In this answer of mine, I labeled my equation using \label{eq:boltzmann} and then tried to cite it in the usual LateX way: \eqref{eq:boltzmann}. That is at least the way I've been used to it since first starting to use LaTeX in 2007.
It is also the way that we have labeled and referenced equations in all of the papers that I have written as a team with other co-authors.
It is also the way that LyX generates TeX code when I label and reference equations using the LyX GUI.
However, the equation referencing on this Stack Exchange site didn't work as expected, and eventually Tyberius figured out that we had to add the \tag{1} command, in addition to what we normally would do. I would never have known that!
After searching a bit, I found here, that the expected behavior can be obtained by simply adding:
window.MathJax = {
tex: {
tags: 'ams'
}
};
to the MathJax config file. I wonder whether it would be worth it for us to request Adam Lear (for example), to add this to our MathJax configuration file? It seems simple enough, and I see no disadvantages to is (let's see what the people responding to this Meta question say). Perhaps the SE team has concerns that other sites might not want this, but I would think they all want it for sure (if it's a concern, maybe I could ask this on other Meta sites too).
Every paper I've published, whether in chemistry, or physics, or mathematics, or quantum computing, has always used ams (American Mathematical Society) templates, so this is why I think this would benefit all the other SE sites too (if they don't already have this configuration set!).
If we do wish to have this feature, and the SE staff do not mind supporting it, I wonder if our community would also like us to make use also of the following (from the same article I linked above):
It is also possible to set the tagging to ‘all’, so that every displayed equation will get a number, regardless of the environment used.
In all my papers I always number all equations, and I encourage my students to do so as well. This is because, even if you never need to refer to an equation in your paper (or SE answer), someone else might want to refer to it: In that case we do not want them to have to say something like "it is explained in the second equation between Eq. 2 and Eq. 3 of this answer on Stack Exchange". They should just be able to say "it is explained in Eq. X of this answer on stack exchange".
