I believe that if a question is correctly tagged, it may be very useful to all users of the site, since it makes finding questions much easier. Another advantage is that users can easily follow questions from their area of interest.

Tag-wikis are helpful in tagging question correctly, in particular, for some tags that seem ambiguous, tag-excerpt and tag-wiki usually explain the intended usage.

Often a tag is created without a tag-wiki and when someone later tries to create a tag-wiki he is not sure about some details or the intended usage. I've open this thread precisely for this kind of questions. (Of course, some tags with unclear meanings may deserve wider discussion and it is better to open a new question for such tags.)

EDIT: Perhaps to explain better what I intended as a purpose of this post (and also to address this comment). Editing tag-wikis is somewhat different from editing posts. When a post is edited (to improve TeX, formatting, to retag or for any other reasons), it is bumped and the edit is visible to many users. Similarly, if a new tag is created, it appears here. Even if some user edits a post with best intention, it is good that other users see his edit and can check it. (And if they disagree with the edit, they can do whatever is needed.)

But when a tag-wiki is edited, there is nothing similar which would attract attention to it. So this thread was intended for something along the lines: I've edited the following tag-wiki... I did my best, but since I am not entirely sure, I'd be glad if someone checks my work.

So basically when something new appears in this thread, it serves as a notification that some tag-wiki was edited, and perhaps some of the users will check the edit. (I don't say that all edits to tag-wikis should be collected here, only the ones where the editor thinks that it would be good if his work was checked by other users.)

• BTW there is a separate question about tag-wikis for tags at meta.math.SE. – Martin Sleziak Jul 31 '12 at 8:44
• I don't see any "?"... – draks ... Jul 31 '12 at 10:39
• @draks The questions (or doubts/suggestions/whatever) are supposed to be posted in answers. Perhaps this is an abuse of Q&A system, but I thought that it is better than opening a separate thread whenever something like this occurs - similarly as in Tag merging and synonyms. – Martin Sleziak Jul 31 '12 at 10:42
• Why not having such questions as separate questions? I'm not sure I see the benefit of lumping them all into one question. Since the questions can have any topic, it would appear that everyone would ought to check this super-question regularly, and then it just injects an extra layer of indirection between the meta frontpage and the actual questions, for no clear benefit. – hmakholm left over Monica Jul 31 '12 at 21:02
• @HenningMakholm The reason I thought it would be better this way is that I expected many short questions. (There is plenty of tag-wikis to fill in, many similar minor questions can appear while doing that.) I wanted to avoid filling meta with many similar questions. Of course, my expectation might be wrong and I might be wrong in suggesting this is a good way of dealing with them. (I wrote in my post that if some tag needs wider discussion, it would be better to use separate thread.) – Martin Sleziak Aug 1 '12 at 5:25

I've created the tag wiki for . Based on the usage so far it seems that this tag was used only for ideals in rings. So I wrote in both tag-excerpt and tag-wiki:

The name ideal is used in other areas of mathematics too: ideals in set theory and order theory (which are closely related), ideals in semigroups, ideals in Lie algebras. This tag is intended for the use in ring-theoretic sense only, for other notions of ideals use the tag appropriate for the area of mathematics relevant to your question.

Is this ok? Or do you think that tag should be used for other meanings, too?

(I'd prefer not mixing various meanings of the word ideal under the same tag.)

EDIT Based on the suggestions in the comments I've removed the part about using this tag exclusively for ideals in rings.

• Do you also suggest that we separate the various meanings of filter under the filters tag? In my opinion it is best to leave it open to the various meanings, and allow other tags to help provide context to a question. – user642796 Jul 31 '12 at 8:45
• @Arthur About filters - the meanings of filters mentioned in tag-wiki are related. I think it is clear from the tag-wiki that this tag is not used for Kalman filter, to name just one example. But the way I wrote down the tag-wiki for ideals was based mainly on the observation that it was used this way so far. (Although I am not sure whether we have many questions about other meanings of ideal.) Of course, if the feedback will show that this is not ideal, the tag-wiki can be edited to reflect this. – Martin Sleziak Jul 31 '12 at 8:52
• You mention in your proposed tag-excerpt that other uses of "ideal" are closely related to the ring-theoretic one. The only reason I can see in restricting the ideals tag to the ring-theoretic sense, while leaving the filters tag open to various related notions, is the coincidence of how it is currently being used. I'm not certain if this is a good enough reason. The fact that questions may be (and usually should be) given multiple tags to help someone browsing decide whether a question is of interest strengthens, IMHO, my claim that the scope of ideals should not be restricted. – user642796 Jul 31 '12 at 9:30
• BTW: I am almost certain that the feedback will show that this is not ideal (in the ring-theoretic sense). ;) – user642796 Jul 31 '12 at 9:30
• @Arthur In this sentence: The name ideal is used in other areas of mathematics too: ideals in set theory and order theory (which are closely related) I meant that set-theoretical and order-theoretical meaning of the word ideal are related to each other. BTW we have a pots about relation of various meanings of ideal: Are ideals in rings and lattices related? – Martin Sleziak Jul 31 '12 at 9:38
• I am not sure to which extent this situation can be considered similar, but after a discussion here we removed the tag lattices and divided the questions into lattice-orders and integer-lattices so that different meanings are not mixed up. A new tag lattices-in-lie-groups appeared later. – Martin Sleziak Jul 31 '12 at 9:42
• I think I'm with Arthur here. I see no significant difference between the notions (and purposes) of all the kinds of ideals mentioned here (except maybe the notion of order-ideal). I'd leave the tag open to all of them. – t.b. Aug 1 '12 at 9:22

It was recently mentioned in chat that the tag-info for the tag consists basically only of a few links. I have tried to improve it at least a bit, but it would be probably better if somebody who knows more about numerical mathematics had a look at the tag-info. (And there is also a separate question whether this tag is actually worth keeping.)

Some time ago the synonym $\to$ was created. (The synonym itself was discussed here, I'd say that without reaching consensus. And to me also it does not seem entirely clear what is better choice for the master tag. But anyway, the synonym exists.)

But after creating the synonym, the tag-wiki remained unchanged. Since now the tag is both for and , the tag-wiki should reflect that. (After all, the tag-info is the place where users should look for the guidance how to use specific tag.)

It seems that (solution-verification) tag only had one sentence in the tag-excerpt before the synonymization and the tag-info did not contain anything else. (At least I did not find anything more.) I tried to edit the tag-excerpt and the tag-wiki in a way which, hopefully, makes it clear that the tag is not only for proofs. But still, if you have further improvements of the wording of the tag-info, improvements would be more than welcome.