# positive-characteristic and characteristic-p are synonyms

I thought that tag synonyms were meant simply to be proposed and left to survive or die on their own, but I see another question in HNQ about tag synonyms, so maybe one is supposed to raise a corresponding Meta question. I think that and are synonyms.

EDIT: As @MartinSleziak points out, I perhaps stated this a bit vaguely. Concretely, I already proposed the synonym, and it awaits the necessary votes.

• I tried putting [tag:positive-characteristic] in the title, as in the linked question, but it wouldn't let me. Mar 24, 2021 at 3:39
• It is probably worth mentioning that the synonym (positive-characteristic) $\to$ (characteristic-p) was proposed and users with sufficient score in the tag can vote for/against. According to SEDE, it was proposed in August 2020 by LSpice: data.stackexchange.com/mathoverflow/query/1178483/… Mar 24, 2021 at 6:04
• As always, this synonym voting system is inept for such tags with not many ($\sim 100$) questions (I can't vote because it relies on the score on this very tag); it's likely the the number of authorized voters who will open this discussion be $\le 2$. So I guess the only door to make it a synonym is to make this question feature-request and rely on moderators.
– YCor
Mar 24, 2021 at 9:49
• I strongly approve synonyms in both directions, with a preference to keep positive-charactistic as "main" tag, the other being synonym — I don't like the symbol "p", implicitly meant to be positive, to be prime, etc, to be part of a tag; also positive in principle allows characteristic $p^2$, etc, beyond fields.
– YCor
Mar 24, 2021 at 9:49
• I agree with @YCor's rationale for which should be the main tag. If I remember correctly, the reason it's this way is that I was forced to choose the tag with fewer questions (positive-characteristic currently has 83) as the synonym of the one with more (characteristic-p currently has 253). Mar 24, 2021 at 10:06
• Here is a link to a discussion in chat between me and @YCor concerning the advantages of bringing up possible tag synonyms on meta (as opposed to relying solely on voting). Of course, the tag management has one additional problem on MO - there aren't enough users interesting in discussing and managing tags. Mar 24, 2021 at 12:58
• The characteristic of a ring could also be a non-prime number, so I don't see how these tags are strictly synonymous (not knowing whether there are really questions about rings with characteristic 6). Mar 25, 2021 at 8:34
• @HenrikRüping, I think that was @‍YCor's point earlier. I imagine, being mathematicians, we can find some shade of difference between any two tags, but, especially given their low traffic, I think it's safe to bet that the audiences for positive-characteristic and characteristic-p are almost, if not wholly, identical. Mar 25, 2021 at 13:01