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Please help by writing tag wikis for your favorite tags!

Use answers to this post to suggest tag synonyms.

Finally, if you're a 10k+ user, note how easy it is for you to edit tags now!

Quick tag edit

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    $\begingroup$ I recommend setting up a separate meta post where users propose tag synonyms (example ). The current "vote for synonyms" system is rather obscure and hard to use. $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 17:26
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ OK. Why not this one? $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 17:27
  • $\begingroup$ Because there's a high chance it will get too huge. But that's OK too, just specify "feel free to propose your synonyms as answers here" in the q :) $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 17:28
  • $\begingroup$ I've started creating tag excerpts for some of the tags. Feel free to decline, I'm not entirely sure of some. I may create tag wikis too, though they will be short. An idea tag wiki is a good intro to the topic, with links to common canonical questions and books. $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 17:39
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    $\begingroup$ I declined a few, @Manishearth. I expected you wouldn't be offended but it's nice to hear you confirm. $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 17:45
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, sure :) I'm an outsider here, besides not being a mathematics researcher I have very little knowledge of what sort of questions get asked here. I'm only hanging around because I want to help you guys get back on your (2.0) feet :) So I don't expect to be right in these matters at all. $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 17:47
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ We actually have a huge list of tag merges back at tea, in the sticky thread tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/34/6/tag-mergerename-requests/…. If someone would like to do some archaeology there, and propose a bunch of tag synonyms based on decisions made there, that would be great! $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 19:46
  • $\begingroup$ Does anyone have any template or suggestion for what should go on the extended tag wiki (not the excerpt)? Honestly, I don't even know where to start, as it feels like a wikipedia article. $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2013 at 2:00
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    $\begingroup$ @Ricardo, here is an example from cstheory: cstheory.stackexchange.com/tags/cc.complexity-theory/info $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Jun 27, 2013 at 2:23
  • $\begingroup$ @RicardoAndrade A bit about the topic. Links to great posts on the site on that topic. A list of books, papers, and online resources. $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2013 at 8:49
  • $\begingroup$ For an extreme example, see the php tagwiki on SO $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2013 at 8:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Manishearth: Thanks! That php example is indeed very complete. I will take a look at it when I have the time. $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2013 at 8:58
  • $\begingroup$ No chance to make the simple tag-editing-interface available to non-10k-users as in MO1.0? $\endgroup$
    – The User
    Jun 27, 2013 at 14:06
  • $\begingroup$ @TheUser you need to edit the question as in MO1.0 $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2013 at 14:20
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    $\begingroup$ @FrançoisG.Dorais Iirc there was a “retag”-button very similar the screenshot above (no need to go to a special page for editing). $\endgroup$
    – The User
    Jun 27, 2013 at 15:14

24 Answers 24

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Here’s a few words of advice on writing tag wiki excerpts:

  • The excerpt is the elevator pitch for the tag. You only have ~500 plain text characters for the excerpt, so don’t feel obligated to cover everything in it! Save that for the 30,000+ character Markdown tag wiki. The excerpt should define the shared quality of questions containing this tag — boiled down to a few short sentences.

  • Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is highly specialized. The “email” tag, for example, does not need to explain what email is. I think we can safely assume most internet users know what email is; there’s no value in a boilerplate explanation of email to anyone.

  • Concentrate on what a tag means to your community. For “email” on Server Fault, mention the server aspects of email including POP3, SMTP, IMAP, and server software. For “email” on Super User, mention desktop email clients and explicitly exclude webmail, as that would be more appropriate for webapps.stackexchange.com.

  • Provide basic guidance on when to use the tag. In other words, what kinds of questions should have this tag? Tags only exist as ways of organizing questions, so if we don’t provide proper guidance on which questions need this tag, they won’t get tagged at all, rendering the tag excerpt moot. Think of it as a sales pitch: in a room full of tags screaming “pick me!”, what would convince a question asker to select your tag?

  • Some tags are common knowledge. Most tags require a bit of explanation in the excerpt, even if it’s only 3 or 4 words. But if the tag is common knowledge — that is, if you walked up to any random person on the street and said the tag word to them, and they would know what you were talking about — then don’t bother explaining the tag at all. Stick to usage of the tag within your community in the excerpt.

From Redesigned Tags Page on SE Blog.

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  • $\begingroup$ I'm not quite sure how to take the Avoid generically defining the concept advice. Sure, every internet user knows what e-mail is, but, for most MO tags, not every internet user knows their meaning—probably, for many of them, not even every mathematician does. So maybe they count as "highly specialized". But probably anyone who is asking questions about them does know their meaning. So should one define or not? $\endgroup$
    – LSpice
    Dec 27, 2021 at 15:43
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Some merge/syn suggestion:

and both into (one might want to keep them separate but then one might remove the latter)

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We just got a question tagged and we have (with two closed questions tagged with it).

I think it is not necessary to have separate tags here and one ICMs tag should suffice.

Actually, I do not even think this ICM tag is necessary, should suffice.

The numbers of questions involved here are small, but I rather would like to avoid reactivating the old icm-2010 questions, thus this request for merging or synonyming. (Also I do not want to retag icm-2014 manually if ever there is then opposition to the merge.)

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  • $\begingroup$ I think this is a good suggestion. However, I wonder if a new answer in this thread with lots of other answers still attracts significant attention... $\endgroup$ Oct 17, 2013 at 19:35
  • $\begingroup$ Likely not significant one @RicardoAndrade, but basically it suffices if François G. Dorais (or another moderator) notices. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Oct 17, 2013 at 22:23
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There are tags and , both being used for the two unrelated meanings “partial order with binary suprema and infima” and “discrete subgroup of $\mathbb R^n$”. I’m not sure it’s feasible to sort out the ~300 questions involved, but maybe we could try at least to alleviate the problem for future by deciding which tag is supposed to denote which meaning, renaming them unambiguously, and supplying tag summaries. If not, the tags should be merged.

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  • $\begingroup$ I fully agree. See meta.mathoverflow.net/a/1407/9072 for my version of the proposal. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 26, 2014 at 17:04
  • $\begingroup$ Perhaps lattices-Zn and lattices-minmax might help? This is definitely a case where a short modifier would be useful. Gerhard "Using Algebraic Lattices Is Confusing" Paseman, 2014.06.26 $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2014 at 17:38
  • $\begingroup$ @GerhardPaseman yes something along these lines. However, I would prefer other disambiguations (the usage of Wikipedia seems a good model).// Also it might be worth noting there is a tag euclidean-lattices and also lattice in the alg sense can be used more general than disc subgroups of R^n or someting iso to Z^n. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 26, 2014 at 18:45
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the link, I had a vague recollection this was discussed before, but couldn’t find it. However, @quid, I am quite confused by your comments both here and there. The post tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1375 discusses exactly the same distinction as here (“lattice as an algebraic structure” is the same thing as “lattice as a poset”, just formulated in a different signature). You somehow seem to call “algebraic” what everyone else in the discussion calls “geometric”, or otherwise I can’t make heads or tails of the last sentence in your post here. Could you please clarify? $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2014 at 10:01
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilJeřábek in tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/679/lattices it was suggested by Ryan Budney to have lattice-poset and lattice-subgroup, mentioning Wikipedia, and I agree this is a good idea. I refered to the latter as algebraic (perhaps this is a bad/confusing idea though) and would call geometric only special cases of it, like the one you mention, for which there is more or less a tag already namely euclidean-lattices (though one might generalize the name a bit to point-lattices as suggested in the tea thread you link to). $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 27, 2014 at 10:31
  • $\begingroup$ I should however add that I do not have a fixed opinion here, also what I suggest might still miss out on some lattices in the sense of modules (and I somehow lumped this into the 'algebraic'), and I feel I do not fully oversee the situation. The main point I wanted to make here, in view of your proposal and Gerhard Paseman's comment is that not every use of lattice that is not the partial order meaning is captured well by the second tag proposed, and indeed for what you seem to propose, there mainly is a tag already (namely euclidean-lattices). $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 27, 2014 at 10:48
  • $\begingroup$ That’s not what I want to propose, I want to disambiguate the existing two mixed-up tags into two categories as broad as possible. Above I was just trying to figure out your terminology, so that we are both talking about the same thing, I didn’t mean to restrict the second category to sublattices of $\mathbb R^n$. Ryan Budney’s proposal looks fine to me. “Lattice-poset” is not ideal as more often than not, they are considered as algebraic rather than order-theoretic structures, but in view of your comments, “lattice-subgroup” can also be interpreted as algebraic, so one needs another ... $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2014 at 11:22
  • $\begingroup$ ... word, and “poset” should do the job. Whether “lattice-subgroup” is an adequate description for the second meaning I can’t tell, as I am not much familiar with this field, but if it looks good to you, I’d go with it. $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2014 at 11:26
  • $\begingroup$ I agree this should be the main concern. On second thought lattice-subgroup could have the issue to be read as "lattice of subgroups" , which would be quite unfortuante. Not sure how to call it. Perhaps we could simply use certain languages other than English and the problem will be trivial :-) $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 27, 2014 at 12:22
  • $\begingroup$ Hmm, that’s a good point. Dropping the “sub” might help, but then again, “lattice-group” could be easily misinterpreted as referring to l-groups. Maybe “lattice-module”? (Though that sounds dangerously close to modular lattices. Oh dear.) $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2014 at 13:30
  • $\begingroup$ I only see two questions with lattice-theory tags that involve free abelian groups with quadratic forms. $\endgroup$
    – S. Carnahan Mod
    Jul 1, 2014 at 5:38
  • $\begingroup$ @S. Carnahan: I see three (out of the 29 total, a substantial fraction of which is dual tagged). The real problem is the lattices tag, which contains many questions of both kinds. $\endgroup$ Jul 2, 2014 at 14:47
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    $\begingroup$ I indeed think that lattice-theory should be changed to lattice-ordering. As regards lattices, maybe lattices-discrete-subgroups? it's a bit lengthy but takes into account various ambiguities. It also takes into account the increasing research on discrete subgroups of Lie groups beyond the lattice case. $\endgroup$
    – YCor
    Feb 23, 2019 at 12:02
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I have noticed that the tag is quite often used for questions about dual spaces in functional analysis and linear algebra. However, it's not immediately clear from the tag name that this is intended. (Although the current revision of the tag-excerpt explicitly mentions dual spaces.)

In addition to that, duality is a word which is used in several different - although related - meanings.

I suggest to create a separate tag for questions about dual spaces of vector spaces, linear normed spaces, etc.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning in connection with this that there already exists tag called which might be used in context of functional analysis. (But from the usage it seems that it is used in other meanings, too. The tag-info is empty at the moment.)

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  • $\begingroup$ i'll add that if the consensus is that (duality) should be used for dual spaces, then perhaps creating a synonym (dual-spaces) $\to$ (duality) would be a reasonable thing to do. And the same thing applies if the consensus is that (dual-pairs) is the tag which should be used for questions about dual spaces. $\endgroup$ Aug 27, 2017 at 12:50
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Resolved: There is no longer tag and we have tag. The new name for is now . (After the limit for tag names was increased to 35 characters.)

Tag 'kahler': I was wondering if the tag 'kahler' should be renamed 'kahler-manifolds' (or something like it), so as to make it more descriptive and less prone to confusion. I have browsed through all the questions with the tag 'kahler' and all of them are indeed about Kähler manifolds. This means the renaming would be an easy process, but it may also mean that it is not necessary. Any opinions?

Update: The tag 'kahler' no longer exists and 'kahler-manifolds' now exists in its place.

Tag 'differential-graded-lie-a': Here is another suggestion that may or may not be desired. Due to the character limit for tags, some long tags may become hard to understand. The worst offender I have found so far is 'differential-graded-lie-a' (with only two questions). This could very well be made a synonym of 'dg-lie-algebras' if people think there is a benefit.

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    $\begingroup$ More expressive is an improvement, so I am in favor of the rename; for example, while there is kahler-differentials somebody not aware/not paying attention could easily use kahler for Kähler differentials, too. And, then we'd have a mess. Better to rename while it is easy than to untangle it latter. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jul 24, 2013 at 23:24
  • $\begingroup$ @quid: Do you think creating a synonym 'kahler-manifolds' <--- 'kahler' would be the appropriate action in this case? $\endgroup$ Jul 24, 2013 at 23:32
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    $\begingroup$ I think it should really be renamed (and just kahler should stop to exist). If kahler exists as synonym and somebody would use it instead of kahler-differentials it would somehow even be worse as they'd end up in kahler-manifolds. Or to put it differently why should then kahler be a synonym of kahler-manifolds and not of kahler-differentials instead. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jul 24, 2013 at 23:44
  • $\begingroup$ @quid: One last question due to my ignorance. Do the moderators still have the power to rename tags? $\endgroup$ Jul 24, 2013 at 23:48
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    $\begingroup$ I think so. And looking around at meta.SO somehow confirms this. For example, only some weeks ago there was this meta.stackexchange.com/questions/182097/… Now this rename was declined by a mod there, but on the grounds that it is not good and not that it is in impossible. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jul 25, 2013 at 0:01
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    $\begingroup$ I think I created the kahler tag, and I think your suggestion to rename it kahler-manifolds is a good one. Do you think it should be kahler-manifolds or kähler-manifolds? $\endgroup$ Jul 25, 2013 at 7:28
  • $\begingroup$ @Michael: Are umlauts (or any other accents) even allowed in tags? Even if they are, it might still be best to not use them. Does anyone else have any opinions on the umlauts/accents? $\endgroup$ Jul 25, 2013 at 7:46
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    $\begingroup$ @MichaelAlbanese umlauts and other specal characters do not work in tags; there was a discussion on the old meta if it should be kaehler instead, using the official way to transcribe umlauts, but it was decided to stick to kahler.// On the general question raised by Ricardo Andrade there is this discussion meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/390/spelling-conventions $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jul 25, 2013 at 11:17
  • $\begingroup$ @quid: Do you think it would help to create a new meta thread to discuss renaming of tags such as the ones I proposed in this answer? $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2013 at 6:25
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    $\begingroup$ Once this one becomes too crowed with answers likely a new one could be good. Not sure if this is yet the case. But it seems good it was reactivated by a new answer. What I thought about recently was to create a chat-room for editing/tagging related issues. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Aug 20, 2013 at 12:43
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, @quid. The chat room idea is truly very interesting. I think it could be very useful to allow freer discussion of these issues, which sometimes lead to long discussions in the comments :) . Are you thinking about creating the chat room yourself? Are there any issues to work out first? $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2013 at 22:28
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I thought about creating one since some time. The main issue to work out was if anybody but me would use it. :-) Other than that I think it is relatively straight forward to create a room though I do not know exactly how at this very moment. (But I will check.) $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Aug 21, 2013 at 6:45
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    $\begingroup$ Creating it was rather trivial, so I did it MO editors' lounge. That would have been another issue, a good name...but well we can edit it later :-) $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Aug 21, 2013 at 7:01
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    $\begingroup$ @MichaelAlbanese. It is actually possible to use special characters in tags, but this option is disabled by default. It can be enabled if you ask for it. $\endgroup$
    – TRiG
    Jan 15, 2014 at 20:20
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I suggest to rename the tag in a way which distinguishes it more clearly from .

The tag-info for divisors (revision history) clearly says:

For questions related to divisors in the sense of algebraic geometry (Cartier divisors, Weil divisors and so on). For question on divisors in the number theoretic sense please use the tag divisors-multiples.

Still, some people might not notice the tag-excerpt, and if they look only at the name of the tag they might assume that the words is used in number-theoretic meaning. (For example, the questions which are currently tagged divisors+nt.number-theory are most likely mistagged. And there are a few more examples of questions which originally had (divisors) tag and it was later corrected to (divisors-multiples) tag.)

I am not really sure what would be a good name for the tag. So I'd be grateful if you have some reasonable suggestions in comments.

I would probably suggests simply following the title used in Wikipedia article Divisor (algebraic geometry). I have seen that Ricardo Andrade suggested in chat. Joe Berner mentioned the (already existing) tag , but immediately added also that algebraic cycles and divisors are not the same thing, so these two tags should stay separate. See also his comment below this post.

A few years ago a separate question about divisors tag was posted: What subject specific tags could replace the tag 'divisors'? However, it did not generate much discussion (only two comments).

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  • $\begingroup$ There are two types of divisors, Weil divisors and Cartier divisors. Algebraic cycles generalize (and fully subsume) Weil divisors, but in general Cartier divisors may be different and there is no analogous generalization (to my knowledge). $\endgroup$
    – Joe Berner
    Jan 25, 2018 at 14:58
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Resolved (The tag was created by Taras Banakh a few months ago, since then it has grown to 12 questions and nobody raised any objections to this tag.)

I'd like to propose creation of tag.

To me (as an outsider, but still a bit interested in this topic) it seems that continuum theory is an area of general topology which enjoys some interest both among topologists and among mathematicians in general. (For example, one part of Open Problems in Topology is dedicated to continuum theory - 2 chapters in the first volume, 8 chapters in the second one.)

Quick search reveals several questions on the main with the word continuum or continua - of course, sometimes this word might be used in different meanings, but if you browse a bit among the search results you can see that several of those question are from this area or closely related to this topic.

The tag called (continuum-theory) also exists on Mathematics site. (See also the tag-info.) Since it's creation in September it attracted 11 questions.

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Maybe and should be made synonyms? I think technically the latter is a subset of the former, since the former can also cover Coloumbeau distributions.

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Resolved: The tag synonym has been created.

The tag has been created a few days ago. This tag has been created a couple of times in the past and usually replaced by .

I think that the synonym $\to$ would be useful. If not for other reason, just to save the effort going into repeated removal of the tag.

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Based on the reception of the question Pronunciation questions (currently at score 22) it seems that questions about pronunciation are on-topic on this site (within some reasonable limits).

I suggest creating tag for questions asking about pronunciation of mathematical terms, mathematical symbols and notation, names of mathematicians, etc. If we have a tag for such questions, this would make easier for the poster of a new question to check whether his question has been asked before.

I will add that (pronunciation) tag exists on Mathematics site.

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I'd suggest making a synonym of .

Currently (Dec 6, 2021)

  • has 39 watchers, 122 questions. It has no tag info.
  • has 19 watchers, 70 questions. Its tag info is: "This tag is used for questions that are related with following branches: Statistical learning theory, Machine learning, Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory (VC theory) and all other branches that are studied and applied in the area of learning theory that involves various kinds of mathematics."

I think there is no sensible difference justifying the distinction between these two tags. As regards which one should be made synonym: while the first might look slightly more specific, the fact that it has more occurrences simply reflects that people asking questions in this area rather have in mind the keywords "machine learning". I tend to prefer the second one (i.e., making the first one synonym of the second one, rather than vice versa) because is slightly more generic, and makes it clearer that this is a mathematical subject.

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We have tag - it has empty tag wiki, but I understand the tag broadly as stuff related to convexity, convex functions, convex sets, etc. (Of course, for some of such questions or are more suitable.)

For some time there was tag, see here. The tag was later deleted by an automated process which removed the tags which removes the tags used on single questions after certain time (unless the tag has a tag-wiki). As a result, the question where the tag was created is currently tagged - since it was the only tag there.

I would suggest creating a synonym $\to$ . (After all, these two topics are very close.)

If somebody is willing to write tag-info for convexity, perhaps concavity could be mentioned there, too. (Since the questions in this tag are a bit diverse and I am not really sure what were the original intentions when the tag was created, I don't think I would be able to create a good tag-wiki with clear explanation when this tag is supposed to be used. So I will leave this to more experienced users.)

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    $\begingroup$ convexity is perplexing since it's almost a meta-tag. My preference would be to have these questions remapped to convex-analysis, convex-geometry, and similar. However, this seems very implausible at the moment. $\endgroup$ Sep 27, 2017 at 23:58
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    $\begingroup$ Now there is a separate post about several tags related to convexity: On convexity tags. $\endgroup$ Feb 23, 2019 at 12:22
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We have two tags called and . The latter has currently empty tag-info and the tag-excerpt for mathematical-software currently says:

Mathematical questions related to mathematical software systems such as Sage, Mathematica, Maple, Pari/GP, and GAP. Note that troubleshooting questions are generally considered off-topic.

I think that one tag for both topics might be enough. It seems that at least some of questions in (software) tag are actually about (mathematical-software). (Probably depending on your definition what you consider mathematical software.) In both these tags we have some questions about various drawing tools - perhaps these can be considered mathematical software. Other than that, the only questions which are currently tagged software and where (mathematical-software) would be clearly bad fit are Tools for Organizing Papers? and What programming languages do mathematicians use?. (The latter is closed.)

I would suggest creating a synonym $\to$ . (Choosing latter as a master tag simply because the name is more general, majority of the question is very likely be about mathematical software.)

If there are reasons to keep them separate, editing the tag-info for both tags to make the distinction clearer would be useful.

I will also mention that some programs have separate tag. For example, , , , , and maybe some others I did not notice.

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  • $\begingroup$ Somewhat related: On Mathematics site there is computer-algebra-systems tag. Would perhaps such tag useful on MO, too? (There is (computer-algebra) tag - which seems to have slightly different meaning and used; at least judging by the name and the tag-info.) $\endgroup$ Sep 27, 2017 at 10:15
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    $\begingroup$ By the way, it's better to have separate cas tags (e.g. gap, sage, coq) so that software developers can be easily alerted when new questions arise. $\endgroup$ Sep 27, 2017 at 23:56
  • $\begingroup$ @FrançoisG.Dorais About your coq example - here is some related conversation with quid. My opinion is that it's ideal to include both the more specific tag (coq) and the more general tag (proof-assistants). The more specific tag helps better searching while the more general one has more followers, so it improves the chance that the question is seen. $\endgroup$ Sep 28, 2017 at 15:52
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Resolved: Both the suggested tag and the suggested tag-synonym have been created.

Maybe tag could be created on meta and made a synonym of .

I think that it is quite probable that users asking about question which are on topic might look for a tag with a similar name. Several metas in SE network have a tag called (on-topic).

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What about creating tag? (The tag name is within the recently increased 35 character limit.)

Looking at the main site, it seems that small uncountable cardinals (such as $\mathfrak p$, $\mathfrak t$, $\mathfrak b$, $\mathfrak d$, etc.) get quite a lot of attention on this site. For example, if you search for either of the cardinals mentioned before in the set theory tag, you can find a bunch of questions: p, t, b, d.)

I think that creating a separate tag for this topic might made searching for such questions easier. Additionally people who are interested in the topic could follow the tag. (I.e., they could get those questions highlighted, they have easier access to recent questions in their favorite tags, etc.)

Of course, it is possible to consider also other candidates for the name of the tag. Wikipedia uses Cardinal characteristic of the continuum. (For example, cardinal-characteristic-continuum is under the 35 characters limit.)


It seems that in the past mostly the tag was used for questions about this topic. (Perhaps sometimes also the tag, which is a bit more specific.)

If the consensus is that the tag would be too specific and it is better not to create such tag, I would be grateful also for comments suggesting which tags can be used for questions where small uncountable cardinals are the main topic. In the past I have sometimes added to such questions - was it a reasonable choice?

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I suggest to create a tag synonym $\to$ .

The tag has only five questions and empty tag info - so it does not seem to have any distinction from . Four of the five questions in this tag were asked by the same user, but since thy no longer have account on MathOverflow, we cannot even ask them whether their intention was to create something different from the existing top-level tag. For the list of questions, see here and here.

A reasonable alternative would probably be also to remove the tag manually, but a synonym solves the problem without bumping old question. And another advantage is that if somebody tries to create this tag in the future, it will automatically be changed to the tag.

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  • $\begingroup$ There were only 6 questions with the tag analysis-and-odes (mostly by a single user). I've now retagged all of them. $\endgroup$
    – YCor
    Dec 8, 2021 at 8:51
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The tag has now 7 occurrences [edit: had 7 occurrences].

It stands for "elementary theory of the category of sets". I suggest to manually change it to . (This is 31 letters. would be 34 letters, is maybe suitable too.)

I believe abbreviations should be avoided in tags (exceptions only being very famous ones such as PDE, ODE).


Edit: now changed to .

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  • $\begingroup$ Here is a previous conversation in chat about this tag. $\endgroup$ Nov 15, 2022 at 8:55
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    $\begingroup$ This has now been edited, to the second option. I think 'category-of-sets' is essential, and the first one to me isn't precise enough. $\endgroup$
    – David Roberts Mod
    Nov 15, 2022 at 10:15
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidRoberts thanks! I had completely forgotten the February 2020 discussion. $\endgroup$
    – YCor
    Nov 15, 2022 at 10:21
  • $\begingroup$ @YCor Martin reminded me! $\endgroup$
    – David Roberts Mod
    Nov 15, 2022 at 11:30
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I suggest making a synonym of (or vice versa).

I see no difference at all between the two. Each has its tag info.


(now 2900 questions): Questions where the notion matrix has an important or crucial role (for the latter, note the tag matrix-theory for potential use). Matrices appear in various parts of mathematics, and this tag is typically combined with other tags to make the general subject clear, such as an appropriate top-level tag ra.rings-and-algebras, co.combinatorics, etc. and other tags that might be applicable. There are also several more specialized tags concerning matrices.

(now 420 questions) Matrix theory is the study of matrices as concrete objects, rather than as abstract linear operators between vector spaces (whose study belongs to linear algebra). For instance, this involves matrix factorizations and decompositions, nonnegative matrices and Perron-Frobenius theory, Schur complements, structured and special matrices, matrix functions and equations.


(There are indeed more specialized tags on matrices, but I don't think applies.)

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I think should be a synonym of (and the latter might be pluralized); at least I think should be renamed to stone-cech-compactification (minus some characters to fit the limit).

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    $\begingroup$ Unfortunately, 'stone-cech-compactification' has more than 25 characters. Nevertheless, I agree that the tag 'stone-cech' would be better with a reference to compactification; perhaps 'stone-cech-compactificat'? I also agree that the tag 'compactification' should be pluralized. $\endgroup$ Feb 17, 2014 at 0:54
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    $\begingroup$ On the other hand, the tag 'stone-cech' might be well-defined enough and sufficiently populated to not be adequate as a synonym of the tag 'compactification'. Maybe what we really need here is a new mechanism (beyond the existing synonym mechanism) for making some tags subordinate to others. In this case, we could make the tag 'stone-cech' subordinate to the tag 'compactification'. $\endgroup$ Feb 17, 2014 at 0:56
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    $\begingroup$ When I was about to pluralize prime number theorems, I realized that the phrase is too easily interpreted as "theorems about prime numbers" rather than "theorems about the distribution of prime numbers". Thoughts? $\endgroup$ Feb 17, 2014 at 2:52
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    $\begingroup$ @FrançoisG.Dorais a tag wiki should more or less solve this problem (I only did not write one before, since it depends a bit). But we could also create prime-number-distribution (or its plural) and synonymize both PNT and Dirichlet to it. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Feb 17, 2014 at 10:47
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    $\begingroup$ And while we are pluralizing tags, can we please also pluralize the tag name 'configuration-space'? $\endgroup$ Feb 18, 2014 at 7:23
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    $\begingroup$ I oppose the synonym of dirichlet to PNT. Dirichlet has proven at least two theorems in his lifetime. We shouldn't prejudice toward analytic number theory. $\endgroup$ Apr 25, 2014 at 15:18
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    $\begingroup$ @WillieWong this is a valid criticism, and also further reason to get rid of that tag. I'll remove it right away. (Oh! It turns out it is gone anyway. Not sure if retagged or auto deleted.) $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Apr 25, 2014 at 15:25
  • $\begingroup$ I will just point out that the limit for tag names was increased to 35. The tag is now called (stone-cech-compactification) and there is a synonym (stone-cech] $\to$ (stone-cech-compactification). $\endgroup$ Sep 27, 2017 at 9:59
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There was tag for questions asking list of open problems in certain area or more generally satisfying certain criteria.

But it disappeared recently. I do not think it is good. Can we revert it?

There is tag "" but that tag is very general and there too many questions on specific open problems, so it is not convenient to find "open problem LISTs" questions.

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  • $\begingroup$ I hope there will be some feedback from other users on this. (Especially from the moderator who merged the two tags.) I will just point out that apart from a separate tag, also combination of the tags open-problems and big-list might be a reasonable way how to tag those questions (and how to search for them using tags). $\endgroup$ Oct 15, 2017 at 9:15
  • $\begingroup$ It seems that there were slightly more than 40 questions tagged (open-problems-list) before the merge, and about 15 of them were tagged (big-list). So whichever solution is chosen (creating the tag open-problems-list again or using the big-list tag), it seems that about 30 questions have to be retagged manually if we want to get back to the status before the two tags were merged. $\endgroup$ Oct 15, 2017 at 9:16
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak I do not think moderators should do such things without discussion. $\endgroup$ Oct 15, 2017 at 11:33
  • $\begingroup$ Just to make this visible also to other users, I'll mention that there was a brief discussion about this tag in chat: see here and here. $\endgroup$ Oct 16, 2017 at 11:45
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak thank you for letting me know about that ! I posted a comment $\endgroup$ Oct 16, 2017 at 19:06
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There is a tag on meta. If you look at the questions, some of them are not about questions which are already closed, but more about process of closing. (E.g., how is question closed, when it can/cannot be closed, etc.)

I would suggest to:

  • Create a tag on meta.
  • Make these two tags synonyms of each other. (Maybe (closing) could be the master tag, since it sounds a bit more general, but I do not have strong preference about the direction of the synonym.)

If there is some agreement that we should have both questions about closed questions and the process of closing questions under the same tag, this should be also added to the tag-excerpt/tag-wiki. And I think that on-hold questions could be included under the same tag.


I will add a comparison with other meta site - the one which I am most familiar with. On Mathematics Meta there are three separate tags closing, closed-questions and on-hold-questions. This sometimes makes users unsure which of the three tags to use.

I have previously asked about usefulness of potential tag in MO editors' lounge. Todd Trimble replied that it's better to have them under the same tag as closed question.

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I have noticed that there is a tag called on meta. It is actually one of the default tags - these are the tags that are automatically created on every new meta site and are not deleted even if they have zero questions.

You may notice that on Meta Stack Exchange, this tag is now a synonym of (favorite-tags). And I'd guess most users know this feature under the name favorite tags. (Maybe it was called differently at the time when the default tags were selected.) I think that average user would have hard time guessing what (interesting-tags) is intended for. Which might lead to inconsistent usage of this tag and some incorrectly tagged questions. (As you can see in this chat transcript the tag has been used on some question on meta - here and here - and in neither of the two cases in the intended meaning. To be honest, I was quite puzzled when I saw the tag for the first time.)

My suggestion is to clarify usage of this tag and also make the name correspond to today's terminology.

  • One possibility would be to create a new tag and make this tag a synonym. (With (favorite-tags) as the master tag. This would basically copy the usage on Meta Stack Exchange.)
  • Another option would be to create a tag synonym $\to$ and use (favorites) both for favorite questions and favorite tags.

If you look at current usage of the tag and also if you check current revision of the tag-excerpt and the tag-wiki, you can see that this tag is currently used for both favorite tags and favorite question. (I am partly to blame - I have used the tag in this way and also I have created the tag-info. However, it seemed to me a bit redundant to create a separate tag for favorite tags.)

This means that if we decide to have a separate tag for , this would require also retagging of a few older questions. Which is why I am inclined more to the latter option, i.e., to have one tag for both favorite tags and favorite question.

But I am certainly open to the other solution. We can discuss (and vote) in comments which of the two options is better.

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On meta there are two tags and . The latter is one of the default tags - these are the tags that are automatically created on every new meta site - which essentially means that it cannot be removed.

I would suggest creating a synonym $\to$ . Having two tags for the same topic could lead to confusion which tag to choose and also to inconsistent usage of tags - and, consequently, this would make searching using tags a bit difficult.

I have mentioned this a few times in chat (October 2016, April 2018). Since I have not received any feedback there, I've decided to try my luck here on meta.

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