# Create a tag for Laplace smoothing

Laplace smoothing (also known as additive smoothing) is a very particular smoothing technique concerning categorical data. Laplace smoothing is almost always associated with a probability regularisation task and thus it does not immediately relate to "standard" smoothing techniques (eg. kernel smoothing, smoothing spline, etc.) concerned with variations along a (usually linear) continuum.

I think it will be beneficial to have a separate [laplace-smoothing] tag. At first instance it seems that 25 to 30 questions might warrant the tag. I think it will make it easier for ML practitioners to recognise/filter relevant questions. Some questions that would affected are the following:

(Unsurprisingly, NLP applications seems to generally concerned with this type of regularisation...)

• If you are willing to create this tag and to re-tag 25-30 existing questions with it, then I don't see any disadvantage. I think it would be a decent tag to have. +1. Apr 13, 2017 at 7:42
• Yeah, why not? I can do it. (I will be careful not to flood the main I will do them in two sittings.) Apr 13, 2017 at 22:28
• Laplace smoothing is the kernel smoothing. It has some interesting properties such as minimizing the length of the smooth line Apr 14, 2017 at 21:49
• @Aksakal: I think it is only under a very generic and bird's eye view of kernel smoothing. :D I have strong doubts that people interested in Laplace smoothing applications (on this website/ online community) associate the two on first instance. For example in all eight questions linked above the OP (or people answering) make no references to that association so it probably beats the point of basing a tag on that idea. Please feel free to provide counter-examples. Apr 14, 2017 at 22:47
• With 5 upvotes and 0 downvotes, I'd say we have a consensus here. Apr 15, 2017 at 15:53
• Any progress on that @usεr11852? :) May 10, 2017 at 7:16
• @amoeba Nothing at all. Honestly, I thought someone else would create the tag first. :D (No worries I will start the labelling soon.) May 10, 2017 at 18:10
• (First dozen done.) May 10, 2017 at 20:51

Label [laplace-smoothing] created. Accompanying wiki-lemma created. Label added to ~20 questions. Instances of [add-one-smoothing] relabelled with [laplace-smoothing].