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Today I was browsing https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/ and saw in the “Hot Meta Posts” sidebar that they are changing their site name from “Mathematica” to “Mathematica & Wolfram Language”. Note the usage of the ampersand symbol to chain the two topics. In the comments to the accepted answer I saw a link to a chat message which says:

There is also precedence for using & on Stack Exchange: Unix & Linux, Programming Puzzles & Code Golf, Music: Practice & Theory, Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair, Software Quality Assurance & Testing, Anime & Manga, Board & Card Games, Psychology & Neuroscience, Gardening & Landscaping, Veganism & Vegetarianism Stack Exchange

Now our site on the other hand is called “TeX - LaTeX” which does not seem to fit in with the other sites. In fact, I think our site is the only one that contains a hyphen in its name.

Therefore I'd like to propose to rename the site to “TeX & LaTeX” (but something else would also be conceivable).

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  • 2
    How about "TeX, LaTeX et. al."? :-) ... but it's true that LaTeX would be a sensible choice here, as probably the majority of questions relates to LaTeX in some way rather than to plain TeX.
    – 0xC0000022L
    May 8, 2019 at 7:31
  • 7
    The chat is "TeX, LaTeX and friends", so we may choose "TeX, LaTeX & friends".
    – CarLaTeX
    May 8, 2019 at 7:34
  • 4
    Or just "LaTeX & friends", because based on the number of questions TeX is more a friend (as is ConTeXt, MetaPost, Asymptote) than the main topic.
    – Marijn
    May 8, 2019 at 8:25
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    On the other hand, for historical reasons TeX belongs in the name, also the url suggests it (tex.stackexchange.com), and the common abbreviations (maybe not so common?) TeX.SE or TeX.SX are based on the current name with TeX in it.
    – Marijn
    May 8, 2019 at 8:27
  • I dislike the “TeX, LaTeX, et al.“ and “TeX, LaTeX & friends” suggestion the same way as “TeX - LaTeX”. You won't find any other site with a comma in its name. What I am proposing is maybe not the most general choice but at least consistent.
    – Henri Menke
    May 8, 2019 at 11:07
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    @HenriMenke Actually "Beer, Wine & Spirits" also has a comma in it's name but I think it's the only one.
    – Marcel Krüger
    May 8, 2019 at 18:35
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    @MarcelKrüger so we should step in and help them, so they're no longer alone!
    – Skillmon
    May 9, 2019 at 8:40
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    The 'TeX - LaTeX' names was a balance: not to exclude ConTeXt and other tools, but not to make it so long that it was impossible to remember/understand. We definitely need 'TeX' as well as 'LaTeX'. I've no issue with using '&' in place of '-', though I thing the hyphen is meant to suggest more that LaTeX is an (important) subset of TeX!
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    May 9, 2019 at 10:15
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic based on Joseph's reply.
    – Henri Menke
    May 9, 2019 at 10:31
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    @HenriMenke how does Joseph's explanation of the reasons for the name make your question off-topic? We can still consider changing the name to be more consistent with other sites, to reflect that TeX is not a big part of the site, or for any of the other reasons mentioned here and in the related meta questions.
    – Marijn
    May 9, 2019 at 15:08
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    @HenriMenke Closing the question would close the door to further ideas and opinions. More sensible would be if Joseph converted his comment to an answer.
    – yo'
    May 10, 2019 at 13:11
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    In TUGboat we use "(La)TeX" to indicate that "friends" are also being included. The macro name for this is \AllTeX. Maybe something like that could be appropriate.
    – barbara beeton
    May 10, 2019 at 16:00
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    It was not my intention at all to curtail discussion here: I am not sure I am in a position to answer, though perhaps we could have 'yes because' and 'no because' answers to vote on?
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    May 10, 2019 at 16:29
  • @JosephWright This question falls in the same scope as the ones about moderator election. Either the current moderators just go ahead and do it or not. There is not point in voting on things that don't matter.
    – Henri Menke
    May 11, 2019 at 3:33
  • I thought - is a prestigious way to say and; just like when I say Curry–Howard I mean two people, Curry and Howard.
    – Symbol 1
    May 12, 2019 at 20:30

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