Unsure if now is the right time for it, but might as well bring it up.

What is the take on tags that begin with ?

Personally, I find that such tags, on a Quantum computing site is redundant, and unneeded except in special cases:

  1. The difference between the quantum and classical (which are analogous or share names) is relevant, and is the meaning of that1.
  2. has another meaning, which could possibly be relevant on this site (who knows, maybe something called state which means something other than the state of some $n$ qubits). In this situation, both and are needed, and it should be made clear2 that they are different

If you didn't notice the superscript numbers, please read the two special cases (you don't have to, but I ask kindly).

Note 1 can be fixed by making them synonymous.

Both notes can (also) be fixed via the tag excerpts.

What do you think of such tags? If you agree, what other special cases can you think of?


  • - it probably isn't on topic to discuss programming that isn't for quantum machines.
  • This is an example of case #1. Removing "quantum" from the tag name makes it a different tag.

I'd agree with you, but here's a point to consider: tags show what is on-topic to users. If a user sees the tag there might be confusion as to what is on-topic.

On the other hand, you are quite right that the "quantum" abbreviation is in some cases not very useful and just makes the tag name longer. There are enough exceptions that it might be worth just going through the list and figuring out a good name on a case-by-case basis. There will probably be very few controversial ones.


I think that, for the cases where as the same meaning as (when limited to this site!), we best can decide on case by case basis which one we like and then keep the other as a synonym.

It is very likely that there are non-obvious reasons to prefer one over another and also possible that there is significant disagreement. I think synonyms would be a reasonable compromise for cases where agreement can't be reached.


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