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I'm proposing the creation of a new tag: . It doesn't currently exist, and would be easy to apply to common name reactions by simply running a search for the most common, and then applying it to all future questions as necessary.

Rationale for creating the tag

Named reactions are a big part of learning organic chemistry, and there are an awful lot of them to remember.

So important is the topic that entire books have been written specifically covering various name reactions (I think this was one metric for determining whether something should have its own tag, 'is there a book written about it?'):

The tag would be applied along with other relevant ones such as and , to help users find questions specifically relating to name reactions, applications and mechanisms (going one step further would be individual tags for individual name reactions but this would probably just create a lot of tags with very few questions/answers).

I think that actually, we already have some great answers related to several name reactions, and in theory, this would help people find them (almost like a book of name reactions in itself).

Existing questions falling into this catagory

There are actually a lot of questions that fit, but to name a few that I've came across in the last few weeks which I feel would benefit from :

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  • $\begingroup$ Technically these are "name reactions". $\endgroup$
    – Mithoron
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 21:41
  • $\begingroup$ Tomato tomatoe ? Point taken. $\endgroup$
    – NotEvans.
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 21:48
  • $\begingroup$ You can ask for advice on meta for tag creation? I thought if I did, someone else would create the tag instead. Anyway this looks like a good idea. $\endgroup$
    – Pritt says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 3:27
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    $\begingroup$ It doesn't really matter who creates tags. There's no ownership/associated rep etc. Also a good idea to see if people think a new tag is needed/sensible to avoid pointless tagging / untagging (read: please don't create a tonne of new tags). $\endgroup$
    – NotEvans.
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 3:32
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    $\begingroup$ better sorry than safe... $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 3:36
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    $\begingroup$ A month in the lab saves an hour in the library... $\endgroup$
    – NotEvans.
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 3:38
  • $\begingroup$ @NotEvans. someone else might claim the Taxonomist badge. That's what I'm thinking about. $\endgroup$
    – Pritt says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 12:20
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    $\begingroup$ @Pritt We are very fair here. We tend to discuss the benefits of new tags and wait for a while until we set the wheels into motion. It is very often the case that the one suggesting it, is also the one having to do the majority of the work later involved. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 13:32
  • $\begingroup$ @Martin-マーチン This is so good to hear. Personally my reason above was the reason why I created the states-of-matter without consulting anyone. Now it's clear, I'll look forward to posting suggestions on meta. $\endgroup$
    – Pritt says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 13:35
  • $\begingroup$ Besides, when I'm out of votes, improving tag wikis is a good way to help community. $\endgroup$
    – Pritt says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 5, 2017 at 13:36

1 Answer 1

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I would prefer not to create it. The tag in my opinion sounds a little bit too meta-ish. The field is big enough that entire books have been published for it. However, all of the name reactions only have one thing in common: that they are (usually) named after persons. Therefore as a categorising tool it really isn't that helpful, because if you are looking for Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons variation of the Wittig reaction you will still have to enter those search terms no matter if they are using or not. What would be more helpful would be identifying the functional group that is getting build/ transformed/ destroyed and tagging that instead. (That is only my opinion as a theoretical/ computational chemist.)

If questions about specific name reactions were to become more frequent, then it would possibly be warranted creating tags for such reactions instead. For example: Wittig already has 19 questions, that is currently more than there are questions tagged with (15). Aldol has a whooping 42 uses.

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  • $\begingroup$ Nice. Now you've pointed out how many questions are already talking about Wittig/Aldol/Diels-Alder, I'm maybe more inclined to agree that 'name-reactions' is too broad. Having an aldol tag etc would be a nice idea if there was some agreement on the minimum # of questions needed to justify it (10?) $\endgroup$
    – NotEvans.
    Commented Jun 6, 2017 at 18:45
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    $\begingroup$ @Not 10 seems a bit low, and it should be good questions, too. If we end up cleaning them out, there is no gain. Also the tags don't have to be delivered all at once, as long as they have a real usage and a wiki it should be fine. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Jun 8, 2017 at 11:32

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