[Wikipedia-l] Categories: An implementation

[Magnus Manske]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> See, because we have to make the wiki principles (reversion, watchlists,  
> rc, diffs, attribution, protection, deletion, undeletion ...) work for any  
> solution that is outside the article space, I prefer one that is simply  
> part of the article space.

You have removed the part of my answer where I talked about undeleting...

>>>All in all, I obviously like my [[Category:Foo]] proposal more.
>>
>>Been there, had it implemented. Long time ago (Phase II, IIRC). No want,
>>no need, too complicated.
> 
> Then your implementation was obviously in need of improvement ;->.

At that time, it was the mere concept of categories that was "under 
attack", and the fact that I put the stuff into the articles. Well, I 
guess that's my fate, being ahead of my time ;-)

>>Seriously: diffable is no argument, if the article text is not changed
>>(as in my implementation).
> 
> 
> 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.

>>I still have the code of *my* implementation in the test wiki, if that's
>>what you mean. I just can't find the database structure anymore :-(
> 
> 
> Hm, that's why it's a good idea to use CVS branches for that kind of  
> ideas. Then they don't get lost. Test.wiki code is overwritten every  
> couple of weeks.

No, the *code* is still there (SpecialInterwiki.php, IIRC). The test 
database was wiped, and that wouldn't have been in the CVS, unless I had 
explicitely put a copy of the database structure there.

Magnus