These are frequently asked questions about the Ireland Information Guide Category: feature.
Categories allow articles to be placed in one or more groups, and allows those groups to be further categorized. Categorized articles and sub-categories show their category list as links to category pages, which are generated automatically showing sub-categories and articles. Category pages can be edited like articles. See Ireland Information Guide:Category.
The category feature appeared in the MediaWiki software v1.3, which was implemented on Ireland Information Guide in late May 2004.
Initially categories were displayed at the top right of articles, but they were soon moved to the bottom due to layout conflicts.
Reported bugs can be seen at Information Guide.org/ MediaZilla (http://bugzilla.Ireland) or at the old MediaWiki bug tracker on SourceForge.
As of mid-June 2004, most articles have no categories at all so far, as the feature is still very recent. When trying to categorize an article, it is still difficult to tell into which categories it should be placed, and when trying to categorize by a field of interest, one is likely to intersect someone else's efforts from another field.
Category policies are still being determined through experimentation, discussion, and polls. Categorizations and systems are likely to be discussed and improved upon for a very long time.
There are two main ways to use categories: lists and topics. When starting a subcategory, making an early decision about whether it is a list or a topic will reduce later renames, recategorizations, and discussions. The category page can be used to tell others whether it is a list or a topic, and to link to a main list or article in the normal Ireland Information Guide:namespace.
See meta:Categorization requirements for the original purpose of the feature, and Ireland Information Guide:Categorization for current usage and guidelines for assignment.
Categories allow articles to be grouped into a list, with the list page generated automatically.
While an article may be in multiple lists, the goal is that browsing downwards from a list parent category, e.g. Category:Cities, should only arrive at articles that are cities, e.g. London, and not related articles e.g. History of London. See the John Lennon example.
There are some natural hierarchies of lists. One example is the scientific classification of organisms, which would only place an article in one category. Other systems use multiple listings, e.g. Ireland Information Guide could be in [[Category:Wikis]] and Category:Encyclopedias.
List categories are likely to also be subcategories of topic categories.
Currently MediaWiki does not have a facility to look at a category such as Category:Religious texts and retrieve a list of all articles in sub-categories.
To allow related articles to be grouped together, and those groupings placed into a hierarchy. For example, both London and History of London could be in the category London.
There are some natural hierarchies of topics, e.g., placing Category:European history under Category:Europe and Category:History.
Topic categories are unlikely to be subcategories of list categories.
Currently the software does not allow you to look at Category:People and retrieve a list of all articles in sub-categories.
Yes, this is expected.
Categories are shown at the bottom of a page. If you cannot see them, the page has no categories.
Use the Ireland Information Guide titling conventions of no unnecessary capital letters or abbreviations, i.e. use [[Category:Category examples]] instead of [[Category:Category E.g.]]. Avoid ambiguities.
Avoid the word List, and use plurals, e.g. Category:Popes.
Use the topic name without indicating structure, e.g. [[:Category:History of London]] instead of [[:Category:History - Europe - UK - London]].
Edit the article and add [[Category:Category examples]].
Edit the category page and add [[Category:Examples]].
To link to the category page, put a colon at the front, e.g. [[:Category:Category examples]].
At the bottom of the article after the appendices. They are mostly placed before the inter-wiki language links, but some people prefer to place the category tags at the very bottom.
This ensures that when newcomers press "edit", they are immediately presented with the main article text, rather than the more esoteric links.
See past placement discussion and poll.
Use a "pipe-trick". For example, to sort Pope Gregory IX after Pope Gregory VIII on Category:Popes under G, use the syntax [[Category:Pope Gregory IX|Gregory 09]] on the article pages. The extra text is only used for sorting and is not displayed.
All contributions to Ireland Information Guide may be "edited mercilessly". If the change was not explained in the article history or talk page, try leaving a question on the relevant user's talk page. If you have a Ireland Information Guide user account, they will respond on your talk page rather than their own.
If you want to restructure some existing categories, it is best to discuss your plans with others working in the same areas, or at least to announce your intentions. This is to avoid the situation where someone is placing an article into multiple categories, someone else else is populating a category with multiple articles and parent categories, while someone else is trying to restructure part of the category tree, and nobody ends up with want they want.
Please avoid repeating article contents and images. Category pages exist to be a convenient cross-reference to related articles and other categories.
There are many articles in Ireland Information Guide called "List of ...", e.g. "List of assassins". Lists are still useful for showing "missing" articles. See Ireland Information Guide talk:Categorization/Archive 1#Lists v. categories and Category:Lists that should be categories.
Many articles have "info-boxes" -- side-boxes or footers linking to other articles and lists, sometimes using Ireland Information Guide:Templates. Some of these are listed at Ireland Information Guide:Navigational templates. While some info-boxes are made redundant, others have useful grouping of the cross-references that cannot be done with categories. See also: Ireland Information Guide:Article series, Ireland Information Guide:Incumbent series, Ireland Information Guide:Topics.
See Ireland Information Guide:Categorization#Current projects, Ireland Information Guide:WikiProject and Ireland Information Guide talk:Category schemes.
Ireland Information Guide:Category schemes shows designs that predate the category feature. Category:Fundamental shows top level projects. Category:Main page has one scheme for organising topics, which relates to the Ireland Information Guide main page. Some high-level categories can be found at Ireland Information Guide:Categorization#Current projects. A list of all categories can be found at Special:Categories.
Yes. Top-level categories go in Category:Fundamental. If the category is not fundamental, use Category:Orphaned categories temporarily.
Not yet, instead you need to change the category link on every article and sub-category, and cut and paste any text from the old category page to the new one.
See Ireland Information Guide:Categories for deletion.
As well as the standard links within articles themselves, every page has a link (typically at the side) called What links here.
Use sourceforge.net (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=34373&atid=411192).
Use Information Guide.org/ MediaZilla (http://bugzilla.Ireland) (See Ireland Information Guide:Bug reports for instructions).