Help talk:Category

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Archives

Archive 1

Archive 2

Revamping the category pages[edit]

I don't know the right place to mention this, but wikipedia's category pages could use an overhaul. Whenever I end up on a category page, I'm disappointed that I've arrived at a page that's hard to find information in. They are only sorted alphabetically and contain too little information per page. There should be ways to reorganize the listings (chronologically at least) and a way to search the lists. 71.7.174.105 (talk) 17:47, 19 June 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Category pages can only be organised in one way, it would require a fundamental software change (file a feature request at phab:) to do it another way. That has little change of being accepted, so you should consider using a list, see Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:32, 20 June 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Suggest: Allowing for a short tag or description in a Category tag which is displayed alongside the sort key in the category page.

I agree that it is nearly impossible to get good information from a large category page when all you have is the page titles. For example, a list of magazines should have the publication dates in the list, genre and "magazine". Suggest "Time (1922-present, magazine, USA)" where the category tag is "1922-present, magazine, USA" 107.197.56.204 (talk) 15:49, 20 December 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Section wording – Putting pages into categories[edit]

The section Help:Category#Putting pages into categories begins A page belongs to a category if the page's wiki markup contains a declaration for that category.

Seems awkward and cart before the horse.

Many editors link to this section when reverting improper edits to category pages. It should read as if to a new editor, who wants to categorize a page, but does not know how. Just a suggestion: If a page belongs to a category, then the declaration for that category should be placed at the bottom of its page.

The current wording isn't even necessarily true. Anyone, including the person you are reverting, could have added (incorrectly) the category declaration. Doesn't mean the page actually belongs. --DB1729 (talk) 20:53, 20 September 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Request for comment on category namespace[edit]

Should we make the pseudo-namespace CAT: become an alias to the category namespace like in Commons? Vitaium (talk) 14:18, 24 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Vitaium: This is the wrong place to make such a proposal, it is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Category. You should really discuss this at WP:VPR; and to begin with, stick to discussion - don't make it a formal RfC unless that is what others agree to. See WP:RFCBEFORE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:41, 25 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

External links[edit]

Is an external link sufficient to support a category for a page? I thought that support for a category had to be within the text of the article, but I don't know of a source that says so. I'm asking because I removed a burial category from Gloria Wood and another editor reverted the removal with the edit summary "its supported by the Find a Grave link in the external links". Find a Grave is not a reliable source for text in an article, so I don't know why it should be valid for supporting a category. Eddie Blick (talk) 01:35, 27 December 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Teblick: This is WP:CATV. If the category is not verifiable, it cannot be added. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 08:21, 27 December 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you, Redrose64. I was not aware of that documentation. I appreciate your help. Eddie Blick (talk) 19:21, 27 December 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]