Wikipedia talk:Enforce inclusion of categories

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Watchlist feature first[edit]

Unless we get the watchlist feature first it's a bad idea because it will lead to people putting things in random categories to get them to save, making it harder on both readers and editors to find things. But the category watchlist idea would be wonderful - I hope it's just a case of busyness of the developers not a performance issue... JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... I hadn't counted on making the no-save feature contingent on the watchlist feature, since I'm counting on the former having a deterrent effect... I suppose a dedicated (e.g. WoW-type) vandal might pick a random category just to make the save, but I don't imagine the typical page-making or page-blanking vandal would bother. That's just my opinion, tho. bd2412 T 23:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that would be my one objection. Bogus categories are worse than no categories at all, because it makes Special:Uncategorizedpages useless. —Keenan Pepper 23:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That is true to the extent that an uncategorized article is often the sign of a newbie, possibly a vandal, and the special page brings those out into the light... ok, here's a thought: what if whenever someone tries to save a page without a category, that not only triggers the prompt to add a category, but at the same time triggers a function which adds that page to a list of pages for which such a prompt was required? Then the page already has a category, so if the category is bogus, the page can quickly be spotted and cleaned up, but if the category is correct, then no further work is required of the person checking that page. bd2412 T 23:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That seems overly complicated, and frankly not that different from the current situation. How about displaying a warning, but allowing them to save it anyway? —Keenan Pepper 00:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree with that, but it would have to be a pretty strong warning, and would have to require some kind of acknowledgment - no page in the identified namespaces (other than a redirect) should ever be saved without a category... I suppose with a warning like that, anyone who disregards it and saves anyway would stick out pretty quick. Perhaps a bar with two buttons could pop up, stating the warning and giving the editor the option to "Save without a category" or "Select a category", with the latter leading them to a category menu. bd2412 T 00:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support the optional version, whereby the software just reminds once that a category is not entered. Maybe it can be integrated into the user preferences, similar to the "prompt if I save without an edit summary" option. "Prompt if I save without putting the page in a category"? Kimchi.sg 00:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If it's integrated into preferences, it should be done the other way around - the default should be a warning, but experienced users should be able to 'turn off' off the prompt. bd2412 T 00:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Or at least automatically add an {{uncat}} tag to the article if the creator didn't add catgories. That actually would also work in other cases. As soon as an article looses or doesn't has categories the article gets an {{uncat}} tag. IMO Special:Uncategorizedpages is already useless anyway, since it takes while to update and it only shows the first 1000. But concerning this proposal, I am not sure. One one hand it would force editors to do find a category, but on the other hand new editors already have difficulty with making their first article good, let alone that they find the right category in all the categories. Garion96 (talk) 00:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I envision a category menu, much like the menu you might keep your favorites in on a web-browser. You pick a meta-category and it shows you all the subcategories, and so forth. bd2412 T 00:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Something like CategoryTree? --Interiot 18:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow - yeah... but only showing the cats themselves, not articles within each would probably speed things up. I would hope. bd2412 T 18:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts...[edit]

I've found that if you add a tag requesting categories, the person who created an article is usually very willing and capable of providing excellent categories. They just forgot to, or didn't know better. I honestly believe that the huge majority of people who'd be unwilling to spend 60 seconds adding categories are people who're creating articles that get deleted rather quickly anyway... and them adding bogus categories would just make their vandalism even easier to detect.

That said, it would be an annoyance to some people, and more importantly we probably would lose some contributions. So, like I detail on my userpage, I think we should have a warning screen, telling people the article they're creating is uncategorized, and that if left like that, it will be disorganized and hard for people to find, and telling them how to add categories. But they can click a box that says "I understand, create the article anyway" to opt out. --W.marsh 00:26, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The proposals on your page are very good - I like the idea of warnings which require the editor to acknowledge the deficiency - have you proposed them at the Village Pump, or in a like setting? bd2412 T 00:31, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've occasionally mentioned my ideas for improving article creation, but gotten a pretty lukewarm reception.. "we don't need it" or "this won't work" stuff, though honestly as someone who does as much maintenence as anyone, I can attest that we do need change, and these concepts at least deserve discussion. But alas, actually changing policy/site operations requires substantially more effort than clearing a 1,000 item maintenence backlog, I can attest. --W.marsh 00:50, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am opposed to forcing writers to choose pigeonholes. However, I like W.marsh's idea about reminding them. That's very similar to the reminder I get when I forget to add an edit summary, and which I usually appreciate. The edit summary reminder, though, can be opted out of in the user's preferences. You might think about whether to include that feature for a category reminder as well. Rbraunwa 18:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bad idea[edit]

Point by point

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.

No it won't - well only for about six seconds once - "[[Category:Living people|Nonsense article]] done - now for six million more hoax articles..."

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.

As per 1. [[Category:Living people|Nonsense article]]

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.

As long as it's put in the right category, and not just this first thing that the user thought of i.e. "fuckit - I'll put it in living people and sort it out later" . I thought this was the purpose of stub categories... {{stub}} which then gets stub sorted to a correct stub category.

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.

Unlikely. If I merely drop someone into living people rather than I don't know American congressmen, how does that help ?

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.

Well as long as we are comfortable with lots of new articles in the WRONG CATEGORY - that won't get detected anywhere. Do you fancy trawling through Cat:Living people looking for misplaced articles ? Megapixie 01:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um... well, at least it will keep people from accidentally removing categories. As for vandals, a six-second delay is better than no delay. I have some faith that users trying to create a legit article will actually look for the best category/-ies to put their article in, if they are aware that the categorization scheme exists, and if we make it easy to search. By the way, what do you think about (a) a watchlist for additions to categories, and (b) the proposal raised above for a warning screen? bd2412 T 01:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A category watchlist is technically possible already (bug #5561), someone just has to code up a UI for it. --Interiot 17:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Category watchlists = good idea (although I can see it might be tricky to implement from a software standpoint) - i.e. if someone removes an article how do you detect that?
Category browser = good idea (some kind of AJAX thing maybe ?) - probably fairly hard to implement and would place a lot more load on the servers. Also I can see it being open to some sophisticated abuse if it isn't done right.
Automatically adding uncategorized to uncategorized articles on save is a good idea. Prompt on no category is probably just going to encourage the addition of random categories in newbies. Megapixie 01:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"A legitimate existing category"[edit]

This is going to be a problem -- I do a lot of categorization, and I frequently have to create new categories, particularly people, places, or things from smaller countries (today I had to create "Sri Lankan albums"). Any rule shouldn't bar someone from creating a new article and putting it in a newly-created category. Whether the rule is still workable with this limitation, I don't know. NawlinWiki 02:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • You would just have to create the category first - the rule would apply to the creation of categories as well, so you would have to make the category a subcat of some existing category (as you did by putting the new cat you created in the categories for 'Sri Lankan music' and 'Albums by artist nationality'). bd2412 T 02:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, you can create the new category by clicking on the red category link on the bottom of the Show preview page. This works very well, but you have to be sure to to open it in a new browser tab. -- ProveIt (talk) 06:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's the harm of an incorrect category?[edit]

Put it this way. What's worse, an article with no categories, or one with incorrect categories? The incorrectly categorized is still more likely get noticed and improved than the uncategorized one. And I don't really get what harm incorrect categories would cause... most of these would be vandalism/vanity/etc. and all the added categorization would mean would be that we'd find it more quickly. It's not like adding Category:Living people is A) obvious to average vandal and B) The category is hardly any kind of protection against the article being deleted as vandalism, etc. It actually helps us find it faster.

So sure, there'd be some incorrect categories. Most would be on articles that would be promptly deleted anyway. And an incorrect category on a few hundred articles would still be better than having tens of thousands of articles without any category... just floating around out there, unconnected to people who might want to improve them, waiting for some reporter who wants to write an easy Wikipedia-bashing article along the lines of "Look at this terrible article I found!" --W.marsh 03:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I prefer an uncategorized object to a badly categorized one. If the user really doesn't know how to categorize his article or can't find an appropriatete category for it, I'd much prefer that he just add {{uncat}} or something like it. -- ProveIt (talk) 06:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that good-faith contributors will make an effort to find the best category, and I hope we can create a system that makes it very easy to browse and pick categories - but we can also give them the option to put it in a "Category:Unsure of correct category", which would make for really easy identification of such articles by editors who do the cleanup. bd2412 T 15:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Category:Unsure of correct category" => Category:Category needed. I think I agree with BD2412, that people are on the whole good, and the intentionally wrong categories with vandalism would be a downside, but that the benefit of having new users make at least a rough guess would be a net positive. --Interiot 18:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Only add {{uncat}} tag[edit]

Automatically adding an {{uncat}} tag, as suggested by Garion96, seems like the best option to me. Enforcing inclusion of categories as a requirement prior to saving would be a major hassle. Even just being forced to acknowledge a warning prior to saving could be irritating at times. The template is sufficient notify the editor that a category is required, and it doesn't interfere with saving.

A potential problem with adding the {{uncat}} tag is that this could flood Category:Category needed with articles that should be deleted rather than categorized. Using a modified {{uncat}} template which would add them to a distinct category such as Category:New uncategorized articles or some such, should prevent this. Dv82matt 03:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds reasonable. Anything would be better than the current system, that does very little to help people create better articles. --W.marsh 03:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I also like the idea of a slightly modified {{uncat}} template, and would also recommend adding new uncategorized categories to Category:New uncategorized categories, and templates to Category:New uncategorized templates. It would be best if the effect of the automatic {{uncat}} was also visible during preview. -- ProveIt (talk) 06:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about we retain the "prompt for categories if not added" as a backup option in user preferences, but if someone does not add a category, tag them with {{uncat}}? If we do this, perhaps {{uncat}} will need to be sorted by date in order to help prioritise which articles most badly need proper categorisation, as {{linkless}} and {{wikify}} do now. Kimchi.sg 06:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, I think that would defeat the purpose of the change - users who are familiar enough with Wikipedia to select such an option in preferences would be unlikely to forget to add categories; the initial warning (or the no-save feature I had originally proposed) is intended to deter vandals, inform newbies, and generally reduce the categorization cleanup load. W.marsh has similarly proposed warning screens for the creation of orphan articles and articles with no formatting, all of which could be accomplished with a single popup warning that would address three problems common to most newbie articles. bd2412 T 15:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think forcing the addition of {{uncat}} would be the only change I could support related to this proposal. There's too much confusion, biting of newbies (by raising the threshold for starting new pages), and unanswered ways in which this would interact (for instance, what happens if categories/entire pages are blanked?) -- nae'blis 17:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've reconsidered - a warning followed by automatic addition of a dated {{uncat}} would be a great improvement over what we've got. With respec to Nae'blis' second point, under my original proposal, a page which had been blanked (or where the categories had been blanked) simply could not be saved (unless it were made into a redirect). Under Kimchi's suggestion, the user would get a warning and the page would automatically be tagged with a dated {{uncat}}, which would provide a quick alert to vandal-hunters. bd2412 T 18:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Nossac 17:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why exclude redirects?[edit]

The Category:Redirects subtree already exists to contain them. Bo Lindbergh 05:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops - would've been useful to know about the month before last when I did about 2,000 last-name-first redirects (e.g. Smith, John --> John Smith). bd2412 T 15:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Preventing editing[edit]

This is going to cause a lot of retroactive issues. Plus I don't like the idea of forcing categories down people's throats. As above, it just means people will pick nonsense categories so they can save. Vandals and spambots will soon adapt to put random cats (heck, even 'random' alphanumeric combinations) for categories to continue the spam. Kevin_b_er 04:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, that's why it should be optional. It should ask "Do you really want to save without a category?" and the user can just click "yes" and save anyway. —Keenan Pepper 05:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And then hopefully the {{uncat}} would be added automatically. Garion96 (talk) 10:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here comes the slippery slope argument:
Why not apply this to references? Or wikilinks? Or incoming links? These are all required by almost all articles. I think we should tackle the larger problem of people needing to know how to create good articles. Fagstein 06:08, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, because all those things can be done by another editor as long as the article is found by other editors. Categories help for that. Garion96 (talk) 10:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because articles get abandonned if they have no backlinks and aren't in any categories (even if just a stub category). If an article is abandoned and not spotted by NP-patrol, then it languishes around until someone eventually finds it through one of the not-often-updated Special pages or other similar means. One could make an argument for changing this policy to "an article must have at least one backlink, or it must be in at least one category", but that's not a slippery slope argument. --Interiot 17:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should at least do something to tell people they're creating an article that's going to have serious issues. Right now we give them a blank box and wonder why there are so many messed up articles out there.--W.marsh 17:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MediaWiki:Newarticletext does that, but it doesn't really press home the point - first it says you can create a new article by clicking save, then it advises newcomers to read the guidelines. I doubt most newbies get to that next step, but a warning popping up to prevent them from saving (or at least to prevent them from saving immediately) would get their attention. A single warning page could note multiple deficiences, but the lack of a category is far more significant, in my view, than the lack of backlinks, references, or formatting, because editors who work on articles in a particular area will attend to these things once they know that a new article in that area has been made. Which is why the category watch function is a vital element to this whole proposal. bd2412 T 17:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not everyone finds articles by browsing categories. But putting that aside, I think the biggest problem is that this will give newbies with important contributions the idea that they're doing something wrong when they save the page, and they'll just give up. We already give warnings on all edits about copyright, NPOV and referencing. Since categories and stub templates are routinely added to new articles with pretty good efficiency, I don't think the cost/benefit ratio is worth it here. Fagstein 23:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Massive adding of {{uncat}} tag to older articles[edit]

A bit related, there is a discussion here on using a bot to add the {{uncat}} tag to all articles without categories. Please comment there your objections or approval. If the enforce inclusion of categories would be implemented, this bot job would only be needed once. Garion96 (talk) 12:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Newbies[edit]

I oppose the inclusion of this since it may hinder editing. Wikipedia should be as open as possible, and this might discourage someone from creating a new article. It took me a while to understand categories, and though it does require work to add the categories later, a newbie is more likely to put in a single, or even an irrelevant category just to get the page created, rather then adding proper cats. Checking for improperly categorized articles will probably be more harmful then having an uncategorized page. (P.S. I am on break, so don't expect a quick reply to any response, Sorry!) Prodego talk 22:46, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There have been some alternative proposals made here, which I have just added to the project page - have a look at those as well, when you have a chance. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:11, 6 August 2006 (UTC
Here's my thoughts on those:
  1. Warnings will deter newbies from creating new articles, making them think they need to be an expert in Wikipedia policies before making even the smallest substub. Wikifying and categorizing is easy, but creating new content is hard.
  2. Having an option to create a warning, I suppose, is a good idea. But who would turn such a thing on?
  3. Creating automatic uncat tags is another good idea, but how would that differ from Special:uncategorizedpages?
Fagstein 23:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To respond to point 3. With an uncat tag it's easier to spot that an article needs a category. Perhaps the creator, after he sees the tag, will then put a category to the article. With Special:uncategorizedpages you don't see that. Plus it's easier for editors to work on category:category needed in comparison to the special page since that page takes a while to update, while by removing the tag the article is immediately gone from the 'category needed' page. Garion96 (talk) 23:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking exactly that about the third point - the special page is just too slow to update to actually work with, and my understanding is it only actually lets you see the first thousand results. As for point two, some editors would bother turning a warning option on (as some do for edit summaries), but I would prefer a default warning that must be turned off. To continue my backwards response trend, it depends how we phrase a warning - we could have a pleasantly worded pop-up that says something like "Articles should be placed in a Category, which serves to aid browsing of related articles]]. Would you like help selecting a Category?" followed by two options, "Help select a Category" and "Save without a Category". bd2412 T 00:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, no, anything that would discourage contribution by newbies must be avoided. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You mean like disabling page creation by anons? -- nae'blis 04:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Zoe -- in the relative scheme of things categories are of lower importance; minimizing barriers to the addition of useful content is more important than ensuring proper categorization. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, I agree with that, but I don't think a page asking "Are you sure you want to save this page without a category?" will scare off too many honest contributors. —Keenan Pepper 06:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're basically asking them to (1) learn what a category is and how to implement it, (2) find an appropriate category, (3) resave. That, or save without a category, which they will obviously be discouraged from doing. This seems like a significant obstacle. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We're already asking them to reade the guidelines in the new page screen - obviously they're not doing that, or they'd see the section of the tutorial which says, in big bold letters, It is very important to put in the correct categories so that other people can easily find your work. bd2412 T 14:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While I don't like trying to stop any edits (a helpful message might be ok), I like the auto-cat idea. Perhaps though, instead of making a new feature, we should see if the devs can fix Special:UncategorizedXs. Prodego talk 13:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the tag though. At least that way (new) editors see that a category is missing. With the special page you can only see that on that page, not on the article. Garion96 (talk) 13:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Garion - plus, with an autotag, uncategorized articles could be categorized by date, perhaps by other variables. bd2412 T 14:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this ever does come to fruition (hopefully not), the "please enter a category" prompt must include a link to a list of categories. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that automatically putting new articles in {{uncat}} if they're not categorized by the editor is less confusing, more visually instructive as to our systems here, and allows them to save incrementally without trying to wade through the whole categorization "scheme" (and I use that word very loosely). Failing a change by the developers, maybe a bot could run over New Pages and tag uncategorized articles after they have not been edited in X minutes/hours? -- nae'blis 18:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For many of the reasons stated above, I support the idea of an automatic "uncategorized" category being created, in order to facilitate editing by newbies, particularly the creation of articles. Granted, forcing categorizing will also deter (though it won't eliminate) the creation to vandalism and nonsense articles. But it's needlessly cumbersome for legitimate, good faith newcomers. Also, not everyone knows what categories are suitable for what article. And to make things even more confusing -- and I am not what you'd call a newbie (check my contributions) I was floored to discover only a few hours ago that even CATEGORIES need Categories. It's a blessed moebius strip around here. No, I reject the forcing of categories; make an automatic "uncat" tag that goes in if the creator of a page neglects (for whatever reason) to categorize an article. 23skidoo 18:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the general trend of the above sentiments. Some sort of "are you sure you want to" page after the first attempt to save an uncategorised page, with canned text to the effect of "please add a specific category if you know it", and a short list of default options to assist the terminally bewildered, would be OK. As the majority of new articles are going to be stubs, it would be logical to include that among said options. It would seem reasonable for the software to make a WAG at whether the new article is a stub, based on length, and automatically add either {{stub}} or {{uncat}} accordingly to the previewed text (while mentioning the other as a possibility). What it should absolutely not do is repeatedly "bounce" the user to a "can't do that" page. Alai 01:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions on individual proposals/components[edit]

There are some good ideas on this page - I'd like to drop a poll as to how folks here feel about the following specific proposals:

Create a watchlist that indicates when category contents change[edit]

  • Support That really would be handy. Garion96 (talk) 02:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Seems like a good idea. Although this seems like a seperate issue to me. dv82matt 05:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Separate issue, but this feature was needed yesterday. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 17:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, assuming it's not too much of a technical issue. Fagstein 17:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, per Fagstein. Megapixie 05:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Prodego talk 22:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. May further exacerbate the WP:OWN problem. It would certainly make it more difficult to remove derogatory-labeling, POV-pushing, or otherwise inappropriate cats from articles knowing that somebody with a WP:OWN problem has the entire cat on their watchlist and will revert the removal. KleenupKrew 13:49, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • That sounds like a reason to get rid of watchlists altogether. bd2412 T 07:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't see how that follows, when the same could be said of a user watchlisting 100 individual articles. -- nae'blis 19:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: I reported this one at MediaZilla. It was initially classed as resolved because it was similar to previous proposals, but has been revived. bd2412 T 07:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support, this would make wikiprojects, locating missing/miscategorized articles, and the like much easier for those of us with specialized interests. I'm sure it is technically complex, but it would be a great help. -- nae'blis 19:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support, as someone who participates in categorization and watches a number of pages, i would like to watch categories. Scarykitty 15:39, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A handy tool. STTW (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Create a warning screen informing editors who try to save an article without a category[edit]

  • Neutral Still not sure about this one. We don't want to deter new editors, but just a small warning editors can click away can't hurt either. Garion96 (talk) 02:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose Not a terrible idea but I'd find it annoying and I think it could discourage contributions from newbies. dv82matt 05:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support if done properly it's not going to lose us any articles. And I've found that most people creating articles in good faith are happy to properly categorize an article if they realize they should... it's a shame we rarely get the message to them, and let articles sit uncategorized for months or years. --W.marsh 15:16, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Categories seem easy after a while but to new editors they're baffling; this would just make it harder to get started with Wikipedia. ben 16:48, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. This would only be acceptable to me if this were a voluntary user setting, such as the warning for a summary not entered. Warnings in general are negative feedback, and we should refrain from that if we can, unless the user volunteers to see such warnings. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 17:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It still discourages new editors who wouldn't know how to find correct categories, and an article without categories is not the end of the world since most of them have categories quickly added anyway. Fagstein 17:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. I would prefer to make the effect of the {{uncat}} tag show up on the preview page. My hope is to remind him that there ought to be a category, but not look like an error or warning message. -- ProveIt (talk) 00:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    That would only be effective if the editor uses the preview function, tho. bd2412 T 21:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, however, careful editors preview their changes. The ones who don't might ignore a warning anyway. -- ProveIt (talk) 21:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose per ProveIt. Megapixie 05:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral per Fagstein, ben, and Garion96. Prodego talk 22:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I am unconvinced that categories are necessary for all articles, and more importantly this proposal may lead to the inclusion of inappropriate or nonsense categories for some articles where no appropriate category exists, or where the appropriate category is unknown to the editor. KleenupKrew 13:45, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A warning screen should come up, both for preview and save. The editor may click it away but should be informed about how wikipedia works. STTW (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose It takes time to learn about categories. We should not force new editors to learn lots of things before starting to contribute. And we should not scare them away with a lot of warning screens. --David Göthberg 11:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Auto-tag articles created without a category[edit]

  • Support At least this way articles won't dissappear on the million+ articles. Garion96 (talk) 02:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support dv82matt 05:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - probably a reasonable technical implementation, & does not confuse newbies. I agree that every mainspace article should have a category, even if it's "uncategorized". Outriggr 15:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support could be done by bot too, really, but would be best if done server-side I think. --W.marsh 15:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Excellent idea ben 16:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Definitely a great idea. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 17:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Would this be more feasible than making Special:Uncategorizedpages update more often? Fagstein 17:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Special:Uncategorizedpages has other downsides. Like the fact that you only see that it's missing a category on that page. Not on the actual article. Garion96 (talk) 18:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I would also like to see orphaned categories tagged this way. -- ProveIt (talk) 00:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral - I'm not sure I see the value above Special:Uncategorizedpages. Sure, the article doesn't explicitly say it doesn't have a category - but then it doesn't explicitly say it's not a featured article or that it's about the Greek national soccer team. Megapixie 05:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Note also that Special:Uncategorizedpages only shows the first thousand hits... so that would need to be fixed as well if it is to be relied upon. bd2412 T 21:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, they only update once or twice a week. It could be quite a while before anyone notices. -- ProveIt (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. -- nae'blis 21:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, so long as it isn't to hard to code. Prodego talk 22:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. Again, as above I am unconvinced as to the value of requiring, or even strongly encouraging, categories for all articles. So I don't really see the value of this. KleenupKrew 13:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Rama's arrow 00:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Articles with no category are hidden from the cleanup projects, and have to be compiled by hand into the Wikipedia:Dead-end pages listing, which has to be manually maintained, and is therefore inefficient. Salad Days 03:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support If the editor does not give a cat then {{uncat}} should be added, not that later we do the same thing. STTW (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Yeah, such a tag would be handy, among other things since it becomes visible in the article that the newbie is working with. --David Göthberg 11:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Auto-tag articles created without incoming links (orphaned articles)[edit]

  • Figured I'd add this too, since it's the same basic concept. We already have an existing system for splitting these up by months, see Category:Orphaned articles. I support this, I've observed that there's about a 5-15% chance that the creator will come back within a week or two and create inbound links if you add the tag within 3-5 days of article creation (which is what my bot currently does) - I can only imagine the success rate would be much better if the tag was added faster and more completely. --W.marsh 23:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. In fact, it might be interesting to create a single autotag cat for articles lacking cats, inbound links, and formatting... bd2412 T 21:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, so long as it isn't to hard to code. Prodego talk 22:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This will save work and maybe help to more easily identify articles needing cleanup, wikilinks to or from them, or AFD. KleenupKrew 13:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Rama's arrow 00:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Handy tool. STTW (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Although this seems harder to keep correctly updated. Since the article might get incoming links later and then the tag is wrong and needs to be removed. --David Göthberg 11:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Auto-tag unwikified articles[edit]

Is there any way you could get the articles to automatically bear the {{wiki}} tag if they contain no outgoing links? At any rate the proposal itself sounds like an excellent start, and would cut down some of the repetion of various cleanup jobs. Salad Days 19:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would think that is just as do-able as autotagging articles without cats or incoming links. bd2412 T 19:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

case study new editor[edit]

[1]. It took 8 edits on the new article for him to get categories into his new article. I think the links on the welcome did help. It shows that people that want to learn will learn - others are beyond redemption. Agathoclea 19:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I definently think most editors (who are creating stuff that isn't vanity/vandalism/etc) do genuinely want to create good articles, and just don't know how. I think we should be devoting a lot more energy as a project to giving them some much-needed help. --W.marsh 00:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Recently created stubs"[edit]

I like this proposal a lot. I don't think we should shy from doing something bold like this just over the possibility that some newbies might be scared off. Wikipedia needs software upgrades to work better and achieve its mission. I have a suggestion about stubs that are created by anonymous and registered users: can we (1) modify the software or (2) commission a bot that tags articles with less than 70 words as "Recently created stubs?" This new category can be sorted out by people who have experience, and will be more helpful to newbies. Rama's arrow 00:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note this is slightly different from the proposals discussed above. For uncategorised articles in general, we should break them down to prevent an oversized inventory from being created. "Stubs" is one possible classification. We could also commission a bot to (1) Look for keywords like name of country, a date or if the first 5 words includes a proper name, so it can be classified as uncategorised "geography," "period" or "person/bio" article. Rama's arrow 00:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Example see Ghazi Salahuddin. This was a stub created without a cat, but a bot could pick up the keywords of "Pakistani," "journalist." Rama's arrow 00:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feature Request[edit]

I noticed someone changed this proposal into a "feature request." Has anyone submitted this yet? Also, is there enough discussion here to claim community support? Salad Days 20:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a followup, I'm curious too: Did anyone actually submit this yet? If not, I'd like to move forward on it. Considering Wikipedia's exponential growth (size has effectively quadrupled in one year), I feel like trying to handle it manually, is going to be a losing battle. --Elonka 17:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like we're still waiting on this to be submitted, eh? --Elonka 05:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At the Village pump[edit]

I brought up this proposal in the context of current software capabilities at the village pump. Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Mandatory categorization of new articles. --Eliyak T·C 08:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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