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EDIT: Be sure to check the update at the end of this post!

I propose we never use the tag on this site. It is too confusing, and people will keep using it for both graphs (as in vertices and edges), and for plotting.

I've been following that tag on SO for a while, and it's an awful mess of a mix of plotting, graph theory and the Facebook graph API.

So what shall we use? It has been proposed we use instead. I think this sounds too much like mathematics, and it's not appropriate for questions like this.

I propose using for this, which is also what WRI calls the new domain area added to Mathematica 8.

I don't have a strong opinion on which tag we should use (except that I think it's important to banish the ambiguous from here). But I very strongly wish that we agree on a standard, encourage using it, and retag the existing questions appropriately.

Note: I care about this because I've used Mathematica's new Graph[]-related functionality a lot, and I want to be able to find relevant questions without noise from discussions about plotting. I also wish we have a single central tag for this (no fragmentation).

Update

To avoid confusion, this question is about this thing:

Mathematica graphics

It is not about this thing:

Mathematica graphics

It is in fact about making sure that the two will never get mixed under the same tag, and also that it'll be easy to find all Graph[]-related and graph-theory-related posts in the future.

To get this rolling, please post tag name-suggestions as answers, and please vote (up or down) on existing answers!

I will post as a suggestion, and I recommend someone else post as this came up too.

I suggest we choose one based on these criteria:

  • It should be appropriate for questions related to Graph[] in any way
  • It should be appropriate for questions related to graph-theory

  • It should be appropriate for these existing questions:

  • It should be appropriate for these sample questions (feel free to suggest others):

    • How do I transfer graphs created in networkx to Mathematica?
    • How do I implement an algorithm for finding connected components?
    • How do I highlight in red one group of nodes in a bipartite graph?
    • How do I generate a random graph with a given degree distribution?
    • Why do AtomQ@Graph[x] and AtomQ@Graph[{}] return different results?
    • Why does MatchQ[Graph[{1->2}], Graph[___]] return False?

If you do not agree that it is preferable to have a single tag covering all these, please explain why in an answer.

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  • Could you use Graph[] as a tag? Or otherwise Graph-function or something to that extent, to clarify that it is a mma function, and not a plot or math problem. – insect Jan 18 '12 at 22:53
  • @insect No, tags must be lowercase, and I think they shouldn't have [] (not sure). Also, Graph[] is not really a function, in fact it can be an atomic object (in the AtomQ sense) – Szabolcs Jan 18 '12 at 22:54
  • graph-plotting and graph-theory sound like a good idea to me. Not sure what exactly a graph-network is supposed to be. – David Jan 18 '12 at 22:58
  • @David graph-plotting is ambiguous too. Is it about visualizing graphs, or about making plots? (plotting is fine for the latter). Also, do you think graph-theory is appropriate for a question about how to import a graph from e.g. the Pajek format? It's good that you note that graphs-networks (note the s at the end) is unfamiliar to you. Is graphs-and-networks confusing too (note the documentation centre uses the same)? – Szabolcs Jan 18 '12 at 23:03
  • Of course if most people say that graph-theory is the best solution, even for questions about handling a network on a computer, then we can go with that by me. – Szabolcs Jan 18 '12 at 23:04
  • Well, graphs-and-networks has the downside of being ambiguous again for both plotting and the mathematical side. Maybe both tags, graphs-and-networks and plotting, should be used together for graph plotting questions? – David Jan 18 '12 at 23:06
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I propose using as a general tag for this purpose. The documentation centre uses this exact title. Anyone working in network science will instantly recognize what it is about. It would come up as a tag suggestion when starting to type graph..., which is what people asking about graphs are likely to do.

I do not know if this is instantly recognizable for a mathematician working in graph-theory.

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  • 2
    +1: Do this, make graph-theory a synonym of it. – Isaac Jan 20 '12 at 2:48
  • @Isaac Do you know what is the procedure for creating a synonym? They have to be requested from moderators on meta? – Szabolcs Jan 20 '12 at 20:32
  • I think that, unless there are existing questions with the relevant tags and users with sufficiently-many upvotes in those tags, a moderator has to manually do it. (I think users with enough upvotes in a tag can propose synonyms or maybe can propose that the tag should be a synonym for something else, and other users with enough upvotes can vote for/against the synonym until it reaches a certain + or – score to become a synonym or be removed from the proposed list.) – Isaac Jan 20 '12 at 20:45
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Another suggestion was . I am posting it here so people can vote on it.

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