Tagging

3:08 AM

Lot of things here, I am not sure whether I will be able to respond to all at once.

@quid Let me try write something about optimization and maxima-minima.

I am not sure it's a good idea to have this synonym. The point is that there are plenty users that need to find (local) maxima or minima of some function (in a calculus context), Now one could shoe-horn this into being a question about optimization, but I am quite doubtful this is a good idea. Instead I'd keep this, and syn max-min with as well as extrema, the -ation variants can stay syns of optimization. — quid 7 hours ago

Actually I think this is good illustration what exactly is our difference of opinion. You are saying that extrema and optimization are not the same thing. And I certainly agree that common use of the words is different. (When hearing those two words in conversation, I would expect different thing.)

However, on this site it has been long established that the tag (optimization) is supposed to be used for this type of questions. It is mentioned on meta, it is clear from the fact that synonyms exist. Ideally, it should be make explicitly clear also in the tag-wiki.

So even if it is not clear from the name of the tags that two tags are the same, if there is semi-official consensus (from meta, tag-info, approved synonyms) that on this site we consider them as the same (or as one of being subset of another) I use the tag accordingly. (And probably so do other users, if they read information in the tag-info, meta or if they add the tag via synonym.)

And of course, if the community here changes agrees on something different and says that the usage should be changed, I do my best to follow new consensus when tagging the question. (And if I have time I try to help with retagging the old ones.)

In this particular case, I think it will not be easy to revert the current usage.

As you read on meta, this was discussed already an 2013: How do we tag questions on maximizing/minimizing functions?

But the tag optimization was used for questions about finding maxima-minima already before that. When I posted question on meta, I mentioned the observation that it is used this way and asked what should we do in the future.

For example, if you search for questions tagged lagrange-multiplier+optimization you can find usage of this tag preceding that thread. I will add two examples from 2012 here and here.

So if this is to be changed, I guess it would take some effort to retag the question which has been tagged like this since 2012. And since it is a change which affects, it should probably be discussed on meta first.

For the time being: You might downvote the synonym, so that it is removed from the list of tag synonyms while still being discussed. (Perhaps I should not have suggested the synonym without asking on meta, but since we already had all those other synonyms which are almost the same, it looked clear-cut case to me.)

And until this is resolved one way or another, I will be try to use both tags (to comply both with the current practice and with your suggestion that (maxima-minima) should be kept separate.)

Perhaps this will be more readable if each "block of messages" I add are about one topic. So I try to respond to other things you have mentioned later. This is basically what I can say immediately about optimization issue. And, as I said, it also illustrates why we disagreed on separation axioms and separability.

I will perhaps also mention than when I add optimization tag in this purpose, I often say so also in the edit summary, see this SEDE query.

Transcript for

$Mathematics$ Tagging