Wikipedia:Category names
 | The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. |
All categories whose subcategories are categories by country (roughly all categories that are members of category:categories by country) shall have a naming convention which will apply to all of their subcategories. The naming conventions, their guidelines and their exceptions will be listed here. Conformance to these naming conventions shall be treated as a criterion for "speedy renaming" as defined on WP:CFD. Changing these conventions shall require a consensual discussion that must be advertised on WP:CFD.
- Categories of natural features or man-made objects by country should be called "... in country".
- Categories of businesses, governmental agencies and statistics directly related to a country (e.g. history, economy, demographics) should be called "... of country"
- Categories of abstracts and cultural items by country, such as law, music and religion, should be called "... in country".
- Categories of nations at sporting events (e.g. the 2000 olympics) should be called "country at ...".
- The above guidelines can have exceptions when the proposed naming doesn't make sense gramatically. For instance "islands in country" sounds strange, so it should be "islands of country" instead.
- Parent categories of the above, such as Category:Geography by country, should be called "... by country" (rather than "... by nation"). This does not apply to categorization of people.
Note that the vast majority of categories already conform to these proposed standards.
Categories of people by country may be debated at some point in the future.