirely clear what the votes on the question mean (e.g., some user might just vote +1 = it is a good thing to bring up), I will post a separate answer where users can vote whether they are for or against the synonym.

Vote for this answer if you think that should be a synonym of .

• Please don't do this, Rings of fractions exist not only for $\,\Bbb Z,\,$ so it makes no sense to restrict the meaning of fractions in this way. – Gone Jun 24 '15 at 14:08
• @Asaf Possibly. One should also consider the closely related (localization) tag. – Gone Jun 24 '15 at 23:30