Rules/Categories

This explains how you should use categories when editing this knowledge base. This is a work in progress. Discuss these rules on the talk page.

Be sure to also read Rules and Rules/Templates.

We're now in the process of categorizing articles. See Talk:Rules/Categories/Firefox and Talk:Rules/Categories/Thunderbird.

Categorizing articles

• Each article in the knowledge base must belong to one or more categories. To categorize an article, insert one or more category tags into the article and save it. A category tag has the form [[Category:Category name]], such as [[Category:Profiles]] or [[Category:Issues (Firefox)]]. As a rule, put category tags at the very bottom of the article.
• A list of categories currently in use can be found on the talk page.
• Put articles into the most specific categories you can. For example, this means that Category:Firefox should only contain those articles that couldn't be put into deeper categories such as Category:Extensions (Firefox).
• Each article should be put in all categories it belongs to (as many as possible). In particular, all articles in one of the "Issues" categories should also be put into a non–“Issues” category. For example, the article ‘Lost bookmarks’ belongs to Category:Issues (Firefox) and Category:Bookmarks.
• However, in general, when an article is put into category A, it shouldn’t be put into "parent" categories of A. For example, an article in Category:Extensions (Firefox) shouldn’t also be put into Category:Firefox.
• Avoid adding development and other non-support articles to user-support categories.

Creating and categorizing categories

• Each category except Category:Top level must be a subcategory of one or more other categories. To make one category a subcategory of another, edit the subcategory page and insert the category tag for the parent category. For example, the page Category:Extensions (Thunderbird) has been edited to include [[Category:Thunderbird]], making it a subcategory of the main "Thunderbird" category. Additionally, it is helpful to use the {{upto}} templates to provide another hyperlink from the subcategory to its parent(s).
• Names of user support categories should follow the article naming conventions. In particular, most subcategories should include application name in parentheses, e.g. Category:Extensions (Firefox).
• Avoid creating/using generic categories. Use the most specific category. E.g. instead of putting an article in "Category:Miscellaneous (Firefox)", put it directly in Category:Firefox.
• Make sure that, in a given category, the immediate subcategories have an approximately equal level of specificity (e.g., we don't want "Category:Cookies" sitting next to "Category:Settings", since cookies are not as general as settings.
• "Issues" categories shouldn't have a deep subcategories tree. In other words, don't create a subcategory to a subcategory to "Issues".
• In general, avoid creating a new category when there are very few articles to go into it.

Using links and redirects with categories

• To link to a category, simply put a colon prior to the word "Category" in the category tag. E.g., [[:Category:Privacy and security]] will produce the link Category:Privacy and security. Like with regular internal links, you could use [[:Category:Privacy and security | this link]] to produce this link.
• This version of MediaWiki (1.5.0) doesn't seem to allow redirecting to a category. [1]
• Likewise, categorizing redirect pages also does not seem to work well. [2]

Other

• Eventually, the "listing" pages (like Firefox : FAQs) are to be replaced with categories. We may use the editable part of category page to provide a manually sorted listing of pages that belong in that category. The advantage here is that when we put an article in a category, we get a link to the category page for free.

External links

WikiMedia categories