Merging `figures` and `diagrams`?

Question

We currently have two tags which apparently address the same object --- figures and diagrams. While there's a semantic difference between the two (in content/representation), it's all the same for LaTeX.

I suggest we use figures for questions related to external stand-alone files (e.g. PNG, PDF, EPS) that you cannot edit within LaTeX, and to use diagrams for those that are produced by e.g. tikz, pgf, psticks, or whatever.

Alternatively, we can just use diagrams tag as a synonym for figures.

Other ideas?

Answer 1

Commonly, questions regarding figures deal with including, floating, captioning, referring, sizing and positioning and the like, typically involved packages are float and graphicx. However, if questions concern diagrams I believe it's mainly dealing with producing them. Until now, all questions tagged with 'diagrams' are about typesetting and drawing, without mentioning the word 'figure', typical packages are TikZ and PSTricks, like you said.

If I'd like to create a diagram, perhaps not sure which package I should use, I would be glad to have a [diagrams] tag to browse such questions. They don't get lost among questions concerning prefabricated figures.

Finally, the tags [figures] and [diagrams] are not even related, as I can see on the side bar.

So I believe we should not merge those tags.

Answer 2

I was satisfied with Stefan's answer, but I think we should revisit this issue, as there are several somewhat related tags that should be disambiguated.

My proposal is to keep

• [diagrams] for typesetting/drawing typically with e.g. TikZ or other packages. The tag [picture] (which should anyway be [pictures]) should be added as a synonym.

• [graphics] for external files (e.g. PNG, JPEG, etc.) inserted in documents. The tag [images] should be made a synonym. (If you like it vote for it)

• [figures] for questions about the environment used to include a captioned diagram or graphic in a document.