The tag is current a synonym of , I propese that it should instead be a synonym of which acording to the tag description seems a much better match.

It also appears that is a little used duplicate of and should be turned into a synonym.

The stats:

  • (38 followers, 323 questions)

    Microsoft PixelSense is a large-touchscreen computer platform released by Microsoft in 2008. Applications for PixelSense are developed in .NET using either WPF or XNA for the graphical interfaces.

  • (36 followers, 506 questions)


  • (0 followers, 2 questions)

    No tag description.

An alternative could be to rename the surface tag to microsoft-surface as a lot of the questions tagged with [surface] are done so incorrectly –  AeroX Jun 19 at 11:50
In addition to @Gilles's answer.... I bought a Surface tablet when they first came out. I was having trouble porting C and C++ libraries under Visual Studio, so I asked some questions on Microsoft's site under the Surface forums. I was subsequently run off because Surface is an API, and the group does not refer to the Surface (or Surface Pro) tablets. –  jww Jun 20 at 3:54
Here's the link to the Surface Application Design and Development Forum for the API. –  jww Jun 20 at 4:02
I second this as I am writing this comment from a Surface tablet. –  deleteme Jun 21 at 21:10
I foresee this discussion coming back alive once the Surface Mini is out and then we will be debating the merits of the surface-mini tag. –  Burhan Khalid Jun 22 at 5:43

2 Answers 2

The meaning of is far from limited to the Microsoft Surface tablet. It was created a long time ago with the naive meaning in geometry and is still used for that purpose. The geometry meaning was established long before tag wikis existed.

is currently about a different Microsoft technology, which is now known as . The tag is unambiguously about the ARM version of the tablet.

I believe that the name Surface in reference to Microsoft evokes the Surface tablets far more often than what is now known as Pixelsense. Hence should be unsynonymized from .

Given that Surface is a brand name rather than a technical designation — in particular, there are ARM and x86 versions, and they come with different operating systems and run different applications — we probably don't need a “Microsoft Surface tablet” tag.

Questions about the Surface tablet should be retagged from to if appropriate — and probably just to (x86) or (ARM), plus if the tablet aspect is relevant.

I hear Microsoft's legal department is drafting a cease and desist letter to those geometers who continue to abuse their trademark. –  Cody Gray Jun 20 at 7:30
Yeah, about surface-rt: out of the only two questions tagged surface-tablet one is about the Surface Pro, not Surface RT. –  Sergiu Paraschiv Jun 20 at 7:35
Just pointing out that surface-rt is limited to a single SDK and there's no correct way of referring to the x86 Surface Pro. One could also argue that there should be no questions tagged "Surface as in the product, not an API", just like "iPhone" or "iPad" are bad IMHO –  Sergiu Paraschiv Jun 20 at 7:42
Surely a tag for Surface in terms of geometry for be a burnination candidate as it adds nothing and no one outside of carpentry can really be an expert on surfaces. –  Amicable Jun 20 at 8:09
@SergiuParaschiv Ah, more terminology fragmentation, just what we needed. What tag name(s) and meaning(s) are useful to have about Surface tablets then? Do you mean “none, use windows-8 or windows-rt instead”? Isn't there anything that's common to all tablets running the latest generation of MS OSes? –  Gilles Jun 20 at 8:11
@Amicable Uh, what? surface is a perfectly cromulent tag in geometry-related topics such as 3D image drawing. Quite useful for searches, and yes, you can be an expert in rendering surfaces. –  Gilles Jun 20 at 8:12
For the RT SDK I'd say windows-rt is a lot better, as there are a lot of other devices running this ARM-only OS. For the x86 Surface Pro products I don't see why there should ever be a special tag, except for people who write drivers for them. Just like there's no "dell-xps" tag (I hope) there should be no "surface" tag referring to the products. Also, there are a lot of other x86 Surface Pro-like devices. This is in no way the same as Apple having three devices running iOS. –  Sergiu Paraschiv Jun 20 at 8:23
To prove my point:… - the surface tag on this question helps with nothing. There is absolutely nothing different (SDK, OS, APIs) between a Microsoft Surface RT and any other Windows RT device out there. –  Sergiu Paraschiv Jun 20 at 8:30
You've forgotten about the Surface Pro! –  deleteme Jun 21 at 21:09
Gotta downvote this, surface-rt is one specific surface product. This comparable to putting all Nokia phones under the lumia tag. –  Seth Jun 21 at 21:12
@Seth, Sergiu Paraschiv: edited. Given that Surface isn't a series of closely related products, a “Microsoft Surface tablet” tag shouldn't exist at all. Did I miss anything now? –  Gilles Jun 21 at 21:18
Yes, much better. Downvote reverted. –  Seth Jun 21 at 21:19
Yup. Seems correct now. –  Sergiu Paraschiv Jun 22 at 18:42

I concur.

Pixelsense is related, but different than Microsoft Surface, and should be its own tag.

microsoft-surface should be the master, not surface. If some folks want to comb through the surface tag and clean it up, I'll fix the synonyms.

For other people helping to combing through the surface tag: a large proportion of the questions tagged surface are actually related to the Android Class surfaceview –  AeroX Jun 19 at 15:52
I see that a number of questions use "surface" in the geometric sense. Does anyone agree with the creation of [geometry-surface]? It seems like an area of expertise that would cross several tools. –  JasonMArcher Jun 19 at 16:40
Don't synonymize surface to microsoft-surface: they're different “Surface” technologies. surface gets a lot of use for the common meaning in geometry. @JasonMArcher geometry-surface sounds like a bad tag name — nobody says “I want to draw a geometry surface”. geometric-surface would be a tad better, but surface would be best. Leave surface to mean a surface, and microsoft-surface (or surface-rt?) to mean the tablet. microsoft-surface needs to be disconnected from pixelsense first. –  Gilles Jun 20 at 1:46
We're going to have a major retag operation in year 2200 when androids (like Data) become more popular and people are programming them... –  corsiKa Jun 20 at 14:14
@gilles: How do you keep people from abusing surface to mean microsoft-surface? Do you just give up on that idea? Sure wish you guys would make up your mind about generic tags. Another example here: (keyboard, widget, share) –  Robert Harvey Jun 20 at 16:30
@Gilles If the tag has more than one meaning, it isn't a good tag. I chose "geometry-surface" because it follows existing "geometry" tags. It isn't really important, but I went with the existing consensus. –  JasonMArcher Jun 20 at 16:35
@Gilles: For another good example, look at the android tag cloud. activity, intent, and layout were all synonymized to Android terms, because people were typing sentences into the tag editor (despite the fact that all of these terms can mean something else). –  Robert Harvey Jun 20 at 16:38

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