Wikipedia:Enforce inclusion of categories

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This is a feature request. Please notify the developers via Bugzilla.

All Wikipedia articles, images, templates, portals, and even categories should be included in a category.

I therefore propose that we modify the software to not permit the saving of pages (other than redirects) in these namespaces unless a link to a legitimate existing category is included. As part of this proposal, a warning screen will be created to inform editors who try to save an uncategorized page that the page can not be saved because it does not include an existing category; this warning screen will provide the editor with a link to the directory of categories, for ease of addition. Perhaps a search/menu function could be added to allow editors to pick the most appropriate category with one click.

Supplemental to this, I propose the creation of a feature which allows users to watchlist category contents, and to be alerted when the content of a category changes.

I believe that this proposal would provide the following benefits:

1. It will deter vandalism involving new page creation by placing an additional step before the potential vandal; persons seeking to create legitimate articles will hopefully not be deterred, because the inclusion of a category is helpful to the quality of the article they wish to create.
2. It will deter vandalism involving page blanking, or the intentional or accidental deletion of page content that includes all categories, because the editor will no longer be able to save the edit with no categories on the page.
3. It will alert editors who work in specific areas of knowledge to the fact that a new article has been created in that area.
4. By alerting new editors to the existence of categories, it will give them an additional tool to insure that the content they intend to provide is not duplicative of an article already contained in the encyclopedia.
5. It will eventually eliminate the need for pages such as Uncategorized pages, Uncategorized categories, Uncategorized images, Category:Category needed, and for projects such as User:Bluemoose/Uncategorised good articles and User:Bluemoose/Uncategorised lists.

Please discuss this proposal on the talk page. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additional/alternative proposals

Additional proposals have been made on the talk page. These include:

• Creating an automated warning that alerts editors who attempt to save a page with no categories (but permits the editor to choose to save the page without categories).
• Making the above function an option that can be turned on (or is on by default and can be turned off) in preferences.
• Automatically tagging uncategorized pages with a date-stamped {{uncat}} tag.