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New year, new tag management thread.

Rules of the game are basically the same:

  • Post your suggestion as an answer here if you see
    • A particularly bad tag (a rule of thumb: “if I can't imagine a person classifying a tag as either interesting or ignored, I'm getting rid of it”),
    • A tag that should be a synonym of an existing one,
    • A tag that used for two or more completely unrelated things,
    • A need to create a new tag.
  • Upvote/downvote/comment as your agree/disagree with suggestions, so please post different suggestions in separate answers.
  • Wait a couple of days before implementing a suggestion.
  • After the problem described in an answer is resolved, please edit it to say so.
  • If your tag suggestion exists in a separate question, please provide a link to the question in your suggestion.

See also:

Also, note that one may use [tag:calculus] for , i.e. tags on the main site, and [meta-tag:discussion] for , i.e. for tags on the meta site.

Note that, in some cases, it might be better to have a separate question. Typically this happens when a longer discussion is needed and several possible answers are expected, since answers to a question provide more space for a more detailed discussion than comments under an answer in this thread.

Previous tag management threads:

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    $\begingroup$ I will just mention that the list in the question will show a pending synonym only to users with sufficient score to vote for (or against) the synonym. Still, one can get list of all pending synonyms from SEDE: main, meta. (Keeping in mind that the database is only updated once a week.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Jan 20 at 16:20

12 Answers 12

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Proposal: Delete tag .

This is a useless tag. It is only on two questions and is reminiscent of the old 'homework' tag.

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    $\begingroup$ Actually, the tags called (math-school) and (school-math) have been created and removed a few times already. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Jan 31 at 15:16
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    $\begingroup$ I edited it off those questions. It should be gone soon. $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Feb 1 at 2:09
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I propose the tag Fractional-differential-equations (FDE). They are increasingly becoming important. To give a flavor of its importance I'm including an article in which the Covid pandemic was studied with FDE: Application of piecewise fractional differential equation to COVID-19 infection dynamics - 2022 - Xiao-Ping Li et.al.

The tags ordinary-differential equation, and partial-differential-equation already exist. Some fractional calculus questions do not deal with fractional differential equations, while other questions do, therefore showing the difference is important. Second, I had to tag my question Fractional Bernoulli equation and logistic function with the incorrect tag ordinary-differential-equation, to explain that the question dealt with differential equations; but the tag I added is misleading if one is searching for the subject of fractional differential equations and excludes questions dealing with ordinary differential equations.

Suggestion for Tag excerpt is: Everything involving fractional calculus (FC) differential equations: in practical application of FC differential equations; in pure mathematics; numerical methods for the resolution of FDE; dynamical systems; fractional partial differential equations; FDE of distributed order; boundary value problems for FDE; techniques for studying FDE; in a variety of subjects ranging from mathematical physics to probability theory.

Perhaps my suggestion could be split in two, using the extensive enumeration of problems for the wiki.

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  • $\begingroup$ What's next? I can't create it myself. $\endgroup$
    – gciriani
    Mar 20 at 21:35
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    $\begingroup$ Right, that privilege requires 1000 reputation. I've taken up your request in the tagging chatroom. There are already forty posts that combine fractional-calculus and ordinary-differential-equations tags, so I'm inclined to accept that a critical mass of material can benefit from your new tag. I'll keep you informed. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Mar 21 at 0:24
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    $\begingroup$ If creation of this tag is considered, do you have a suggestion what the tag-excerpt and the tag-wiki should look like. (If you do have some suggestion, you could include it in your answer - or at least edit them after the tag is created.) BTW here is a link to a few related comment in the tagging chatroom. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Mar 25 at 6:59
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak, I've edited the answer to include excerpt and wiki suggestions, yesterday. How long does the process of adding a new tag take? How do I find out? Or do I have to try editing each day my post to see if the tag is available? $\endgroup$
    – gciriani
    Mar 29 at 16:45
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    $\begingroup$ The tag fractional-differential-equations has been created, using your suggested text for the tag excerpt. I also wrote up a tag wikia with some links to definitions, etc. It seems to me that the new tag should not exclude tags for ordinary differential equations or partial differential equations, since fractional derivatives may arise in either univariate or multivariate contexts (and my wikia text reflects that). $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Apr 2 at 3:44
  • $\begingroup$ @hardmath, you're right, re ODE and PDE. Thanks for letting me know. $\endgroup$
    – gciriani
    Apr 5 at 16:46
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Proposal: Either delete and blacklist the tag or make it a synonym of

It seems that the tag is used for (1) derivatives or (2) accidentally while trying to type a longer tag such as or or (3) "infinitesimal" differentials. The tag wiki is about multivariate derivatives. This tag was already a problem in 2015. There are 1500+ questions with the tag and 150+ questions of those have no other tags. Another 64, as of now, are tagged with and which probably also need to be retagged.

After going through the oldest 125 questions, the situation seems to be worse than I thought. About 3/4 should be split about half-and-half between differential-equations (mostly ordinary but some partial) and derivatives. The would probably not be completely misplaced on many of the differential equations questions, especially since almost all of them are properly tagged with or , but it also doesn't seem super relevant. Most of the other 1/4 also could take but are probably better suited to , or .

Around 10% of the 125 questions I went through are actually about possible definitions of differentials, line elements etc. I do think it makes sense to tag these with but maybe some version of the tag is worth keeping around. @MJD suggested for a rename.

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  • $\begingroup$ Oldest was more convenient than sampling randomly, and obvious caveats: (1) I had to use my subjective judgment (2) no clue how well these proportions approximate those for all 1500+ questions. $\endgroup$
    – ronno
    Apr 16 at 19:17
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    $\begingroup$ What if differential were renamed to differentials? $\endgroup$
    – MJD
    Apr 20 at 22:44
  • $\begingroup$ @MJD I like that as the tag for questions about differentials. But only renaming won't solve the "differential geometry" problem. $\endgroup$
    – ronno
    Apr 21 at 5:36
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    $\begingroup$ I agree it doesn't solve all problems. But it solves some. And I think we do need a tag for it, because it is a topic that comes up regularly. $\endgroup$
    – MJD
    Apr 21 at 13:33
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    $\begingroup$ Surveying questions with the tag is necessarily going to be biased against questions where the tag is appropriate. That methodology ignores all the questions that should have the tag but don't. For example, math.stackexchange.com/questions/200393/… and most of the 52 (!!) questions linked to it should have the differentials tag. But only two of them do have this tag. $\endgroup$
    – MJD
    Apr 25 at 17:11
  • $\begingroup$ @MJD That's a very good point. But that exhibits an even greater discrepancy between how the tag is used and how it's "meant to be" used. Maybe if we rename it to "differentials", we can also mention it in the infinitesimals wiki? $\endgroup$
    – ronno
    Apr 25 at 17:45
  • $\begingroup$ I don't know what I think is the best thing to do here. I'm skeptical that anyone reads tag wikis. $\endgroup$
    – MJD
    Apr 25 at 19:10
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Proposal: Add tag witt-vectors.

There are quite a few existing questions about Witt vectors, and most of them are tagged with some combination of , , , , , and so on. Witt vectors are a rather specific construction, so I don't feel that any of these generic tags really does these questions justice.

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I propose that ⟶ or ⟶ .

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    $\begingroup$ I like "coercive-functions"; that's the first tag I'd try searching for if I were posting a related question. When I taught this material a few years ago, I'm pretty sure the word "coercivity" never came out of my mouth. $\endgroup$
    – Misha Lavrov
    May 7 at 21:59
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Proposal: Delete . I just created this tag but Elliot Yu pointed out rightly in a comment here that it is ambiguous. To solve this, I just created the better tag , which is unambiguous. Because of the existence of the latter, the former doesn't serve any purpose anymore.

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Proposal: Add tag dual-numbers.

Although the dual numbers are a well-known hypercomplex number system, there is no tag for the dual numbers in SE (e.g. for this Question). As far as I've seen so far, there are no synonyms for dual numbers too.

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    $\begingroup$ Probably it is worth pointing out that the tag (dual-numbers) was created and removed a few times in the past. I was able to find four questions, they are listed in the tagging chatroom. (I think that the most recent one was precisely the question you linked.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 1 at 17:02
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The tag is quite misleading, and that's why we have seen a lot of questions end with "Is my solution correct?"

We have also seen this type of question come out to be an exact duplicate of some other post. 

Verification of an open-ended question is a threat to the site's policy and shouldn't be encouraged. So I think it's now time to discuss the tag .

My recommendation is to replace the tag by a better one that emphasises the meaning of the tag in a better way, and that forces OP to think about the end line as "is the $\underline{}$ step correct?" or "have I applied the result, theorem, or lemma in the $\underline{}$ step correctly?" To expect more specificity, we should make our tag more specific. 

or

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Proposal: Make a synonym of . All problems about this are sure to be about expected value or probability.

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  • $\begingroup$ I created a tag synonym proposal for this. $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Feb 1 at 6:11
  • $\begingroup$ Why did people downvote the tag-synonym? $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Feb 1 at 16:01
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    $\begingroup$ If a question about dice is about probability, it should tagged probability. Dice is just a funny unnecessary additional tag, like Cards or Coins. I think there is nothing wrong in it given it is not used instead of probability. $\endgroup$
    – kludg
    Feb 6 at 10:12
  • $\begingroup$ There are some 100K questions with the tag probability. Why not use dice to narrow things down? Moreover, have you tried searching for [combinatorial-game-theory] dice? $\endgroup$
    – Rodrigo de Azevedo
    May 5 at 14:28
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Proposal: Make a synonym of . All problems about this are sure to be about expected value or probability.

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    $\begingroup$ Some older posts related to the tag (birthday): The birthday tag and Tag merging and synonyms. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 1 at 5:58
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak I created a tag synonym proposal for this. $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Feb 1 at 6:11
  • $\begingroup$ I see, maybe you should include a link to the list of proposed synonyms for problability. In the list of all tag synonyms on can see that it was proposed in December 2022. The same information can be obtained from SEDE. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 1 at 6:58
  • $\begingroup$ @mathlander, did you see the "Wait a couple of days before implementing a suggestion" in the rules? $\endgroup$
    – Peter Phipps
    Feb 1 at 9:00
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    $\begingroup$ @PeterPhipps As far as I can tell, the OP suggested the synonym already on December 2 - about two months before this post. It seems that in the meantime, the suggestion was downvoted to $-2$ and removed. (But it was there today - and it is still shown in SEDE.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 1 at 11:15
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    $\begingroup$ Again, I think this is unwise. There are 100K questions with the tag probability. Making questions harder to find via synonymization is regress, not progress. $\endgroup$
    – Rodrigo de Azevedo
    May 6 at 12:32
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Given the existence of the tag , I propose that the tag be created.

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I think that at least 1 new tag for questions based on Bourbaki's math' treatises is needed, especially for their measure theory which is practically another subject than what is found under that title elsewhere. This is not always a problem, but it can be, due to different definitions - one can often "identify" corresponding concepts, but this may be invalid in some cases.

Too bad that there are still so many anti-bourbaki-ists among mathematicians. I myself am not a Bourbaki fanatic but appreciate much of their publications (Bourbaki is not an individual but a name for a group of mathematicians with variable membership, they publish in French) - not being a fanatic I sometimes want to study math' literature based on foundations possibly conflicting with Bourbaki's, and then I may have problems to "integrate" such literature with what I learned from Bourbaki. This is especially the case with measure theory which is never a simple thing. That's why it happens that if one of my questions gets attention, I can receive answers / comments not fitting my needs and when I indicate that I am using other definitions, the potential answerers lack the needing bases, so I get no usable answer. While on the other hand people with a Bourbaki background - if there are at all some using this site ... despite the language barrier which might also play a role - will not look into my questions if they have no reason to think I might have a compatible background.

Without a corresponding tag I have to mention this background in the title of such questions. I have already edited the title of one of them (call it X) - for which I eventually found and published myself an answer. In my opinion this justifies the creation of Bourbaki-related tags, especially one like [Bourbaki-measure-theory] ... I cannot do this myself, not having yet the priviledge needed. The already mentioned Q&A item X could be used to create the new tag. If my idea gets a priori approval I'll produce content for the description of the tag.

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  • $\begingroup$ My proposal has been immediately been down-voted. Is this a rational reaction or one based on hate of Bourbaki? $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 8 at 0:21
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    $\begingroup$ Can you expand on why mentioning this in the title is insufficient? Titles are generally more widely read than the tags, and being clear about the setup for problems here at MSE is something that we already encourage quite a lot. $\endgroup$
    – KReiser
    Feb 8 at 2:15
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    $\begingroup$ The tag (bourbaki) was created and removed in the past, I have posted some statistics in the Tagging chatroom. There is a related post in an older tag management thread. (And there was a separate question today - now deleted: I want at least one new tag for questions specific to Bourbaki's math' treatises, especially measure theory.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 8 at 5:04
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak the target of the last links (a now deleted question) was mine. After receiving a duplicate mention and realizing that I was supposed to enter my proposal here (and doing this) I deleted that myself. From another of your links, I found written: "The tag [bourbaki] is entirely useless. It gives nothing that searching "Bourbaki" doesn't already do". How is such a search done? Is it only finding Bourbaki when mentioned in a title? And who might do that? IMHO the same argument might apply to all tags ... so why tags at all? (continued) $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 8 at 14:52
  • $\begingroup$ I take the opportunity to mention that I did not find how to search for 2+ tags at the same time (combined with AND) Is this possible, if yes, how is it done? Same question for a tag and a non-tag word $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 8 at 14:56
  • $\begingroup$ @KReiser I will not answer your question for the moment, because I logically wait for answers to the two comments I just made $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 8 at 14:59
  • $\begingroup$ @UlysseKeller The basics of searching are unrelated to the discussion here - in order to avoid a long discussion unrelated to this topic, I posted some examples of possible searches in chat. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 8 at 15:00
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    $\begingroup$ "My proposal has been immediately been down-voted. Is this a rational reaction or one based on hate of Bourbaki?" Votes on meta work differently. An upvote means "I agree with this suggestion," while a downvote means "I disagree with this suggestion". Downvotes on meta have no effect on reputation. There is no reason to read "hate" into these votes. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Feb 9 at 17:42
  • $\begingroup$ @KReiser My little question to Martin a few comments above got no answer yet. I mean this: IMHO the same argument might apply to all tags ... so why tags at all? Once this is answered, I will be able to form a new opinion on your Q. Can you expand on why mentioning this in the title is insufficient? (or not - depending on that answer) $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 9 at 17:57
  • $\begingroup$ @XanderHenderson I clearly said "hate of Bourbaki" not of my person. Don't identify me with B. $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 9 at 18:03
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    $\begingroup$ There are issues of scale here. It's good to separate analysis and algebra by tag: they are large, distinct areas of math where many people will want to look at one instead of the other. Sometimes, as the resolution increases, this can be a more interesting ask - do we need to separate questions on Dummit and Foote's algebra text versus Fraleigh's algebra text? Probably not. Where does your request fall on this continuum and why? $\endgroup$
    – KReiser
    Feb 9 at 19:18
  • $\begingroup$ @KReiser May-be a Bourbaki tag is really useless for nearly every situation where Bourbaki plays a role. BUT the case of measure theory is special: Bourbaki's and the classical MTs are like two different theories because at the start they differ wildly and much has to be done until what comes later is more or less the same. At the base the terminologies are not compatible; this problem ends only once the theories allow identifications (an abuse of language normally accepted because it simplifies things). But here things are not even 1 to 1 (continued) $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 9 at 21:23
  • $\begingroup$ (my last comment cont.) Bourbaki-style measures on a given l. c. space build a vector space. The difference of two positive measures in (say) Halmos may not exist. You can't even say that for $\mu$ = the Lebesgue measure on the real line, then $\mu - \mu = 0$ ... because this difference is undefined due to the essentially undefined charachter of oo - oo. And some Bourbaki-style non >=0 or complex measures have no counterpart in Halmos-style. This could be solved by some changes on the Halmos side, but this might be even more complicated than I first thought due to a detail I found @ Halmos $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 9 at 21:46
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    $\begingroup$ @UlysseKeller I do not think that you should read any hate into the downvotes, either for yourself, or for Bourbaki. That simply isn't what votes here mean. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Feb 16 at 17:29
  • $\begingroup$ The problem ImhO are other people knowing Bourbaki - espec. their measure theory (MT) - who'd look here for answers & give answers ONLY IF they know that Bourbaki MT is ALSO a theme here (I think esp. about French lang. people with sufficient English-knowledge) ... the any way little chances would be better if they see a tag like say [Bourbaki-measure] ... after what has already been discussed here I don't imagine getting a general Bourbaki tag but only 1 for MT, for which it is like ANOTHER SUBJECT altogether (not the name B. is what matters but the special subject best described by using it) $\endgroup$
    – Ulysse Keller
    Feb 21 at 9:50

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