# Are topics in the teaching or popularization of math inappropriate?

Thе question “What are some good ways to get children excited about math?” has been tagged as off-topic.

Do people agree with this characterization? Personally, I think the question could generate substantial answers of interest to those with a general interest in mathematics, many of whom presumably want to share this interest. The question as asked is very broad, so I might hope for better directed questions about math education, but the concern seems, to me, a reasonable one to address to this community.

• I do believe that this is off topic, but at these stages it is the time to look and see what the community things. Let us hope that these off topic tags are not by one person trying to change the world. – Justin L. Jul 20 '10 at 21:50
• I was the one who tagged it as off-topic, but I did not mean off-topic in the sense of not appropriate for this site. I think it's a great question. In fact I raised the issue here about the appropriate name for this tag because I was afraid people would misinterpret my tagging, which I only meant to mark questions that were merely questions about math, rather than being math questions. – Larry Wang Jul 20 '10 at 22:15
• @Kaestur: StackOverflow discourages tagging questions offtopic rather than just discussing it in the comments or flagging the question if it is old – Casebash Jul 20 '10 at 23:21
• @Casebash: Again, I think we have different definitions of 'off-topic' in mind. The question does not need editing or moderator attention. It is simply not a 'math question,' and it is worthwhile for such questions to be tagged accordingly so that people can filter them. – Larry Wang Jul 21 '10 at 0:24
• @Kaestur: Regardless, StackOverflow rejected this and we aren't different enough from them in this regard that we should really change this – Casebash Jul 21 '10 at 0:40
• @Casebash: I saw it as more akin to SO's not-programming-related tag, which does not always merit closure. Probably the tag was bad diction on my part. Anyways, Harry has changed all the tags to read soft-question instead, so this point is moot. – Larry Wang Jul 21 '10 at 5:11
• I see primary and secondary school math teachers as being one of the potential audiences for this site, so this seems like a reasonable question to me. – Neil Mayhew Jul 21 '10 at 13:49
• Note that since this question was asked, matheducators.stackexchange.com has been created. That doesn't affect which questions are on-topic on this site, but it's worth considering which community is likely to give more useful answers before posting questions which overlap the scope of multiple stacks. – Peter Taylor Jul 30 at 8:51