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There is a regular stream of questions asking for limits by elementary means - "without l'Hopital" (I've omitted the accent) - would this be a viable tag for questions?

My doubt is that it simply won't be used because people won't imagine such a thing could exist. On the other hand it would gather together a collection of similar questions, and might assist in the identification of duplicates.

Having read comments, here is a more concrete suggestion (is there a more concise description?)

limit-elementary-continuous

Limits of continuous functions without the use of calculus or related methods. In particular the evaluation of limits without using L'Hôpital's rule, and the limits of rational functions.

Elementary indicates no calculus allowed. Continuous avoids application of the tag to elementary limits of sums and series

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    $\begingroup$ It doesn't have to be the OP who tags the question with that tag. It should be enough if there are several people who know about it and are ready to add it when needed. $\endgroup$
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 20:05
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    $\begingroup$ If it exists, it could be named (limits-without-lhospital), which has 24 characters. This way it will be automatically suggested when the users begins typing (limits). @JoonasIlmavirta In theory, yes. In practice, the tags that are not intuitive enough for the OP to add are either not used, or misused. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 20:13
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    $\begingroup$ @CareBear, true. I always forget that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is... More seriously: Since tags are suggested in the order of frequency, it might be a good idea to add the new tag retroactively to some old posts to bring it higher. There are not many tags beginning with "limit" now, but it shouldn't be hard to bring it to top-3 where it's most visible. $\endgroup$
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 20:21
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    $\begingroup$ @JoonasIlmavirta I even have a proposal (with no support yet) that would help a bit: rename the (limit-theorems) tag. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 20:27
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    $\begingroup$ One perk of creating this tag is that we could subsequently ignore it. $\endgroup$
    – Antonio Vargas
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 22:38
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    $\begingroup$ How bout (inhopitable-limits)? :) $\endgroup$
    – Alexander Gruber Mod
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 23:25
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    $\begingroup$ I'd think that "limits without l'Hopital" would fall under the "alternative-proof" tag. $\endgroup$
    – Semiclassical
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 0:53
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    $\begingroup$ @Semiclassical: It would also fall under "calculus", but that doesn't mean we can't get more specialized tags. $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 7:27
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    $\begingroup$ In the concrete suggestion just added it says "no calculus". But many of the "without l'Hopital" limits are still solved with calculus, e.g., using Taylor polynomials, or the definition of the derivative. $\endgroup$
    – Jonas Meyer
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 21:49
  • $\begingroup$ @JonasMeyer That needs a rethink then - it isn't at all easy to capture the idea in a useful way. $\endgroup$
    – Mark Bennet
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 21:51
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    $\begingroup$ I don't understand the meaning of "Limits without the use of calculus". If one is finding a limit, one is doing calculus, because the concept of limit is a part of calculus. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 23:12
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    $\begingroup$ Does the suggested tag entail also the questions which are currently tagged as (epsilon-delta)? (If I read "limits without l'Hopital", then this seems to be substantially different from (epsilon-delta). If I read "limits using elementary means", then this description could include also the (epsilon-delta) type of questions.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 7:07
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    $\begingroup$ @AlexanderGruber I'd prefer the accent being written out as the "s" it replaces. So, (inhospitable-limits), which might leak over to travel.stackexchange.com ;) $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Oct 7, 2014 at 12:20

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More of an announcement than an answer (I'm quite undecided about the tag suggestion as a whole, but am not really active in any related tags), but a tag has recently been created. It currently has a tag excerpt but not a tag wiki, and only a few questions have been so tagged.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks, we'll see how it goes. $\endgroup$
    – Mark Bennet
    Commented Oct 4, 2014 at 20:49
  • $\begingroup$ @MarkBennet: I don't really want to admit it, but I didn't actually do anything apart from posting this answer. Someone created the tag, I saw it in the list of new tags, I remembered this thread, and decided to post an answer instead of either posting a comment or editing the question. (So any thanks is entirely undeserved.) $\endgroup$
    – user642796 Mod
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 18:24
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    $\begingroup$ I created the tag based on this thread, actually. I didn't know what to write for the tag wiki at the time and figured someone more attuned to such things could do a much better than I ever could. $\endgroup$
    – Cameron Williams
    Commented Oct 7, 2014 at 16:53

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