# Do we need the “inequation” tag?

I just approved an edit to the tag. I approved this edit so that the current state of the tag would have some fixed point of reference for discussion. That being said, I do not believe that this tag should exist.

Tags should help to classify and categorify information on MESE so that it can be more easily found, and so that users can filter posts on the site to fit their preferences and interests. In this framework, I honestly cannot see a use case for this tag which wouldn't be equally well served by an tag (which, by the way, doesn't exist on this site, indicating that this might not be a pressing concern here). As I noted in this answer, the term "inequation" is uncommon in English, and is unlikely to be understood as distinct from the term "inequality" by the majority of English speakers. Moreover, the guidance provided by the current tag-wiki doesn't seem to be about teaching or learning, but specifically about solving. While this is fixable, I think that it is evidence of a problem with the conception of this tag.

Note that this has also been discussed recently Math SE, where the same user created a nearly identical tag.

Proposal: The tag should be deleted. If there is a need for a tag dealing with inequalities and "inequations", then an tag should be created.

• What does an answer to this question look like? Do I say "I agree and here is why?" Or do I post such things as a comment? Or does upvoting this question indicate agreement? I am not trying to be aggressive here and I support what you are trying to do, but I think you may need some small edits to make it work. – Chris Cunningham May 6 '19 at 13:22
• @ChrisCunningham I tagged this question with discussion, which has the description "The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus." The goal is to set policy on MESE. If everyone here agrees with the proposal, an "answer" might be a moderator saying "This tag has been deleted." It is also possible for someone to answer with a counter-proposal. – Xander Henderson May 6 '19 at 13:53
• I would personally delete inequation unless we are anticipating more French questions about it, in which case it could be a synonym tag. Is there any mechanism for "undeleting" a tag later? Edit - after reading the MSE-Meta discussion, I think creating inequality and making it a synonym suffices. – kcrisman May 6 '19 at 17:00
• It's hard to be sure, but there seems to be a typo in that tag-wiki. I'd suppose the first "inequality" ought to be "inequation." That's not the main issue here, of course. – quid May 6 '19 at 18:05
• Ah -- makes sense. In that case: I'm in favor of deleting inequation; also there is really no need for the inequality tag, let alone a second one. – Chris Cunningham May 7 '19 at 0:29
• I think the question is the purpose of tags. I'd rather use them "to help you identify questions that are interesting or relevant to you." While inequalities are useful in mathematics and come up a lot, that's not the point -- the question is whether someone will come to the site, be uninterested in most questions, and only want to browse all the "inequality" questions. I guess it's possible this could happen? I'm not sure though. I was coming down on the side of no. – Chris Cunningham May 7 '19 at 16:13
• @ChrisCunningham What is "interesting" to a person might change from day-to-day. The point is not that one might want to come to the site and browse inequalities every single day (though I suspect that there are more than a few people on MSE who do exactly this). Rather, the point is that any given person might be interested in inequalities on any given day (say, for example, 10 minutes before they have to deliver a lecture on inequalities to a lecture hall full of 600 college freshmen). – Xander Henderson May 17 '19 at 12:29
• With +10 votes, can a mod proceed with the tag deletion? – JTP - Apologise to Monica May 27 '19 at 13:11