Board Thread:Support Requests - Getting Technical/@comment-452-20140828002814/@comment-25263848-20140828162433

I don't see it as either this OR that, Interwikis should be set only for trusted and extensively used sites only.

IMO you already stated the reason for it i.e monitoring. Like with the is long-standing policy of not using external links anywhere but in the external section. Its exactly what Special:LinkSearch was designed for, monitor what goes out.

As for benefits.. Maybe Portability? if a major site you linked to changed domain, it will be easier to edit one entry in the interwiki table as oppose to run a bot over the whole wiki. And maybe CEO? I know that external links has no flow set, but I am not sure if it the same for interwikilinks.