Is [mathematics] a meta tag?

Question

This is possibly in direct conflict of a previous question of mine: Should [formula] be a synonym of [mathematics]?

After looking around I found several tags that could be synonyms for mathematics.

• formula
• probability
• linear-algebra "... branch of mathematics ..."
• quaternion "Mathematical constructions..."
• vector "A mathematical concept..."
• geometry "A branch of mathematics..."

There's others, basically a search for questions with mathematics and then you can see other tags used with it.

This suggests to me that mathematics is really a meta tag and should possibly be removed as such. It's probably being used because someone coming here with a question may not know the precise field or term in mathematics for what they're looking for.

But there are the first two, formula and probability that seem too specific and should be synonyms for mathematics or perhaps a similar tag.

How should we organize these tags?

Answer 1

"But there are the first two, formula and probability that seem too specific and should be synonyms for mathematics or perhaps a similar tag."

I make no argument with regard to the formula tag, but I recommend keeping probability as its own standalone tag. Probability is a very distinct area of expertise, with lots of counter-intuitive quirks and potential gotchas that are easy for non-specialists to fall into, so it requires particular styles of approach.

Game probability in particular encompasses specialized topics like loot drop systems, pseudorandom number generation methods, shuffling mechanics like Tetris piece selection algorithms, and mixed strategy equilibria in game theory - so even on a game-, not math-focused exchange, I think this category is meaty enough to stand on its own.

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I can see an argument for considering math to be meta, but I think even with its breadth it's still specific enough to say something useful about the question's content.

Speaking for myself, I have it set as one of my favourite tags. I'm a math geek so I like checking out questions that demand some calculating, graphing, derivation, or a little light proving. I find the mathematics tag is currently effective at highlighting these questions, and correctly signals when my expertise might be relevant.

And, as you say, folks coming here with math questions are often doing so because they lack the terminology to define what they need in more specific terms like linear-algebra, so having a mathematics tag helps the folks who do know this terminology find the questions they might be able to help with or improve. Without the mathematics tag, I don't think the users asking these questions would find more specific terms to use - we'd just get more sparsely tagged questions that are harder to filter by expertise.

Answer 2

Formula, probability, linear-algebra, quaternion, vector, & geometry are all specific types of or applications of math, but do not exhaust all math topics. I certainly think it's redundant to add the mathematics tag to any question that has the aforementioned. But given that there are other math heavy questions that may be asked that do not fall specifically under the purview of the aforementioned, I think it's good (necessary & sufficient perhaps?) to keep mathematics to collect / filter them.