Wikipedians
have certain workflows. They write articles, revert to
prior revisions, do comparions over 10 past revisions and so forth.
By creating a completely separate scheme, you require them to add
another workflow to their routine. The system becomes more complex
and the user is increasingly confused. This should be avoided when
implementing the same feature within the existing workflows is
reasonably possible. I believe this to be the case with categories
(but not necessarily with interlanguage links).
IMHO categories don't change the way articles do. An article about a
city will be about a city as long as the article exists. I could add a
date field to the connection category-article to make a diff, but I
don't see the point.
Most articles are probably very stable. Only a small minority become
the subject of wild edit wars. I tend to agree that once a particular
category is established it will not change very much.
People can adapt their personal workflows if the change is not too
complicated. The ability to add a simple code of a few letters to a
page without needing to chase to another page should not significantly
affect work flow. Compare this to going to a list on a separate page to
make sure that the item is on that list.
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