Help talk:Category/Archive 1

Untitled
(Long page content deleted): I am sorry if there was any reason for the long transclusion from meta here: if you want it get it back from page history but it prevents this page doing what its supposed to. --BozMo talk 08:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Note sure if this is the right place to ask or not, but since the page partially refers to, or at least uses the syntax as part of a larger code line; I will start here. I have seen the syntax used and I am unable to under stand what it is trying to accomplish. It appears to be the same as

The following syntax was also very confusing to me:

professional level of Bullshit It creates two separate links both of which do nothing except try to create the same new category page.

Can someone guide me in the right direction

answer:

about, i think it the PAGENAME is a like namespace, or just a mistake.

about the other syntax, i don't know and i don't care.

you asked to be guided in the right direction? well here's my advice: first figure out what YOU want to do. then ask others, if neccesary.

Answer

Adding to a page adds that page to the given category. When you view the category page, the name of the page will automatically be listed there. If the page is in a namespace other than the main namespace, it will be sorted alphabetically by the name of the namespace. To correct this and have the page sorted by its name without the namespace, you can instead add to the page. The Magic Keyword gives the name of the page without the namespace, and it is sent in as the optional sort parameter to the category call, resulting in the desired sort behavior. You could also just add and hardcode the sort parameter, but this would have to be changed on each page it was added to, and if the page was ever renamed, it would no longer function properly. This is why the magic word is used.

Hope this helped!

- Tdoyle 21:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Consistency of "categorization" vs. "categorisation"
Seems as though we should be consistent in our use of these two words, especially when they appear one line after another. What's the proper way to edit the heading of the page to link to Categorization FAQ rather than Categorisation FAQ (which redirects to Categorization FAQ anyhow)? -- marius strom  04:14, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

answer: obviously, the correct way has already been imployed, since the badly spelled page redirects to the correct one.

it's not advisable to manually update the bad links. you can try if you want. it's a free project after all. lol.

now seriously, what other tools are there? i don't know much about mediaWiki (other than it sucks), but maybe they have a search and replace feature. anyway, cheers ttl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.0.180.158 (talk) 14:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hard to understand
This page is too hard to understand. A.Z. 22:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree 100% with the above editor. During two years on Wikipedia, I've always found all help pages very well written and easy to follow. This one is a complete mess. I've read it three times, still not succeeding in creating categories. I hope someone takes the time to do some massive rewriting of this page so that it becomes as helpful as other pages. JdeJ (talk) 12:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree absolutely. This page is a frustrating and incompetent mess. I suppose it's my fault as much as anyone else – I don't try and clean it up myself – yet it wastes time every time I go to it for "guidance". For example, I forgot where to go to rename a category. Think the dribble offered here will help? No wonder there is a category mess in Wikipedia... might be simplest to just delete the page and start again. --Geronimo20 (talk) 11:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I Also think it is not that great. Could Someone edit it? GBogdan (talk) 18:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Could someone please point me to the documentation of, as it is used on , for instance? -- Ddxc (talk) 17:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Number of articles in a category
Is there a way to get the number of articles in a category. I know it can be found in the category page itself, but I want to have it printed automatically in some other article by just referring to the category. --KYN (talk) 18:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have the same question! ChessCreator (talk) 23:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * answer:the way to do it is go create a article, then put Category:Category Name with this with the text shown before in between. Then go to the category and it will be there.GBogdan (talk) 19:55, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Use " There are currently Stubs to be sorted. " to get "There are currently  Stubs to be sorted.".  See Help:Magic words.
 * To display a link to a category, use an extra colon at the beginning: Category:Stubs. To have literal wiki text appear without being interpreted, use &lt;nowiki&gt;(wikitext here)&lt;/nowiki&gt;. JackSchmidt (talk) 20:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Category intersection
Not sure if I should ask here, but isnt it possible to see articles in multiple categories (or intersecting categories) ?? Just an example: - Suppose I am looking for real-time strategy games. But it's not any strategy game. It's for a platform. For example ps2. Also I lets say I was looking for the ones released in 2006.

Is it possible to look at multiple categories to help searching, insted of looking up multiple lists (for example ps2 games of 2006 and real-time strategy games)??

Maybe there could be some tool that find articles that coexist in the given categories?

Thanks alot 189.33.159.46 (talk) 23:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)foundatorx


 * There is a tool - see m:User:Duesentrieb/CatScan. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Category "Demo" deleted?
This help frequently references Category:Demo, but it seems somebody had deleted it :( --Kubanczyk (talk) 10:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Actual number of articles in a category do not match "total"
I've noticed that there are some categories where the actual number of articles in it do not match the "total" given, e.g., Category:Preston North End F.C. players. The number given is 360 while there are actually only 359 articles in it. What's the problem there? Chanheigeorge (talk) 19:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want an extreme example see Category:All non-free media ''The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 508 total. '' The actual total is ?????, well 508 is less than the total index links. Dbiel (Talk) 01:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No category?
Is there a way to remove the category from a page, but not have the material that has the category be hidden? I am curious because I wish to do this in my userpage so it only shows it on my main page, not my subpages. &mdash; Nuclear  Vacuum  00:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you mean from user boxes? I don't think there is a general way to do this, but you can create your own copy of a userbox easily.  You can use  to put the code on your page, and then edit it, or just copy it directly.  Some templates are setup to allow you to use them without adding categories, but I don't think many userboxes are done this way.  You might ask at the village pump or the the help desk. JackSchmidt (talk) 01:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Total articles in category
Do the total number of articles in the category show up anywhere? Cause I don't see it.  JohnnyMrNinja  09:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * They show up on the category page itself. See Category:Even-toed ungulate stubs for example. Demo:

Pages in category "Even-toed ungulate stubs"

The following 196 pages are in this category, out of 219 total. Updates to this list can occasionally be delayed for a few days.


 * (end demo), also see the above question about accessing this number in a template fashion, and above about the reliability of this number. JackSchmidt (talk) 20:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Dear lord.... I've been looking at categories so long I can no longer see them. Thanks!  JohnnyMrNinja  20:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

categories and images
technical question, if anyone can answer. I just did some work on Template:ShouldBeSVG, which categorizes images that need to be converted to SVG format on Category:Images_that_should_be_in_SVG_format. it seems to work fine, except that the number of image pages on the subcategory pages always shows up as zero. I'm thinking this is a feature rather than an issue (something to do with the fact that category pages list "pages in the category, excluding subcategories and images". but it doesn't work out so well in this particular case. is there some way around the issue, or is there something I'm not seeing?  thanks. -- Ludwigs 2  22:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

subcategory oddness
another technical issue... I just noticed that on category pages that have lots of included pages as well as lots of included subcategories, both the subcategories and the pages wrap to the next page. in other words, not only will the page wrap the next 200 pages over to the next page, but it will split the list of subcategories onto the next page as well. this is odd behavior - is there any way to prevent it? -- Ludwigs 2 07:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Need to explain if/why not have "See Also" links to Categories within articles
Since I've never seen it, I assume it is NOT supposed to be done - I even deleted it once when someone did it. And yet I'm in an article where a link to a category (libertarian political parties) that links to various parties would be useful, rather than listing them all. Maybe you are just supposed to list a few and then hope they see category at bottom of page? If this is a no no you should make it clear. If it's ok, and people just haven't been using it, that might be clear also. If there is an explanation somewhere it should be linked in this article. If it's in this article, I missed it :-( Carol Moore 01:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}


 * to make an explicit link to a category page, just add a colon in front, after the brackets, like this Category:Libertarian_political_parties . that gives a link like so - Category:Libertarian_political_parties -  and does not add the page to the category page.  this is explained on wp:links, but maybe a reference to it here would be useful as well.  -- Ludwigs 2  01:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * actually, I just checked - this is already in the summary section. -- Ludwigs 2 02:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Neither of those made clear in simple English if I can write a Section of an Article called "Political parties" and then under it write:

It doesn't need a : before it so maybe we're talking about different things and what I'm asking about is NOT allowed. Carol Moore 02:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}


 * ah... I think what you want is the template see also cat, which does what you're looking for.  but you're right, there's nothing on this page that would refer you to that.  I'll add something in the 'Using templates to populate categories' section (which I just noticed needs a rewrite anyway.)  -- Ludwigs 2  04:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * (ps) I editied the page at meta, and tried to edit this page to reflect the changes I made there, but something is a bit screwy so it's not showing here yet. dunno what, but I'm sure it will sort itself out.  -- Ludwigs 2  06:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Transclusion
Is it possible to transclude a category so that the list of pages in the category shows up and not other text?—  Dæ dαlusContribs /Improve 11:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Why? — I mean, suppose this were technically possible, why would one do this? Seems like confusing to the casual reader of the encyclopedia. Namespaces are separated, that's a choice, why would one want to merge them in such a confusing way for individual pages? --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Double S Clique
The Double S Clique Consist of two Mesa, Arizona rappers Slim(Michael Dawson) and Shon(Shon Alexander). They both started out with Farmers Tan which made its own genre Grunny. Slim and Shon are 2 young males that have a very good styles of writing but they are diffrent in how they write. Slim likes to write about stories that often end up in tragedy and he often says "i like to write about whats real and tell a story that dosnt end up being fake and unreal". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slim480 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

"number of articles in a category" stat is wrong!
I'm looking at Category:Chemical images that should be in SVG format and noticed it mentions 314 total category members, even though there are only 249. Is this common? What's causing it? -- Ja Ga talk 03:03, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

This list may sometimes be slightly out of date (learn more)
I created a category, Bamboo genera, and it has a note on top of it, not put there by me, that states, "The following 47 pages are in this category, out of 47 total. This list may sometimes be slightly out of date (learn more)." This wording, "This list may sometimes be slightly out of date," appears to imply that this list is at other times perfectly in date. However, this is horridly untrue in bamboo taxonomy! and category statements that mislead the user about a substantive issue are rather useless and contrary to an encyclopedia. In addition it links to a totally senseless statement that doesn't appear to have anything to do with the statement, but eventually does. --KP Botany (talk) 09:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Any guidelines
Are there any guidleines relating to categories, since it isn't mentioned? LeeVJ (talk) 00:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, there's a few!

I think that's overkill, should be mentioned anyway LeeVJ (talk) 01:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Categories, lists, and navigation templates
 * Categorization
 * Categorization of people
 * People by year
 * Categorization and subcategories
 * Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality
 * Overcategorization
 * Overcategorization/User categories
 * User categories
 * Categorizing redirects

Templates and categories
In the subsection Help:Category of this page I deleted the words "If it is necessary to add the template itself to the category page as well, the 'includeonly' tags can be omitted, but this is generally not desired. The reason I deleted these last words is that I have found it increasingly important that templates should be readily available. A user having a look at a category that interests him, should see right away which templates are available for use in articles of that category. If a subcategory "Templates" exists, then that is the obvious place for them, but even then it a double listing of templates might be advisable, as e.g. in the case of userboxes. All of this is of course my humble opinion, based on my experience. Debresser (talk) 14:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

redlink
Should I be removing relink cats? from articles? — Ched : ?  14:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * According to WP:CAT, yes.--Kotniski (talk) 14:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thx ;) — Ched : ?  15:05, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Need help with Categories
I've uploaded the first of several photos I plan to send but have trouble getting it into the correct category. I've checked the other photos in the category and have edited mine to the same but I keep getting a reply that the category does not exist and do I want to create it. Is this because it has been created in another country (France) and if so how do I go about editing my page to get it right? The category I'm looking for is "Countries,Countries in Europe,France,Geography of France,Cities and villages in France,Cities and villages in France by department,Cities and villages in Yonne,Saint-Florentin, Yonne." The other photos already there simply have "Category:Saint-Florentin, Yonne" but this leaves a red category at the bottom of the page. Hope someone can help. Williamgeorgefraser (talk) 12:08, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Removed section - Comparison with "What links here"
''I removed the following section from the page. I suggest if people find it in any way useful, it be included on the "What links here" help page or on a separate page.''

Backlinks are often used as a by-product of links and inclusions. However, links and inclusion tags can be put specially for the backlinks, just like category tags are.

Thus one can create a kind of "category abc" showing its content with Special:Whatlinkshere/abc without an entry in the category lists on each page in the category. With inclusion this can be done in two ways:
 * rendering nothing. This works regardless of whether abc exists.
 * . This requires creating a blank page to render nothing, or a page with some content to provide an in-page category listing.


 * In the case of links: A redirect corresponds to a supercategory.
 * Advantages of categories
 * Category listings are alphabetical, for "What links here" this typically applies for the first part only, for the pages already linking to the given page at the time of the last rebuilding of the link tables in the database.
 * Categories have an editable part (however, there is anyway a talk page)
 * A category can have multiple supercategories


 * Advantage of a pseudo-category system using backlinks
 * Backlinks can show a tree structure: not only pages and subcategories, but also the contents of the subcategories (for each a list of pages and a list of sub-subcategories) and the contents of the sub-subcategories (for each a list of pages and a list of sub-sub-subcategories), but not the contents of the sub-sub-subcategories, up to three levels are shown.


 * In the case of inclusions
 * also multiple supercategories are possible
 * combined content of subcategories is shown in one list, not grouped by subcategory (the tree structure is not shown, but it can be used by taking the backlinks at a lower node, showing the smaller set)
 * the restriction of three levels (in the case of using redirects) does not apply; for example page Aijkl in the category Aijk in the category Aij in the category Ai in the category A (represented by Aijkl calling template Aijk, etc.) can be shown in the list of pages in category A (the backlinks of template A).

(removed section ends) --Kotniski (talk) 12:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Printing a categories list
I am working in Wikisource and I was wondering if it's possible to create pages of the complete category tree, which when copied and pasted, retains the tree structure indentation? I opened the relevant tree branches and pasted it into a text file, but it looses the indentation of the subcategories.Ineuw (talk) 15:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Is there any way to add a category?
Is there any way to add a category? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ABickerstaff (talk • contribs) 08:04, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just create it as you would create a regular page, except with the "category:" prefix, and add category declarations for the page's parents. Make sure it fits in and something like it doesn't already exist.  &mdash;Codrdan (talk) 09:56, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Table of Unicode characters
The link to Wikisource in the section 'Sort order' (search for the text "table of Unicode characters") leads to a page which was deleted. Could the link be updated? Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:45, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Move to Category:Monoliths
Could you move the Category:Monolith to its plural form which, I believe, is the usual form. Thanks Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

How and why articles in alphabetical order in category
I am looking at articles in the Category:Plasmodium, and I would like to scan the cat alphabetically, but the article don't appear in alphabetical order on the category page.

I thought that Help:Category would explain how to do this, but it doesn't.

So, how do I get articles to appear in alphabetical order in their category as it seems they should? And why don't they? Thanks. --Kleopatra (talk) 19:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the articles are sorted correctly. Maybe you read it by rows, instead of by columns? Articles can (and sometimes should) be sorted differently and this page explains it: Help:Category. Svick (talk) 19:13, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's neither in rows or in columns.
 * This is the first column:


 * 1) Plasmodium
 * 2) P. accipiteris
 * 3) P. achiotense
 * 4) P. achromaticum
 * 5) P. acuminatum
 * 6) P. aeuminatum
 * 7) P. agamae
 * 8) P. alloelongatum
 * 9) P. anomaluri
 * 10) P. ashfordi
 * 11) P. atheruri
 * 12) P. audaciosum
 * 13) P. azurophilum
 * 14) P. balli
 * 15) P. bigueti
 * 16) P. buteonis
 * 17) P. cnemaspi

This is the second column:
 * 1) P. bambusicolai
 * 2) P. basilisci
 * 3) P. beebei

And this is what it reads if I go by row order:
 * 1) P. accipiteris,
 * 2) P. basilisci,
 * 3) P. jiangi,
 * 4) P. achiotense,
 * 5) P. beebei,
 * 6) P. josephinae


 * I looked at the page you linked, and it explains nothing. It doesn't describe what sorting is in an intelligible manner, and it fails to explain how to do anything, if you could understand what it was talking about in the first place. I can't find another page that explains it, either.


 * When you look at this category page Category:Plasmodium, it is in alphabetical row order? Really? I don't see why mine would be so completely different? Can you post the top 17 articles from your category page? --Kleopatra (talk) 19:36, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I just looked at two different articles, one from the beginning, and one from the end. Some have the default sort tag on them, others don't. So, now the question is, is it necessary to add the template to every page to have the articles sort correctly? Or, can I remove it from the few to have them sort correctly? --Kleopatra (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, sorry. I haven't looked at it properly and it seemed like it is sorted mostly correctly. The problem seems to be that some articles are sorted with the second word capitalized (e.g. Plasmodium Accipiteris) and some not (Plasmodium alaudae). And sorting is case sensitive. I'll try to fix this category. Svick (talk)


 * Should be fixed now. Svick (talk) 14:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Icelandic names
Please check Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Iceland and arise your voice. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Defaultsort
Could someone expand the section explaining defaultsort? I do not understand what this does or when one should use it.  Blue Rasberry  22:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed, there have been lots of edits like this or this one. To me they just seem some useless clutter of the pages' source code, but I've hesitated to remove them, because the massiveness of such edits suggests some reason for them. What is this reason?&thinsp;&mdash;&thinsp;Pt&thinsp;(T) 13:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * In addition, this edit is just weird. Why consider an uppercase abbreviation as lowercase in sorting? Wouldn't it be a much cleaner solution to let the users switch between case sensitive and case insensitive sorting orders on category pages? PS. The Astronomy stubs page has GRB 100621A and GRO J0422+32 totally out of order, and it will have them as such as long as there is at least one "GR*" page without that DEFAULTSORT. And there will always be, as new articles are being created all the time. Why that mess? Sorting uppercase abbreviations before words would sound sensible to me, and it would require no DEFAULTSORTs there.&thinsp;&mdash;&thinsp;Pt&thinsp;(T) 08:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, please expand. What is the standard way to use DEFAULTSORT for alphabetical sorting of a mix of
 * article names in sentence case (the usual)
 * proper names in title case
 * names in camelcase
 * names in upper case? Nurg (talk) 04:08, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * For your information, there seems to be a more active thread about the same issues at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization/Archive_14.&thinsp;&mdash;&thinsp;Pt&thinsp;(T) 16:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I just corrected the link in the above comment. The talk is no longer active but there are still unaddressed issues.   Blue Rasberry    (talk)   07:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

New category
It is possible someone at Wikipedia could add a new category called Gastropubs. Gastropub already has an article listed here on Wikipedia, it is a type of restuarant.98.151.53.27 (talk) 04:29, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * This is not the place to request new categories. Please go to Article wizard/Category.  McLerristarr &#124;  Mclay1  06:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Sort order
In the section Sort order, it says "Z" comes before "a". This used to be true but now pages are sorting so that upper- and lower-case letters are equal. Is this a recent update or is it something to do with my computer and/or Internet? If it has been fixed, the section needs updating.  McLerristarr &#124;  Mclay1  06:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It only sorts pages in the right order in categories. They're still in pseudo-alphabetical order in Special:AllPages.  McLerristarr &#124;  Mclay1  06:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * But this page is about Categories. So the explanation of alphabetical order should describe the order as it applies to Categories.
 * I had been making much use of the pseudo-alphabetical order that used to apply to Category pages. I tidied up MANY pages of this or that genus of plants and made them much easier to read (and received thanks from quite a few people--some of whom had reverted my changes as vandalism, but saw the usefulness of what I was doing, once I explained it).
 * But it seems the change is permanent. So this page should describe the new way of ordering.  140.147.236.195 (talk) 18:06, 17 June 2011 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza
 * I noticed this just today. Let's discuss it with the tech experts at Village pump (technical) Rkitko (talk) 15:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Lower-case titles
The Category guidelines say: ''A category name can be any string which would be a legitimate page title. It cannot begin with a lower-case letter. If the category name given in a category declaration begins with a lower-case letter, then it is interpreted as if it were capitalized.'' But lower-case letters are explictly permitted as page titles for people who style their name thusly (e.g., k.d. lang), so why this inconsistency in Wiki guidelines? Casey (talk) 19:30, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not really, the article is technically called K.d. lang (look at the address bar), it's just that makes it appear like the title was actually lowercase. And . User&lt;Svick&gt;.Talk; 19:38, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, tnx. I understand now that ALL article titles must start upper-case as far as internal Wiki handling is concerned (even if forced to be displayed lower case on the page itself), and I suppose this constraint may have to do with sorting and alphabetizing.  (Certainly "k.d. lang" should appear among the other "K's" in the "L" section rather than after the "Z's".) Casey (talk) 21:15, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Lower-case letters do not appear after "Z" any more. See the section above.  McLerristarr &#124;  Mclay1  04:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Updating WP:NAMESORT
I'm trying to update WP:NAMESORT, the guideline on how to sort people's names. I'm trying to reference why something is done and give help for names in certain areas or countries. Your comments are needed at: Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people. Bgwhite (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.19
From the MediaWiki 1.19 release notes: Add options 'noreplace' and 'noerror' to { {DEFAULTSORT:...} } to stop it from replace an already existing default sort, and suppress error. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 02:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Not In
Can somebody please explain how to exclude certain subsets within a category? For example, [Category:Companies_based_in_San_Francisco,_California], some of these companies are defunct and therefore no longer operate in San Francisco. They should be excluded from the results, however in the individual companies' pages, they are listed there. It must be possible to code: [Category:Companies_based_in_San_Francisco,_California NOT Defunct_Companies] Dikteren (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Please remember that Wikipedia is not a business directory; instead it has pages about notable subjects. So the page Category:Companies based in San Francisco, California correctly includes pages about companies that are now defunct.
 * What you can do instead is to use the CatScan tool to list pages that are in this category and its sub-categories, while excluding any that are in Category:Defunct companies and its sub-categories. I did this by jumping here and setting depth=3, categories=Companies based in San Francisco, California, negative categories=Defunct companies, and got a list of 425 companies, 34 fewer than the full list of 459 companies in the main category and its sub-categories. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:26, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Example does not work
With me, the example link (URL) in Help:Category does not work. What I get is the redlink search result "page not found, you may create page ...". -DePiep (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This could be connected with the problem described here. Perhaps try it again tomorrow? -- John of Reading (talk) 17:49, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure I will. This is a great category-crosscheck`, within WP, with too little publication. -DePiep (talk) 21:06, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Sentence case
Can someone please explain to me what the reasoning is behind displaying wiki categories in sentence case rather than title case? Not just "that's the consensus here" but the actual logic behind it. In my places of employment they have always been considered containers, like a folder, and titled as such. I'm not saying Wikipedia's style is wrong, I'm just curious why they do it that way. --Trifler (talk) 01:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Probably better off asked at WT:Category names, but I would say to be consistent with the article naming conventions, and because I prefer to avoid unnecessary capital letters :) Vadmium (talk, contribs) 03:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC).
 * Ah, so Wikipedia doesn't even use title case for titles... That I have a harder time swallowing. --Trifler (talk) 06:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Noticeboard
Currently, category-related discussions tend to be spread out over the talkpages of WP:CFD; WP:CAT, WP:NCCAT; WP:CLS; and elsewhere. Awhile back, it seemed to me that having a category-related noticeboard might be nice, so I cobbled one together. Recently, some helpful person added a notice on WP:CAT about it. So at this point, I welcome others' thoughts on this. What do you think about it, and if positive, how and where do you think we should notify others of its existence? - jc37 06:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Categorization/Noticeboard

Pictures of pages in Category
Can the picture of the subcategories links be changed? For example, some of the subcategories on this page are of the relevant flag, but others are of text... adam_13_cato 20:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam 13 cato (talk • contribs)
 * This page is specific to categories at the English Wikipedia. You'd do better to ask at one of the support pages at MediaWiki. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:21, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Adam 13 cato (talk) 19:15, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT for dummies.
After reading this page, I'm still not following what DEFAULTSORT does. But that's OK. Could someone just tell me if this edit is correct? Or does that ampersand mess with Wikipedia's brain? Thanks. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It would have been fine had you not used the symbol. - jc37 01:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool. I didn't add it in the first place, just ruined it. Thanks for fixing it. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:50, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT inconsistency (?)
I've noticed some weird behavior regarding the DEFAULTSORT magic word... for example Brian King has a sort key of "King, Brian". It works fine in Category:People educated at Sydney Boys High School, where he is sorted under K. However, in Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs, he is sorted under B. Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs has numerous people with DEFAULTSORTS that work (e.g. all the Browns starting here) and numerous people where it doesn't work (e.g. all the Michaels starting here). I can't find a syntax error in the usage of DEFAULTSORTS in any of these, so I'm pretty sure it's a bug (so I've reported it ) - but it's always possible I'm blind/ignorant and have made an embarrassing error, so if anyone can see one, please let me know! (This category is actively being worked on to fix errors, so the specific examples may have disappeared by the time you read this, but the error isn't hard to find when browsing the category). Thanks, Storkk (talk) 13:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I'm not seeing any reason for the difference.  I'd have to agree with you that it is a bug somewhere.  Filing a bug report at bugzilla is worthless.  They don't respond to nobody's like us... aka average editors.  Bgwhite (talk) 17:50, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I think hidden cats don't do defaultsort. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I did think that might be a possibility, but as I noted, it is working on quite a few. I can't figure out the discrepancy. Storkk (talk) 18:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Not sure what to do other than file a bug report. Maybe if a few of us vote for it? Storkk (talk) 18:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Can it be that problem is on how the template places the page in the category? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi everyone. We devs do read all the bug reports that come in, even from "nobodies" so do please file them (and for that matter, Wikipedians are not "nobodies"). Some bug reports do not get a response, however that doesn't mean we don't read them. As for actually fixing them, that depends a lot on how disruptive the issue reported is, what type of issue (For example, svg rendering issues get fixed pretty much never [unfortunately], but other components get a lot more attention) and a whole host of other factors. I should note however that voting is pretty much useless. Its mostly enabled so that people can make watchlists of bugs (by voting for different bugs and then looking at my votes). [As for the actual bug, I'll try to take a look later in the week if no one gets to it, but no garuntees. It does look like an interesting issue with things happening only for some pages and not others.] Bawolff (talk) 18:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Appears to be an issue with the Cite extension. Basically, if you put the  after the &lt;references/&gt; tag, it won't apply to anything in a &lt;ref&gt;. As a work around, putting   at the beginning of the article will fix the issue. Bawolff (talk) 23:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That would have to be new, since this has been the order since DEFAULTSORT: was introduced. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 00:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting. But that doesn't explain why it would categorize Brian King under B in one category, and under K in another, unless I'm missing something? Storkk (talk) 00:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC) Yes it does... I was confusing myself, see below Storkk (talk) 03:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I am puzzling over that as well. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 00:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The other categories aren't inside a &lt;ref&gt; tag, so they aren't affected by this bug. Bawolff (talk) 01:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note, last time anyone changed the cite extension was october, and they don't look (at first glance) like changes that would cause this. Bawolff (talk) 01:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The workaround works, and I was confusing myself (sorry if I confused anyone else too!). As Bawolff says, the issue only occurs if the Category (in this case implicit in Please check ISBN) is included inside the ref tag. Of those I have checked so far, all that are sorted using DEFAULTSORT have the Please check ISBN template outside a ref tag, whereas all those that sort incorrectly have the invalid ISBN inside a ref tag. This is probably still a MediaWiki bug, though. Storkk (talk) 03:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)


 * FYI... All the Please check ISBN tags were placed by Helpful Pixie Bot. Rich, the bot owner, is indisposed for the time being and is unable to join the conversation.  The bot is also currently not running.  If ISBN was the last parameter in a ref template (it generally is), the Please check ISBN tag is placed outside the ref.  If ISBN was not the last paramater, the Please check ISBN tag is placed inside the ref. Bgwhite (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * "This is probably still a MediaWiki bug, though" - Oh yes definitely. DEFAULTSORT should always work, regardless of anything to do with the &lt;ref&gt;'s. Bawolff (talk) 15:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks like DEFAULTSORT is ignored when a category is added inside a parser or extension tag. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Rats... so it's a dup. I was somehow hoping I'd found something new... oh well Storkk (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Alphabetical order?
When categories are placed at the end of an article, should they be in alphabetical order? I have seen many a Wikipedia article with a bunch of categories at the end jumbled up. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It varies. From Categorization, "The order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first." -- John of Reading (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 06:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Piggyback off a category
How can I make every article belonging to Category:Scottish footballers also belong to Category:Use dmy dates from July 2013 without tagging each and every article? --  Ohc  ¡digame!¿que pasa? 15:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Appearance within category
Is there a way to change the name under which an article is appearing within a category?

I'm specifically thinking of football players which are known under a nickname, e.g. Ebrahim Savaneh, who is commonly known as "Ibou". As such I would like to have him appear as Ibou within certain categories such as for example Category:Oud-Heverlee Leuven players, without having to move the article itself. I know it is possible to sort him under the "I", but in my opinion that doesn't makes much sense as it will just look strange without actually having the entry on the category called "Ibou" as well. Thanks. -- Pelotas talk undefinedcontribs 19:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I sometimes make a redirect page (e.g. Ibou redirecting to Ebrahim Savaneh) and put that redirect the category too. It will appear in italics, it can have its own sorting. Since page Ibou is existing, you'll need to create a disambigutated pagename. you can use it. -DePiep (talk) 12:16, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

sort keys question
Why do some pages have an empty sort key? For example, 2001 has

and Lean manufacturing has

Paul2520 (talk) 17:40, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Those sort keys are not empty; there is a single space. This arranges for the article to be listed at the very beginning of the article list on the category page. This is mentioned at WP:SORTKEY, "Use a space as the sort key for a key article for the category". -- John of Reading (talk) 05:58, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I read that line, but it didn't make sense until you explained it. Cheers, Paul2520 (talk) 13:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Removing an article from a category
The article in question is "Caliphate of Cordoba" and the category is: "Former monarchies of Europe". The problem is that the Caliphate of Cordoba wasn't a monarchy. It was a caliphate. Certainly they were similar in some ways, but they're different too. All caliphs are descended from Mohammed and represent both a spiritual and a lay authority - like the Pope. See the article Caliphate.

I couldn't find anywhere any instructions on how to deal with this.
 * Figured it out myself, but someone had already corrected it.deisenbe (talk) 22:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

How to display the category list
I couldn't find way to show all the category article's title inside another article.nirmal (talk) 04:34, 30 October 2014 (UTC)


 * It is not possible to display just a list, but you can display a category tree. See Help:Category.  08:33, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Template PlanetMath attribution is broken
And I don't know how to fix it. For example, Ingrid Daubechies has a PlanetMath template that tries to go to http://planetmath.org/ingriddaubechies but instead it goes this 404: http://planetmath.org/node/9067 I also tried changing the reference to use urlname= instead of id= :

but that also doesn't work because the link to goes to: http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/ingriddaubechies.html  (extraneous encyclopedia is inserted)

The talk section for the the template Template_talk:PlanetMath_attribution two other people says that this template is broken.

Many thanks in advance.

Clemwang (talk) 00:59, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * This is the talk page for the page Help:Category. Your problem, as I understand it, is nothing to do with categories, but either with an external website, or the Wikipedia template which generates a link to that website, i.e. . If nobody at Template talk:PlanetMath attribution can help (I don't see any posts from you), have you tried WP:HD? -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:16, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I reposted this to WP:HD.

After a category rename
I've moved Category:People from Salem to Category:People from Salem, Tamil Nadu. I'm not sure if it's better to delete the original category or to populate it with Category:People from Salem, Massachusetts, Category:People from Salem, Oregon, etc. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This is the sort of thing that WP:CFR exists for. Indeed, you should have announced it there before moving the category page, even for a clear-cut C2 speedy rename. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:02, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

ok
I would like to add a photo Whycantuc (talk) 04:31, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You're at the wrong page. I think you need to read Help:Introduction to uploading images; if that's not what you mean, try asking at WP:HD. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:57, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

How to create a category
I want to add a category Sindhi-language television channels in Pakistan‎  kindly help me how to create category ?--Jogi don (talk) 05:12, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * (Months too late) Categorization explains how to do this. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:51, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Me too please! Is there a policy that governs creation of categories? Can I search to see if a given category already exists?Feldercarb (talk) 22:19, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't created many categories myself, but if you look through Categorization you'll have a better idea of what is usual. To search, go to Special:Search, choose "Advanced" and then tick the "Category" namespace. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:51, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Sub categories
How do you make sub categories??? 192.199.53.2 (talk) 19:55, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
 * If you want to do this yourself, you'll need to register an account and then follow the instructions at Categorization. You can also request that someone else makes the sub-category for you by visiting Article wizard/Category. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:19, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

No diacritics in "defaultsort"?
Hi. I just noticed at Manuel Escórcio that de "DEFAULTSORT" is "DEFAULTSORT:Escorcio, Manuel", without the diacritic (accent mark) over the first "o". So I checked a few other names with diacritics, Lourenço (given name), "DEFAULTSORT:Lourenco (given name)" and Diogo Cão, "DEFAULTSORT:Cao, Diogo" and none Has diacritics in the DEFAULTSORT. So I presume that it is so for a reason. But, were I or anyone else unwittingly add the diacritic (making it Escório, Lourenço or Cão), what would happen? Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 13:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Re. "what would happen": usually within some days a bot passes by and removes the diacritics.
 * Example: adding category with an ö in the sort key → next day: a bot sorts it out --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:15, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Re. "for a reason": the reason is the alphabetic sorting (collation) of names in categories: e.g. "Ciao" would be sorted before Cão in an automatically sorted category list, where the order, when trying to find the name, is better Cão and then Ciao. Removing the diacritic for sorting handles that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:40, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
 * See WP:SORTKEY, paragraph beginning "Because the software uses an imperfect computer sorting ..." -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:50, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Francis Schonken and Redrose64. Really appreciated. Seldom does one get replies that fully answer the question, such that there is not even a chance of a "yes, but what if ...". Small things like this renew one's hope in the project (comment aimed primarily at the Portuguese Wikipedia). Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Passing a category by parameter
Is this meant to be parsing? JennyOz (talk) 02:31, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I think "passing" is correct. I've reworded the sub-heading - is that clearer? -- John of Reading (talk) 05:48, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

More on diacritics
From the article: ...MediaWiki groups accented characters separately from their unaccented version, so pages starting by À, Á, Ä, will be listed under separate headings, instead of under heading A.

This doesn't seem to be the case. It's hard to impossible to find an example in enwiki (because all pages with special characters have a DEFAULSORT with no special characters) but there are plenty of examples in other wikipedias. From ptwiki: pt:Ü shows in category pt:category:Alfabeto latino under the normal U, without creating any special heading.

Note: To confuse matters some more, there are some special letters in that same category that create a heading. That is expected and documented in (WP:SORTKEY).

Aisteco (talk) 00:13, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe that each different language has its own locally-configurable sort order. As an example, the Swedish language has an alphabet of 29 letters, ending with X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö, so at Swedish Wikipedia, pages whose names begin with those three extra letters sort after Z, see [//sv.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kategori:Svenska_efternamn&from=Z Kategori:Svenska efternamn]; however in the French language, there are 26 letters - Ä and Ö are not considered separate letters but accented versions of A and O, so they sort with A and O. -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:10, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 July 2016
ADD Jerry R Pressley SR Army SGM retired American soldier

Jerry R Pressley SR (talk) 01:26, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Category. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 03:19, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Search box
It maybe somewhere else, but regardless would it be possible to put a search box near the beginning of this page for finding categories? Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:32, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The union (OR) operator doesn't actually work for incategory?
See this bug report. This page claims that an OR search with incategory will work, but it clearly doesn't. Onlynone (talk) 14:53, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

different categories for talk and article pages?
Hello, I noticed something strange: the talk page of an article has different (better) categories than the article page itself. Is this normal? Seems weird to me. I am taking about the page on candida albicans on this page it says: Categories: Candida (fungus)YeastsGut floraOrganisms with an alternative genetic codePathogenic microbes However on the talk page it says: Categories: C-Class Fungi articlesHigh-importance Fungi articlesWikiProject Fungi articlesStart-Class Microbiology articlesHigh-importance Microbiology articlesWikiProject Microbiology articles

So what does this mean? (one can add categories themselves to a page, so I am not even sure what the value is if one can add for example "high-importance fungi articles" when it is not?)Garnhami (talk) 22:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The categories at Candida albicans (,, , , } are all added in the conventional way, viz. These categories are all intended for use on articles, in order to categorise what the article is describing - they are what we call "content categories".
 * The categories at Talk:Candida albicans are not content categories - they are all part of the WikiProject assessment scheme. They are added by the two WikiProject banners at the top, i.e.:  There is more information on these banners and their parameters at Template:WikiProject Fungi and Template:WikiProject Microbiology. These categories should only be used on talk pages, never on articles; and should not be added directly, only by the use of WikiProject banners. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 09:30, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * ok, thanks a lot.Garnhami (talk) 09:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You are right that editors can add "high-importance" for no good reason. It's only on talk pages and meant for editors and not readers so we care less about these classifications than what is in the actual article. Bad classifications may get no attention and it's often subjective anyway. Registered users have the option "Display an assessment of an article's quality in its page header (documentation)" at Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:33, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * ok thanks! Useful information, especially the preferences to see the assessment of the pages. Garnhami (talk) 11:28, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT glitch
For the past few weeks, the Defaultsort has been appearing on the line ABOVE the cursor after the Wiki markup link is clicked. Previously it always appeared exactly where the cursor was. Why has this changed, and can it please be changed back? It's a very irritating and apparently pointless change. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  04:24, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that I don't understand. This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Category. If you have a question about using Wikipedia, we have the help desk; if you have a technical problem, there is the technical village pump. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 09:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've re-asked the question at the Help desk.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:15, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 June 2017
For the article George Russell Boucher, the categories at the end of the stub identify him as a Franco-Ontarian. He is not, in fact, his heritage is Irish Protestant and his great grandfather John Boucher came to Canada from Mountshannon in 1820 with his wife Anna Maria Woods and they settled and farmed around Dunrobin and Carp, Ontario. The name is pronounced like the word voucher. Russell Boucher was my grandfather's(Leonard Boucher) brother and my father A. Kenton Boucher joined his uncle in the practice of law in Ottawa in 1953.(Boucher and Heron) Stilwela (talk) 18:56, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Category. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Murph 9000 (talk) 19:31, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

December 2017
I need help .and I be welcome to help .please get in contact whit me .thank you Juan carlos hernandez herrera (talk) 11:49, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you be more specific? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Can I force a category (added by a template) to appear last on a page?
Hi!

I created a template (on SVWP) that is used in some infoboxes. I was going to add categories in the template, but since the infobox appears first in the articles, the categories appears first in the list of categories at the bottom of the article.

Is there a way to force a category to appear last on a page? It feels like "the most important" categories appear first, and adding these categories to the template seems to just mess things up.

(I hope this was understandable) -abbedabbtalk 14:49, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No; categories are listed in the order in which they appear in the page source, the only exception being that hidden categories are listed after the normal ones - if you have "" enabled at, that is. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 20:33, 17 February 2018 (UTC)