Is it reasonable to block a tag from being used given that an entire site exists for the topic? [closed]

Question

I am wondering if it is reasonable to block the mathematica tag from being added to new questions on Stack Overflow, given these circumstances:

• A dedicated Stack Exchange site exists: Mathematica.

• The vast majority of all Mathematica users on Stack Exchange, and virtually all experts, have moved to the new site; only a few skilled users still answer Mathematica questions on Stack Overflow

• Many of the new questions tagged mathematica have nothing to do with Mathematica; it is mistakenly used in place of (or usually in addition to) math.

• Many of the remaining uses of mathematica are merely referential, saying something like "Mathematica has function X that does Y; how can I implement this in Python?" See these questions from yesterday which I have not yet retagged: Cartoonish style plots in MATLAB or Python? and numpy array split/partition efficiency

Given these facts would it not be better to keep this tag from being used in the future? New questions belong on Mathematica, and if users could be directed there I think it would be better for all involved.

I continue to review the mathematica tag on Stack Overflow, but I'm getting tired of untagging half of the questions for misapplication, and directing the authors of the other half to the correct site.

Answer 1

No, that's not a reason to blacklist a tag. There is an overlap of subjects, mathematica questions are not necessarily off-topic.

Blacklisting is to be reserved for tags that have no place whatsoever on a site, but that keep coming back to life. mathematica is no such hard-to-kill zombie.

Quoting from the blacklist-request tag wiki:

Tags must be "quite bad" to be blacklisted. Generally, these are tags that could never convey any useful information or are actively harmful to the site. Because of the potential consequences of getting something wrong, only the dev team is able to add tags to a site's blacklist.

Instead, update the tag wiki to point out that the new site exists. Subscribe to the tag and educate users. Remove it where necessary. In other words: let the community police this. If you are tired of doing this, then let someone else fill the breach for a while, you don't have to do this either.