[Wikipedia-l] Categories: An implementation

[Ray Saintonge]

Magnus Manske wrote:

>> 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.

Ec