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The following email was posted today on the algtop list by Joachim Kock. The MSC scheme is still used by MathSciNet and a lot of journals.
Dear all,
the Mathematics Subject Classification will soon be revised by Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt, aiming at a new edition, MSC2020. They are soliciting suggestions and feedback until August 8th.
Three of us (Emily Riehl, Steve Lack, Joachim Kock) have been collaborating on a proposal for Section 18 (Category theory; homological algebra). The main point of the proposal is to create new subsections
18H Higher categories and homotopical algebra 18M Monoidal categories and operads,
big subfields of category theory where it is particularly difficult to find good entries in the MSC2010. We also take the opportunity to propose some adjustments in the existing subsections of 18. The proposed new Section 18 is included below in plain text. A more detailed document, with change comments, can be accessed at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yr400e893uhhctm/MSC2020.pdf
We are still fine-tuning the proposal.
Before submitting the proposal (one week from now), we would like to request last-minute feedback from the category theory community, either on this mailing list or in private.
We also invite you to co-sign the proposal.
We are sorry for getting this proposal out so late. But this is only the starting point: the next phase in the timeline set out by MR and zbMATH is 12 months of community feedback, so there will still be plenty of time for discussion.
The appearance of Goodwillie calculus under “categories in geometry and topology” seems wrong. Though I do understand what led people to it.
One problem is that a real fix would have to admit more broadly that homotopy theory is a sub-topic of -category theory (namely ), which would require further changes elsewhere.
That said, I have to admit that what makes me most happy about MSC codes is if I can ignore them. They have never had any use for me, the only emotional attachment to them is frustration over an annoying time sink when needing to dig them out while submitting an article.
I feel similarly about MSC codes in general, but I’m happy that someone else has taken the time to come up with this proposal, which I think will make it them easier to ignore by reducing the amount of time it takes to figure out where to classify papers. Maybe in 2030 or 2040 homotopy theory can really get properly classified; this sort of thing always lags behind the reality.
The proposal on the HoTT list to include a code or two for HoTT/UF may be ahead of its time, but the part of it that separates out Constructive Mathematics from Proof Theory is decades overdue.
In physics, the used to have an analog of MSC, called PACS (Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme), https://publishing.aip.org/publishing/pacs/pacs-2010-regular-edition
It was discontinued in 2010, with the inability to maintain it being cited as the reason for termination. MSC is obviously suffering from the same problems: it is decades behind current research, and seems to be difficult to change. Perhaps we should try to convince MathSciNet/zbMATH to ditch it completely instead, or at least update it more often than once in 10 years.
Unfortunately, however annoying it is to spend a bit of time searching for appropriate MSC codes for every paper I write, those small amounts of time are utterly dwarfed by the amount of time it would take to try to convince a large bureaucracy to change its ways…
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