Wikipedia:Contents
A category scheme is a way to index Wikipedia articles. Many category schemes are possible, and there is no scheme that is clearly the best. Furthermore, many of these categories are incomplete — some categorize only the broadest topics, others don't even get that far. See the discussion page for other proposed category schemes. The topmost levels are included below.
Category system
The Wikipedia category system is designed to index articles by subject parentage, where the index is automatically generated from mark-up information (category tags) placed (at the end of) in each article. The top of the category system hierarchy can be accessed via:
- Wikipedia:Browse - Lists the top two levels of the category system; cool format.
- Category:Categories - Lists top-level categories
- Category:Fundamental - the first level of categories
Pros: centralized
Cons: cumbersome (categories can't be edited directly), awkward (category listings are not present at the point of data-entry forcing user to remember category names on his own or guess), it's easier to navigate down the tree than up it, administrative category system hard to find (especially for new users).
See also:
- Wikipedia:Category for a quick introduction to categories.
- Wikipedia:Categorization for a detailed manual including instructions and policies about creating and applying categories, and about categories outside article space.
- Wikipedia:Categorisation FAQ for everything you ever wanted to know about categories.
- Wikipedia administration for an index of topics about Wikipedia, how to use it, and how it is managed. Includes help articles, policy articles, voting pages, and administrator-related articles.
Lists of portals
Portals are theme pages. Most feature articles, a picture or two, and news items. Many also contain topic lists, category lists, and to-do lists.
- Portal:Browse - The portal of portals. Lists all completed portals.
- Category:Portals - List of portals.
Lists of lists
- List of reference tables -- includes lists of terms, in which many of the terms are live links to articles. Even though the lists presented contain many terms which are not article titles, the topic coverage is so comprehensive as to make this the most complete organized indexing system of Wikipedia. Previously named Wikipedia:Almanac.
- List of basic topic lists -- short lists of key topics on major subjects. It serves as a good condensed table of contents to Wikipedia.
- List of topic lists -- intended to be a comprehensive list of article lists, arranged by subject. Under construction.
- Wikipedia:Browse by overview -- list of major "overview articles": articles with the same names as portals and major categories.
- Wikipedia:Concise -- Wikipedia version of a concise encyclopedia. Planned to be a list of 15,000 to 20,000 essential topics. Looking for volunteers for gathering essential lists, sorting, and purging duplicate entries. Under construction.
- Wikipedia:Dewey Decimal System -- article titles according to the Dewey Decimal System of library cataloging. Under construction.
- List of academic disciplines -- Wikipedia arranged like a college course curriculum.
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia Indexing Scheme -- A Dewey Decimal-like open-development tree indexing system. In early development.
- Category:Lists -- the list of lists, in the category system.
Glossaries
(topic lists with definitions included)
Timelines
(articles organized chronologically)
- Centuries (e.g. 20th century)
- Decades (e.g. 1910s)
- Years (e.g. 1911, 2004)
- List of historical anniversaries (e.g. today)
- this year (2024)
- Current events
- Recent deaths
- Category:Graphical timelines
- Category:Chronology
Alphabetical lists
- Special:Allpages - All articles in alphabetic order
- Wikipedia:Quick index -- Quick access to the above, by first two letters
Outlines
Meta
- (indices of pages for Wikipedia editors)
- Wikipedia:Topical index
- Wikipedia:WikiProjects
- Special Pages
- Archive (obsolete pages kept as subpages of Wikipedia:Archive for historical interest)
- Wikipedia:WP - shortcuts
- Disambiguation