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I would like to see the tag replaced, because

  • it 'works' only because of a mutual misunderstanding. As for science, 'Numerics' refers to the investigation of numeric patterns. The first search result in Wikipedia, that bears numerics in its title, is bible numerics
  • the way it is used, it is not specific. SciComp itself already is about numerical approaches in sciences. Cf. also the tag wiki: "Questions on the aspects of numerical methods/analysis relevant to scientific computing."
  • if it is used to direct to theoretical results, would be the right tag
  • if it is used to direct to numerical methods, there are more specific tags like or .

So the question is: Is there a need to do such a global replacement and, if there was an agreement on this, how to do this best?

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    $\begingroup$ Sounds good to me. Any other thoughts for or against? Based on the question, it looks like the retagging will have to be done on a case-by-case basis. $\endgroup$
    – Geoff Oxberry
    May 25, 2013 at 11:52
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    $\begingroup$ Let's deal with numerical too, while we're at it... $\endgroup$
    – J. M.
    May 25, 2013 at 12:53
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    $\begingroup$ Of the 150 questions tagged 'numerics', there is only a handful for which this is the only tag. The remaining questions have more specific tags and hence can have 'numerics' removed without loss. The manual effort would therefore be relatively small. $\endgroup$
    – Christian Clason
    May 25, 2013 at 12:54
  • $\begingroup$ Looking at the questions, it seems that numerics and (to a lesser extent) numerical is often used for classical numerical analysis (in the sense of numerical methods for classical calculus problems such as differentiation, not analysis of numerical methods), because there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag (or tags) for that. $\endgroup$
    – Christian Clason
    May 25, 2013 at 13:05
  • $\begingroup$ Now, I have also browsed some more questions. It looks like in most cases, the 'numerics' or 'numerical' tag can be simply removed. But I also think there should be a general classification for things related to classical numerical analysis courses as @ChristianClason has pointed out. $\endgroup$
    – Jan
    May 25, 2013 at 13:37
  • $\begingroup$ I have updated the question, so that it admits an answer. $\endgroup$
    – Jan
    May 25, 2013 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ Agree. Close to half of the recently active questions share the numerics tag, despite covering a wide range of topics. The presence of the tag on a question offers very little insight. $\endgroup$
    – Ben
    May 25, 2013 at 20:18
  • $\begingroup$ I have taken the opportunity of this question to create the 'numerical-analysis' tag, since it is a generic example for numerical analysis. $\endgroup$
    – Jan
    May 30, 2013 at 13:08
  • $\begingroup$ Sounds good to me as well. $\endgroup$
    – Aron Ahmadia
    May 30, 2013 at 23:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Jan Hi, Jan I suggest you make a poll in the answer section for the question like here: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/4752/… Then we can just casting votes on each $\endgroup$
    – Shuhao Cao
    Jul 6, 2013 at 19:16
  • $\begingroup$ @AronAhmadia For I haven't reached enough reputation to tag synonyms on this SE site, I believe tagging numerics as a synonym of numerical-analysis is one way as well... $\endgroup$
    – Shuhao Cao
    Jul 6, 2013 at 19:20
  • $\begingroup$ To me numerics sounds like it's a false-friend translation of the German "Numerik", which is used as a synonim of "numerische Mathematik" (example ref). $\endgroup$
    – Federico Poloni
    Nov 20, 2022 at 11:14

2 Answers 2

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I'm answering to bump up this thread. 7 years later, that tag is still there.

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    $\begingroup$ What is your preference? We could replace the tag or just drop it if it carries little information on our site. On a slightly broader topic, we should probably have an annual thread on "tag maintenance" that would more aggressively tackle these tasks. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath Mod
    Jun 21, 2020 at 14:55
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    $\begingroup$ @hardmath I would just drop it, personally. $\endgroup$
    – Federico Poloni
    Jun 21, 2020 at 18:50
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    $\begingroup$ For reference here is the current year tag management thread on Math.SE. Suggestions are posted as "answers" and upvoted/downvoted accordingly as users agree or disagree. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath Mod
    Jun 24, 2020 at 15:36
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Bringing this back up, and are two of the most used tags on the site. I see a couple issues with this:

  1. Neither tag has a tag wiki or usage guidelines, so they have taken on a pretty wide scope.
  2. Off hand, its not clear to me what the difference in scope between the two tags (again, no usage guidelines).

I'm open to suggestions, but my thought process for fixing this would be:

  1. Make a synonym of . I think numerical modeling is at least a little less opaque of a description of the types of questions asked.
  2. Add usage guidelines to to make its scope clearer/narrower.
  3. Over time, prune from questions where it isn't needed or where a more specific tag could be added. This step isn't crucial, as adding the tag usage will make it more useful on the questions its already on.
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  • $\begingroup$ Just checking in to see if your suggestions got implemented. I'm a bit shy of the edit-tag-wiki privilege, but numerics and numerical-modeling still lack a wiki. According to current tag-info, both numerical-modeling and numerical are mapped to numerics, unlike what you envisioned. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath Mod
    Jun 22, 2022 at 18:45

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