>Compare it to the weaknesses of the current category system. 98% of editors don't know what they are doing. >Categories and subcategories are applied inconsistently all the time. Nobody has an overview of the entire tree >structure, or even a major branch of it.

 

And would this be any less truer of tags?

 

>Something that is a subcategory of American novelists today may stop being one tomorrow, just by dint of a single >edit, and no one would be the wiser (unless they keep hundreds of categories on their watchlist). The category >tree (or weave, as categories can have several parents) changes daily, with categories created, renamed, >recategorised, and deleted. There are incessant arguments about how to name, categorise and diffuse categories, >and about perceived iniquities^{.[citation needed]}

 

In all the years I’ve been on Wikipedia I think I’ve only once been involved in any dispute over a category’s existence where I didn’t agree (and still don’t) with the outcome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_August_9#Category:Vogue_editors (I suppose it’s only coincidental here that the category in question was mostly populated by articles about women). Indeed, I find it interesting that WP:LEW includes only one example from the category namespace, with everything else very well represented.

 

>Using a defined set of basic tags in combination with something like CatScan – ported across to the Foundation >server if you like, and given a friendly front-end with shortcuts to the most common searches – would do away >with that.