Wikipedia talk:Category

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[edit] Old talk from village pump

There are many lists of people in Wikipedia, and many more are coming. Most are useful, but many are just "rubbish". Of course, whether a list is useful could never be really NPOV, but we should have better ways to avoid any potential conflict.

Is it possible for us to generate such lists automatically? If it is possible, then (1)all our current lists are more complete as they includes every people mentioned in Wikipedia and (2)Whether a list is useful or not is none of anyone's business, for it is generated on the fly.

--Wshun

Yes, it will be possible to generate these lists automatically with the soon to be activated category system.—Eloquence 01:31, Sep 7, 2003 (UTC)

More old talk can be found at Wikipedia:Category/Topic Maps.

[edit] Category-tag

For a month I saw an article containing a [[Category:]]-tag. Is it something implemented or something that is going to be implemented ? (I.e. as a way of categoring articles on wikipedia.) // Rogper 20:04, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

That's in the next version of the software. We'll be installing the updated version this weekend, then enabling the categories and a few other new features later once everything's a little more thoroughly tested. --Brion 02:38, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Aha, that is a interesting news! :-) BTW, is there any newsgroup or discussion-list where you talk about issues like this ? (never mind, I found where it is.) // Rogper 16:38, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Where? Andrewa 09:19, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The best bet for this sort of discussion is the Wikitech mailing list. Best starting point for mailing lists is Wikipedia:Mailing lists. Pete 11:43, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Placing

I don't know who came up with the categories idea, but adding it to some pages has, with all due respect, ruined them. Look, for example, at the Professor Birch article, the Pokémon Colosseum article, or the Chansey article. I know these all belong to the Category Pokémon, but since these are pages I've contributed to, they're the only one's I've seen (since they are on my watchlist) in the last couple of minutes.

So that this criticizm is constructive, I'd like to suggest that instead of having the text floating at the right pushing everything over, simply align it at the right over the article like this:

category alpha

This is the begining of the article; blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

--Fern 00:28, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd bring it to meta:MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports. grendel|khan 01:15, 2004 May 31 (UTC)

For the record, the rule is

  1. catlinks {
   margin: 0;
   padding: 0;
   width: 34%;
   text-align: right;
   float: right;

}

As you can see, it's already floated to the right. kelvSYC 17:48, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

You obviously did not understand me. I'm saying that the problem is presicely that it's floating to the right pushing everything off. I'm suggesting having it aligned like regular text on its own paragraph line.
--Fern 06:07, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetical Order

It would be very helpful if categories would be automatically displayed in alphabetical order. -Sean Curtin 07:00, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

They are - but for names they're displayed in alphabetical order by the first letter in the first name. john k 08:53, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
They are sorted on the Category pages, but not on the articles. It was as mistake for wikipedia to use 'Firstname Lastname' rather than 'Lastname, Firstname' naming convention, because it makes sorting in examples like this more difficult. Edward 10:27, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
You can write [[Category:People|Lastname, Firstname]] on every person's page that you are adding. Then, it will be sorted as "Lastname, Firstname". Andris 17:53, May 31, 2004 (UTC)

Categories are new, and this is the first instance where this is a problem. I think the aesthetic benefits of "Firstname Lastname" are such as to warrant a slight amount more work when making categories.

[edit] Plural or Singular

Should category titles be plural or singular? For instance, we have [[Category:People]] and [[Category:Writers]], but also [[Category:Playwright]] and [[Category:Poet]]. This is awkward. (The fact that you can't link to category pages in talk page text is also annoying, if anyone is interested.) john k 08:53, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

The prevailing mood seems to be plural (and that's what I think, personally, too).
And you can link to a category the same way you can link to an image without any special effect - [[:Category:People]] --> Category:People.
James F. (talk) 10:59, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. john k 20:02, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
Discussion on the subject of categories is taking place at Wikipedia:Categorization. -- Cyrius|✎ 22:06, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Top

A "Categories: American football" link is at the top of Philadelphia soul, right above information about soul music. It actually applies to a team in the Arena Football League, information about which is at the bottom of the page. I don't know and haven't been able to find out anything about Categories yet, so I'm asking anyone/everyone, can we move the Category link from the top? Hyacinth 00:15, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Move the team to its own page Philadelphia Soul, and then put the category there. The category ought to be Category:Arena Football League teams, though. 68.174.88.103 05:22, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, that was me. john k 05:23, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Categories on User pages

I doubt that allowing this is a good idea: User:Eequor/Eequor is flagged up by Category:Goddesses. -Sean Curtin 04:30, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Spam protection filter" problems

Has anyone else gotten the problem of being blocked by Wikipedia "Spam protection filter" while putting categories on articles? If you put the same text on a bunch of articles one is automatically blocked?

That bug seems to have been fixed. -- Infrogmation 04:22, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Template and category namespaces

66.167.49.222 18:26, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC): See Wikipedia talk:Template namespace.

[edit] Question regarded redundancy

I know I had the impression that it was policy or quasi-policy to not include category redundancy on a page--i.e., if we have a science fiction writer, that page would get Category:Science fiction author but not also Category:Writer. But I can't seem to find out where I got that idea from. Am I smoking crack? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 20:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You probably got that impression from the first section in Category talk:Writers --ssd 03:48, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Whitespace

Could someone please explain me why I'm seeing random amounts of whitespace before the categories at the bottom of the page whenever a page is edited? Compare for instance [1] and [2]. The first one has no extra whitespace, the second one has a huge white space (four lines, looking at the page source) after the {{airlistbox}}, and I see no difference in the wiki source for both versions [3].

cesarb 23:17, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Template

I was excited when I first heard of Wikipedia:Categories because I apparently misunderstood and thought that the list which a category generates would then be useable as a template.

For instance, we have a list of diatonic functions at Category:Diatonic functions, which would fit perfectly at Diatonic function.

Given that this appears to be impossible, it seems like a waste of time for me to create categories since, as the page states, they are much like "What links here" except less useful. In almost all cases they show you a list (in meta-space) which it is then necessary to duplicate elsewhere (in non-meta space).

So, question one is: Am I mistaken and is this already possible? Question two: If it is not now possible, could it be done in the future? Hyacinth 20:30, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Main ?age

I don't wanna cause too much trouble here, but shouldn't "Category:Main page" be "Category:Main Page", since the Main Page has both words capitalized? - dcljr 08:59, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oops, forgot about "Category talk:". I've asked this question there instead. - dcljr 09:05, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lag time

The lag time between when you remove something from a category and when it actually gets removed remains irritating - I removed a ton of people from Category:Great Officers of State to more specific categories earlier this evening, and it still shows them all there on the Category page. When trying to clear out a category, it would be very helpful if things no longer in the category would actually go away, so that one can see what is still left there. Is this being worked on? What's the deal? john k 05:48, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed that if you add another article to the category or (maybe) actually change the category page, it tends to update the listing of articles. (At least, I think that's what's happening.) [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:39, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with Category:Goa'uld?

I just created Category:Goa'uld yesterday, to hold the articles for fictional characters from Stargate SG-1 who are members of the Goa'uld species. Everything seemed to work normally, but none of the articles I added have shown up in the category. An example of one I've added is Apophis (Stargate). Is perhaps the apostrophe causing trouble? Bryan 02:13, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Everything's in there now. I guess something's just being very slow to update in the database. Bryan 07:17, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetical order, re-visited

Background: I recently went through some of the pages in Category:Wikipedia style and how-to and Category:Wikipedia official policy appending |{{PAGENAME}} to the category tags.

  • What, if anything, is accomplished by adding |{{PAGENAME}} to a category? Isn't that the default? -- Jmabel | Talk 17:35, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
    • Reasonable ordering. No. Consider a page that is in a non-default namespace, such as (as in this instance) "Wikipedia:". Without the |{{PAGENAME}}, a category of Wikipedia:XXXX pages ends up with all of the entries filed under "W", which isn't particularly helpful. (If you want to see an example of this, look at the "W" section of Category:Help.) With |{{PAGENAME}}, however, the entries are collated according to the page name alone, not according to the namespace+pagename. So, for example, Wikipedia:Editing Math is now filed under "E", rather than under "W" as it was before. Uncle G 18:01, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

[edit] Subcategories instead of numerous categories

I was looking at Michael Jackson and saw a load of categories including Category:Michael Jackson. That category is a subcat of Category:United States musicians, but Michael Jackson is also included there - one of them should surely be removed. However, should we remove virtually all of the categories and just place them in the Michael Jackson category? violet/riga (t) 19:43, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I know this is an old discussion, but I've noticed a similar situation over at Category:United States television networks. I should think (speaking as a librarian and cataloger) that categories should reflect a hierarchical structure. Any article placed in Category:Michael Jackson should be assumed to also be a part of any category of which Category:Michael Jackson is a subcategory. We shouldn't need to repeat ourselves. – Seancdaug 07:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding an article to a category

Please feel free to move this discussion to a more relevant place.

If I were to add Winston Churchill to a category alpvcy, the usual procedure is to edit the page and add at the bottom [[Category:alpvcy|Churchill, Winston]] - the idea being last name followed by first name. I wanted to know if this is a standard practice. For South Indian names, editors unaware of the local custom assume either caste names such as Reddy or suffixes such as Rao to be last names and add categories accordingly, creating a huge nightmare in terms of categorisation. I request help on two counts - (1) Wikepedia standards, if any, on the naming issues and (2) How to ensure continuity, especially in South Indian names. (apart from having a warning visible in the edit mode, which can be tedious to insert in all articles). --Gurubrahma 06:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categories need not reflect established fact

Is it right to say that, in an encyclopedia, categories need not reflect established fact? Andy Mabbett 16:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sandbox categories

As noted above (Wikipedia_talk:Category#Categories_on_User_pages), it seems that articles being developed in the sandbox or in user subpage sandboxes are added to the relevant categories. Perhaps there should be a comment somewhere (on this page? on the instructions for user subpages? on the instructions for the sandbox? all three places?) that this should be avoided until the page goes 'live'? Ziggurat 03:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge categories?

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but Category:Treaties and Category:Official documents are two separate trees that probably should be if not merged, then put under a closer tree.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you missed that fact that Category:Treaties is a subcategory of Category:Official documents. This seems like a good relationship to me. -R. S. Shaw 04:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories and Lists

I've noticed lately that the community seems to be very uneven about whether a list of articles article is worth having vs. having categories. I'm thinking of my recent experience on List of cryptographers. Basically, here are the problems with category-based lists:

  1. They aren't informative. For any X, there are some X things that are X but aren't worth having on a list of X. For instance, if we did List of cryptographers as a category, it would include every cryptographer, not just those we'd actually want on a list.
  2. Subcategories and supercategories are ugly to navigate.
  3. There's no way to add descriptions.
  4. Finally, if every list was done this way, articles would end up in too many categories.

On the other hand, lists are harder to maintain. To properly edit info on some article, you basically have to edit the article, plus all lists that refer to it.

I was thinking that some additional technology would help this. The ease of maintaining categories is really great, it's just that they don't make good list articles. I'd like to see the following features, which would make lists of articles nearly obsolete:

  1. A "listworthy" tag you can add to an article, saying that it should show up in concise lists. Thus, Ron Rivest would be listworthy and would show up on the short list of cryptographers, whereas, perhaps, Matt Blaze would not, and would show up only the list of all cryptographers. Alternatively, listworthy could be the default, and the tag could be for obscurity or something.
  2. A "listworthy" tag to add to categories, to make the category specifically show up at the bottom of articles, while non-listworthy categories could be either hidden completely, accessible through a link. Again, non-listworthy need not be the default.
  3. A way of adding brief text for use in verbose lists derived from categories.
  4. Sometimes subcategories are too specific, which makes category pages less useful because sometimes the article you want is in a subcategory and not in the parent category. It would be nice if you could make a subcategory automatically categorize all things in it as things in the parent category as well, though this wouldn't always be good.
  5. This may be unrealistic at present, but it would be nice to be able to find intersections of categories: that way we wouldn't need a category for muslim athletes, we could just intersect muslims and athletes.
  6. It might be nice to have a List: namespace, that would make lists automatically based on categories... and where you could set list-specific properties (like, whether a list should default to verbose or not, or concise or not, et cetera).

I don't know if people would like this, but I sure would. Too many list articles are created because they're manually done searches. The nice thing about categories is that they do the work for us. But in the current state they leave too much to do. Anyway, just an idea. If people get behind this maybe it'll happen. Mangojuice 23:39, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. Many of these issues have been discussed many times, and many of the software improvements you speak of have been requested of the developers. I would suggest that you read Wikipedia:Categorization, its talk page and archives of the talk pages. There is also recent discussion about the overly specific subcategories and how to deal with them.
I particularly intrigued by your last idea, I've been thinking of something similar, basically an Index namespace, which would work like categories but list everything in the category and all its subcategories as one big index of articles. -- Samuel Wantman 08:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorisation based on ethnicity

I think its bad taste to categorise based on ethnicity even when a census such as the United States Census, 2000 is avalible. For instance US census considers all middle easter people as "white". A number of arabs, kurds, etc would disagree

Currently we have Category:Kurdish provinces, Category:Kurdish cities, Category:Kurdish inhabited region. I'd ike to note that we do not even have any census data on kurds.

If these categories are ok, I am sure no one would mind me tagging france, uk, germany... etc with categories like "White cities", "white provinces", "white inhabited region". How about categories like 'Arab inhabited region' or 'black inhabited region'

--Cat out 09:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Using categories with redirects

Is it a) possible and b) allowed to have redirects in categories?

Possible use:

The Ur-Quan Masters seems to be some fan-made remake or sequel of a game that is described in the Star Control article. The Ur-Quan Masters redirects there.

Having the Star Control article in Category:Fanmade computer game remakes and sequels wrongly implies that Star Control is a fan-made remake or sequel. Wikipeditor 20:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly possible. It should probably only be allowed in specific cases. I would agree with the case you mention above. See also the discussions here and here. Carcharoth 10:02, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
No, redirects are not meant to have categories. As Help:Redirect says, "A redirect is a page with no other content than" the redirect. IIRC, all lines after the redirect line are ignored anyway.
In this case, my inclination would be to not worry about the problem; a user browsing would soon figure out that only some of games listed in the article are Fanmade. An alternative is to make The Ur-Quan Masters into an article, but I don't see that as warranted. -R. S. Shaw 17:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is certainly possible to categorize redirects and it is desirable in very limited circumstances. Please see the earlier discussions that Carcharoth links to above. older ≠ wiser 18:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Please note that "A redirect is a page with no other content than" the redirect. fails to realise (as I did initially) that redirects are already categorised for maintenance purposes - see Wikipedia:Redirect#What do we use redirects for? to see the templates used to add categories. I too looked at the Help: page initially, but the Wikipedia page turned out to be more helpful. Sadly, getting the Help page edited at Meta is a real pain, and not something I am about to try and do. I think all these "Meta" pages should have "may be out-of-date" warnings on them... Carcharoth 18:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

  • If you need a Help page changed at Meta, let me know. // FrankB 21:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
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