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Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) are a branch of statistics focused on modeling evolutionary data (i.e., data on species' characteristics and phylogenetic relationships). I have found 24 questions by searching phylogen* (4 in 2012, 6 in 2013, 6 in 2014, 6 in 2015, and 2 so far this year). Stack Overflow already has a [phylogeny] tag that has been used 101 times, although it seems to be underused since searching phylogen* returns 404 questions. I would personally subscribe to a [phylogeny] tag, but as I am new here, I am not sure if 6 questions trickling in per year would be deemed worthy of a tag. What do people think, tag or no?

As an aside, I am very surprised that the PCM community hasn't tapped into Cross Validated more. I have been encouraging colleagues to come here because although there is R-sig-phylo, I think there is space for a forum where beginner to expert level PCM users can help each other with problems of varying difficulty. I'd describe myself as an advanced user, not expert, but I spend a lot of time helping beginner to intermediate level users who don't feel comfortable posting to R-sig-phylo. I think it would be great if more of that could take place in a forum like this.

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This seems fine to me.

Here are a couple of points:

  1. When you create the tag, be sure to create a tag wiki excerpt that states what it stands for, and provides some guidance on how to use the tag.
  2. You may want to create a full tag wiki with more in-depth information as well.
  3. Don't add the tag to all the relevant threads at once. Do a few at a time and let some hours (or a day) pass in between.
  4. You may want to add the tag to existing answers during slow periods.
  5. When adding the tag to an existing thread, be sure to do whatever other edits might be merited at the same time.
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  • $\begingroup$ What's the reason not to add the tag to all relevant threads at once? Does this advice hold for new tags that will be added to just some tens of questions? $\endgroup$
    – Pere
    Commented Feb 20, 2017 at 12:24
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    $\begingroup$ @Pere, threads primarily get noticed by being at the top of the main page. When you edit (eg, retag) a thread, it gets bumped to the top of the main page. So if you did all of them, you would flood the main page & all the new / current threads would be pushed down or off. $\endgroup$
    – gung - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Feb 20, 2017 at 13:16
  • $\begingroup$ (+1) I copied these points into meta.stats.stackexchange.com/tags/tag-proposal/info. $\endgroup$
    – amoeba
    Commented Feb 21, 2017 at 12:58

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