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I wanted to add more tags to a ConTeXt question. The question is asking how to get the number of current itemization in a margin. In ConTeXt, itemizations are equivalent to the itemize as well as enumerate environments in LaTeX. So, the relevant tags are: lists, enumerate, and itemize. This is what each of these tags say:

  • lists

    {lists} is about list environments. If your question deals with a specific list environment, add the respective tag, if existing, such as {itemize}, {enumerate}, or {description}. A popular package is {enumitem}. For registers like a "List of figures", use {table-of-contents} instead.

  • itemize

    {itemize} is about the itemize list environment. If you use this tag, add the more general {lists} tag.

  • enumerate

    {enumerate} is about the enumerate list environment. If you use this tag, add the more general {lists} tag.

The wording of these tags is not tied to the desired visual output, rather to the LaTeX environment that implements them. The corresponding ConTeXt environments are itemgroups, itemize, and itemize. Because of the way they are worded, none of the LaTeX specific tags fit the question. In fact, some of them may be confusing because, in ConTeXt, lists are used for structures like table of contents, list of figures, etc; and enumeration is used for structures like Theorems.

What is the best way out of this? I understand that more than 95% of the questions on this forum are LaTeX related, so having LaTeX specific tags makes sense. However, at the same time, there are a few ConTeXt and plain-TeX specific questions as well; the LaTeX specific tags do not fit for the ConTeXt questions.

One option is to create new tags for ConTeXt specific tags for everything and the other option is to reword a lot of the tags so that they describe the behavior and not the name of the environments that implement them. None of them completely solve the question of similar terms (like lists and enumerations) used to mean completely different constructs in LaTeX and ConTeXt (should we create latex-lists and context-lists to avoid confusion?).

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    I'd opt for giving the tags a more neutral formulation. I don't believe it's beneficial to advance the divergence of TeX format flavours any farther than it already is. More often than not even for a format-specific question a format-agnostic answer can add an insightful angle. With format-specific tags the latex-flavoured questions would soon be ignored by most ConTeXt people. Concerning the tags, the LaTeX-specific formulation could stay as a further specification after a more general introduction. – Stephan Lehmke Oct 8 '12 at 12:51
  • @StephanLehmke Based on comment votes, looks like that should be an answer! – Joseph Wright♦ Oct 9 '12 at 7:01
  • I agree that it is better to make the existing tags format neutral. But I am not sure how to handle tags like lits and enumerate, which refer to different structures in LaTeX and ConTeXt. – Aditya Oct 9 '12 at 15:37
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    @JosephWright I feel that an answer should address the ambiguity issue. I know nothing about ConTeXt and don't have time to do the research, so I was hoping for someone with a broader background to elaborate ;-) – Stephan Lehmke Oct 10 '12 at 7:53
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    OK. I'll slowly try to make the tags more format neutral and see how that goes. – Aditya Oct 11 '12 at 16:06

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