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I know I can retag the post by editing it, but it's unintuitive to have a retag link on some questions and not on others. In other words, the steps one needs to follow to retag a question should be independent of whether the question is CW or not.

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You're looking at it from the opposite perspective from how the system itself handles it. It's not that CW questions don't have a "retag" link, it's that non-CW questions don't have a full "edit" link.

The "retag" permission you get at 500 reputation is nothing more than an inferior sampling of the "edit" permission you get at 2000 reputation. When you gain that ability, you'll no longer have the retag link on non-CW questions, either. You'll be using "edit" to perform retags on all posts, because that's what retagging really is: editing tags.

You already earned the permission to do edits on CW questions with 100 reputation, before you even had the retag permission. Adding a retag link to CW questions would be an extraneous step backwards.

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Maybe it's just me, but it seems like user interfaces should be designed from a user perspective, not a system perspective. If retagging is just editing, then for non-CW questions I should have an Edit link that just allows me to retag. Then, once I reach 2000 rep, I should also be able to change the question when I click the Edit link. –  BenV Aug 13 '10 at 14:23
@BenV I'm not opposing a user perspective, but for example I as a user found this approach intuitive. This is not unlike how some rating scales treat 1 as the highest, while others treat 10 as the best. What's "intuitive" varies with people's experience and how they look at a system. Saying it comes from the system perspective sounds less pompous than saying "My perspective is right". –  Grace Note Aug 13 '10 at 14:43
Calling it "edit" but not giving what people expect from something called edit is confusing, especially when it maps in name to both a capability you get, and an action they already have experience with. To me, that would be a far more unintuitive UI than separately named links. So when a 500-1999 user sees a question, they'll know they can edit it if it is CW, and only retag if it's not CW. –  Grace Note Aug 13 '10 at 14:48
Ok, maybe I'm just a little dumber than the average user. To me, when I'm looking at a question with the intention of retagging it, I don't immediately associate the Edit link with retagging. Even after I figured this out the first time, I've still found myself temporarily stymied when I go to retag a CW question. Obviously the best solution here is for me to get past 2000 rep so it becomes a non-issue! –  BenV Aug 13 '10 at 20:19
Also, your explanation of this being a result of me having 500-1999 rep technically answered my question so I'm accepting this answer. –  BenV Aug 13 '10 at 20:21
@BenV Don't call yourself dumber. Like I said, what's intuitive to people varies by their experiences, not their intelligence. This is exactly one such scenario. –  Grace Note Aug 13 '10 at 20:25
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