9

I was adding some wiki information to the tag , and found to my surprise that the wiki information concerning the tags and are empty, too, and that the information for the tag seems to be odd.

So far we have

  • around 300 questions tagged
  • around 60 questions tagged
  • around 40 questions tagged

As far as I can see, there are different but overlapping usages for each of the three tags. I try to summarize here the most common usages.

So we have questions related

  1. to including files from subdirectories

  2. to aspects of the TeX Document structure, e.g. the paths to certain packages and classes

  3. to make a graphic of a directory structure in the document

  4. to write certain output files to different directories

  5. …

Anyway, there are certain other tags which relate to the usages listed here, , , , , (also undefined), …

Given the unclear usage of tags mentioned in the title of the question, I would like to put this to discussion here:

How should these tags be organized in a better way?

Should we define the separate usages as distinct tags? Should one of these tags (maybe ) be a kind of parent tag?

1

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6

I can't see any way to distinguish and they should be synonyms it's telling that currently the first link in the directory list has "folder" in the title.

The wiki page is implying that it should just be used in the sense of the PATH environment variable for executables, but I suspect that's a lost cause and as suggested in the question that you link to it should be re-described as pertaining to filesystem paths. If that is not done almost all the existing questions tagged paths need retagging.

7
  • If the usage of {paths} is a lost cause, if I understand you correctly, in the sense that users use it differently than they are supposed to according to the tag description, we should probably give in to them and change the tag description. // For {folders} and {directory} I agree for making them synonymous, but yet the problem remains that we have at least two major usage cases (1. and 2. in my question) that are ambiguously tagged.
    – jjdb
    May 6, 2017 at 16:35
  • @jjdb yes sure if we make folders and directory synonyms then the collection of questions in the combination covers a range of issues but its only a 100 questions not worth forcing them separate again, as we see with paths trying to constrain thing by specific definitions in the tag wiki never works as to a first approximation no one ever looks at that.
    – David Carlisle
    May 6, 2017 at 16:51
  • I added directory as a suggested synonym for folders here tex.stackexchange.com/tags/folders/synonyms people with enough rep can vote for it there.
    – David Carlisle
    May 6, 2017 at 22:36
  • @cfr your suggestions would provide mixed usage of tags. I think this should be avoided, shouldn't it?
    – jjdb
    May 8, 2017 at 7:46
  • Can you vote for the synonym, too? It had a score of zero when I looked just now. I don't understand the instructions. They say synonyms will be automatically deleted when they reach a score of 2, but if they start with zero, how can they ever achieve the required score of 4? It bothers me that 'folders' is plural while 'directory' is singular, though.
    – cfr
    May 8, 2017 at 21:58
  • @cfr I voted for the one I didn't suggest already. (I think normally we just alert a site mod who considers the discussion and merges these things without votes (or at least I don't recall voting in previous synonym discussions)
    – David Carlisle
    May 8, 2017 at 22:32
  • @cfr I was asking for people to vote (I hadn't done it before either but there is always a first time:-)
    – David Carlisle
    May 9, 2017 at 9:49

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .