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Quantum is the release name for Firefox 57. It looks like people are referring to the new browser by either name, and we have tags for both. It is probably useful to have both tags, but they should be synonomized.

usage far exceeds , so I was going to suggest making the primary. However, it looks like Mozilla may use Quantum to differentiate the revised code base from the pre-57 versions. We already have a question tagged that refers to v58.

Since the technology change is what differentiates 57+, and subsequent version numbers won't merit new tags, is probably the better primary tag.

Update: after @Nemo's comment, an even better choice for the primary tag might be . That should be pretty universally understandable, including by users who aren't familiar with "Quantum".

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  • Once all supported versions of Firefox are quantum, would any differentiation matters? AFAIK, Firefox has been Firefox since its Phoenix days and has suffered several mayor reworks in both backend and front end. For the future reader, they will not care how it was called then, but now.
    – Braiam
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 21:19
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    @Braiam, good point. Right now, we're getting a lot of questions specific to the revised code base, so it's useful to have a tag that differentiates the code base. There are also users sticking with the ESR version (old code base). So in a year, the vast majority of users will be on the new code base and that will be what the new questions are about. It will still be important to differentiate, though, because old answers to problems that are similar to new ones may not be relevant. What's your suggestion for what to use as a tag?
    – fixer1234
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 21:35
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    "because old answers to problems that are similar to new ones may not be relevant" keyword: may not. And evaluating which one is and which is not is a daunty task that no one will sign up for. I prefer keeping separate stuff where I'm sure that backwards and forwards they will never intersect. Parallels tags, so to say.
    – Braiam
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 3:30
  • @Braiam, I think we're in agreement conceptually. It isn't clear, though, what you recommend specifically to do with the tags.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 3:47
  • Quantum is basically v57+ until some other browser engine refresh occurs and is called something else. I'd expect the questions relevant to this tag to be about the webextensions which don't work on versions <57 and the new UI. Yay to its own tag.
    – user1306322
    Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 6:02
  • I created [firefox-57] for questions which specifically referred to Firefox 57 or 57+ because for now I cannot tell which is which (for instance some extensions which broke in 57 may resume working in 58 when new APIs are released). I agree they may need to be merged in the future if there aren't many questions about version 57 specifically, but I'm not sure we can predict it now.
    – Nemo
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 10:58
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    @Nemo, maybe we should change the tag to [firefox-57+], which would reflect that better. Normally, version number tags are explicitly about that specific version. That may actually be the most easily understood choice for the primary tag.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 17:47
  • @fixer1234 maybe but would that force us to remove/change the tag again when firefox 58 comes out and some of those questions are found to be superseded?
    – Nemo
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 18:53
  • @Nemo, my assumption is that people would understand "57+" to mean V57 or later, so we wouldn't need to change or replace the tag (unless Mozilla eventually comes out with another new code base with a new set of issues). Your point was my concern with using "57" to also refer to later versions. We would clarify usage in the wiki excerpt (for the two users who bother to read the excerpts). :-)
    – fixer1234
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 19:52
  • @nemo, one other thought - right now, we're dealing with lots of questions relating to the change in code base that will apply to multiple versions of Firefox, so the best tag would be something that differentiates the code base but isn't version-specific. But we also create version-specific tags when a single version has unique issues that generate a lot of questions. So if V58 is a disaster, we could create a version-specific tag for it, and that wouldn't change usage of a "57+" tag for issues relating to the V57 code base change.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 20:14

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