# Would introducing an “operations-research” tag be appreciated?

What are your feelings about introducing an operations-research tag?

I was tempted of introducing it but as it OR is also covered by or and maybe also other fields of mathematics, I am not sure whether such a tag would be considered "superfluous".

What would speak in favor of such a tag would be to indicate the relation to, resp. motivation by practical problems when used in addition to already existing tags to alleviate searching for (solutions to) practical problems.

Edit: the tag has been created by the OP.

• I think the main disadvantage would be if this tag is used alone, since mathematically it's very vague. So I'd recommand that the tag excerpt/info strongly recommends to use it in combination with some mathematical tags such as the two you mention (maybe also mention co.combinatorics and oc.optimization-and-control). – YCor Feb 8 at 13:29
• Could you suggest a tag excerpt? this is what's visible to user looking for tags. A first draft: "Operation research: discipline of applying appropriate analytical methods to help those who run organisations make better decisions. To be used in combination with more specific tags, such as (...)". Here the main sentence is copied from the tag info in MathSE. – YCor Feb 8 at 14:39
• @YCor I would formulate it along this line: "the [operations-research] tag is intended as a refinement tag that shall only be used in combination with at least one other tag that relates to a mathematical discipline like [graph-theory], [combinatorial-optimization] or [linear-programming] and, it shall only be used for questions that are come from actual production planning and optimization and do not allow for an obvious mathematical solution" – Manfred Weis Feb 8 at 15:02
• This looks more like tag info than tag excerpt: the tag excerpt is usually written in a more telegraphical way, is short, and is more immediately visible. I'd suggest having a look to some already existing tags. – YCor Feb 8 at 15:06
• @YCor the excerpt would then be "Questions originating in production planning and optimization" – Manfred Weis Feb 8 at 15:09
• I think the excerpt also has to contain the main guidelines for users. So I'd suggest to merge as: Questions originating in production planning and optimization. To be used in combination with more specific tags, such as (...). – YCor Feb 8 at 15:19
• @YCor sounds good; I'll formulate accordingly. Thanks for the patient feedback. – Manfred Weis Feb 8 at 15:26
• Good. In any case it might be changed later, possibly according to its effective use. – YCor Feb 8 at 15:29
• BTW you can use the syntax [tag:operations-research] to make research to make the tag into a link and also make it visually distinguished. (I only did this with the existing tags - but in the meantime you have also created this new tag.) – Martin Sleziak Feb 8 at 22:58
• How should I interpret the downvotes? Do they read as "don't introduce such a tag"? If yes, why not contribute to the discussion? — Manfred Weis 5 hours ago Well, yes I think this is the message. Possibly that the tag was eventually created without any positive vote was not well appreciated. I don't have a definite opinion, but usually prefer mathematical-contents-oriented tags. – YCor Feb 11 at 15:24
• @YCor I appreciate your comment; I would however have wished that objections against introducing the tag were expressed explicitly in the discussion; I would then not have introduced it. The common interpretation of silence is to my understanding having no objections, but maybe I'm mistaken on that. – Manfred Weis Feb 11 at 15:40
• @YCor, I think the tag is good, and better without the caveat "to be used in combination with..." There is already a principle that every post should get at least one top-level arxiv tag (see meta.mathoverflow.net/a/1076/44143), and for OR questions oc.optimization-control would be appropriate. The caveat under discussion here is too negative and complicated for my taste: tags from other disciplines like mathoverflow.net/questions/tagged/quantum-mechanics don't need it, and I don't think the tag for OR needs it either. – Matt F. Feb 26 at 18:27
• @MattF. Fine. Nevertheless I'm quite puzzled by the use of such tags in mathematical physics ('mp.mathematical-physics' itself and others such as 'quantum-mechanics'), and the use such tags is often the easy way (for OP as well as wanderings editors!) to avoid better "target" the topic. – YCor Feb 26 at 18:36
• Wouldn't questions with this tag make a better fit at or.stackexchange.com anyway? – Dirk Mar 3 at 11:49