# Do we need a [foundations] tag?

Do we need a tag? I removed one from a question yesterday, and it appeared on another sometimes later.

I'm not sure whether or not they are actually useful, but since some people do think they might be, I figured a meta thread is in order.

Edit:

Okay, it seems that the general notion is learning towards indifference and favouring keeping the tag. That's fine. But I think we should decide what should be in it.

Someone had asked a question about proving the existence and uniqueness of remainders in division of natural numbers. Clearly not a foundational issue as most mathematician would think of it.

I propose that we rename the tag to or some other $\leq25$-letters variation that will tell newcomers that this is tag for foundational issues, and not "elementary" issues from the first steps in mathematics.

The second thing, I think, is that we need to get some general notion of what fits under this tag. Borderline philosophical questions? "How to develop X within Y"? What is the best beer for set theoretical work? And so on.

• FWIW, I added the tag to the new question because I didn't notice that you removed the other one. I don't have an opinion on whether we need a foundations tag; I figured that "assuming foundations is a good tag, this question would be a perfect fit for that tag". – Willie Wong Feb 27 '13 at 23:09
• @Willie: Some comments on that edit maybe? :-) – Asaf Karagila Mar 8 '13 at 9:04
• I don't see how (foundations-of-math) is suppose to be better at explaining what it is compared to (foundations). For those who don't know about foundations, the two tags are likely to mean the same (wrong) thing. For those who do know, the two tags are likely also to mean the same (right) thing. A good tag wiki is a must, though I am not convinced that changing the tag name will help much. – Willie Wong Mar 8 '13 at 9:54
• It also doesn't help that the Wikipedia article does not quite capture what we think of as foundational issues. Do you have a good two sentence summary of what a foundational issue is that can be understood by a layperson? – Willie Wong Mar 8 '13 at 9:56
• @Willie: That's a tough cookie. How about "Mathematical foundations is the development of mathematics within mathematics itself." or something like that? – Asaf Karagila Mar 8 '13 at 10:16

• Would you consider the sort of "How to prove $1+1=2$?" questions as [foundations]? They do bother with the foundations of mathematics, but... differently. – Asaf Karagila Mar 8 '13 at 23:42