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The common spelling of math_mode seems to be with a space in between the words: There are 109 questions with math mode in their title, but only 17 with mathmode. Herbert Voß's paper Math mode spells it with two words, too. Hence, I suggest be normalized to , just like we have , and .

As I don't use LaTeX for math, I hope I'm not missing some environment or the like that actually spells mathmode; in that case, this suggestion would be void, of course.

I'm expecting the 18 {mathmode} bronze tag badges, egreg's and Werner's silver {mathmode} tag badges and egreg's gold {mathmode} tag badge to be revoked by the system and new tag badges for to be awarded pretty much immediately, in the spirit of the meta.so question What happens to a tag badge when a tag is merged with another one, or it is deleted?. The only thing that gets lost is the precise dates and order in which these badges were awarded, but I wouldn't regard this as a big problem. (I'd guess the new badges will be awarded in ascending order by user ID.)

Edit: Numbers updated + It might be possible for an admin to simply rename the tag and its badges so that the badges aren't revoked but just renamed, and no information is lost. It would be great if a moderator here could check this with SE.

I have asked about this in the mod chat room: no answer. So if we want to go for this we will have to 'suck it and see' badge-wise. – Joseph Wright

Addendum: The less frequent tag should similarly be renamed to , of course.

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  • If the "old" badge is revoked -- and there's still a chance that the SO software treats "alternative routing" to a synonym more benign --, there's another information that would get diluted: The sequence of badge awards for individual users ("{mathmode} was my first tag badge").
    – lockstep
    Commented Dec 10, 2011 at 22:11
  • @lockstep: Yes, so it's the order of each user's badges and the order of all the badge's recipients. Still, I'd consider this but a small sacrifice. The many users who'll receive the badge in the future will have the correct name and the correct order.
    – doncherry
    Commented Dec 10, 2011 at 23:00
  • 2
    BTW, I wrote "small chance [for benign behaviour]" above because my favouriting of the {index} tag was automatically redirected to {indexing}.
    – lockstep
    Commented Dec 10, 2011 at 23:02
  • I'd be interested in the counter-arguments that led to the downvote, and in general in why people seem to be hesitant about this proposal.
    – doncherry
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:29
  • 2
    Can't this be brought up on Meta.SO by one of the mods or requested via email to StackExchange directly? Of course, if shown to be in favour of the change. By the way, I agree with your suggestion.
    – Werner Mod
    Commented May 21, 2012 at 15:35
  • Update: it's a gold badge, now. :) I've nothing against the proposal, provided… :)
    – egreg
    Commented Jun 6, 2012 at 17:19
  • @egreg: I hadn't even seen that one yet, congrats! (Added)
    – doncherry
    Commented Jun 6, 2012 at 20:14
  • @doncherry strangely, "modes" in tex seem to be one-word in many cases: batchmode, nonstopmode, ...; the commands \ifmmode, \leavevmode (I know, \tableofcontents is a counter-example to the last two, but still...) In my opinion, tag synonym is the clear solution.
    – yo'
    Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 7:10
  • 2
    @tohecz: I'm not quite sure I understand what your point is and how \tableofcontents is a counterexample of \leavemode. TeX keywords don't contain spaces or hyphens, yes, but our tags do.
    – doncherry
    Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 12:09
  • Sorry, I messed it completely. I meant: the command is \tableofcontents but the tag is table-of-contents. Considering this I agree that the tag can be math-mode, even thought the corresponding command \ifmmode (and maybe others too) have no seperators. Still, mathmode always seemed to me somehow natural...
    – yo'
    Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 12:26
  • @tohecz: Thanks for clarifying. Well, I don't think there are any commands containing separators as such, are there?
    – doncherry
    Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 12:29
  • No, there aren't. And that is the reason why I don't mind {mathmode} at all...
    – yo'
    Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 12:31
  • I have asked about this in the mod chat room: no answer. So if we want to go for this we will have to 'suck it and see' badge-wise.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Commented Jun 16, 2012 at 16:57
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    As there are 12 up- (me too) and only two down-votes, would you consider changing its tag from "discussion" to "feature-request"?
    – Stephen
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 12:36
  • @JosephWright: Alright, I don't think there'll be any further discussion or any new points; but the score is reasonably high -- let's suck it and see.
    – doncherry
    Commented Jun 21, 2012 at 14:22

1 Answer 1

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Well, it looks like the old badges have been revoked and new badges have been awarded; see e.g. egreg's profile, who interestingly even got his gold badge before the silver one, which again he got before the bronze one. Sorry about the lost date information.

I think I'll put a question on meta.so to document this behavior, once the situation has stabilized. (Right now, the badge list still show badges, even though nobody has them anymore.)

I put a feature request regarding the behavior of badges on renaming on meta.so: Don't revoke and reaward tag badges when the tag is renamed

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  • The loss of date information is a bit of a nuisance, but I can survive it. :)
    – egreg
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 17:21

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