This page containsguidance on the proper use of thecategorization function in Wikipedia. Thecentral goal of the category system is to providenavigational links to pages in Wikipedia within atree-like hierarchy ofcategories. Using essential,defining characteristics of a topic, readers can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics.
For proposals to delete, merge, or rename categories, follow the instructions atCategories for discussion. Please use it before undertaking any complicated re-categorization of existing categories or mass creation of new categories.
Categorizing pages
A screencast showing how to categorise pages and explaining the usage of thetoolHotCat
Each categorized page should be placed in themost specific categories to which it logically belongs. Andsubcategories should be categorised under themost specificparent categories possible.
Pages (and sub-categories) should not normally be placed in both a given category, and any of its subcategories or parent categories. For exceptions to this, see§ Eponymous categories and§ Non-diffusing subcategories.
For example, the article "Paris" need only be placed inCategory:Cities in France,not also inCategory:Populated places in France. Because the first category (cities) is in the second category (populated places), readers are already given the information that Paris is a populated place in France by it being a city in France.
Note also thatstub templates categorize stub articles for maintenance purposes intoadministrative categories, not for user browsing, so they donot count as categorization for the purposes of Wikipedia's categorization policies. An article which has a "stubs" category on itmust still be filed in the most appropriate content categories, even if one of them is a direct parent of the stubs category in question.
Since all categories form part of atree-like hierarchy,do not add categories to pages as if they aretags.
Categories are not the only means of enabling users to browse sets of related pages. And categories haveseveral disadvantages, including that categories only showthe page name of each page being categorized, therefore:
While thecategory description may provide broader information, individual category members cannot be annotated with descriptions or comments, so they give no context or elaboration for any specific entry.
There is no provision for referencing any specific entry, toverify a page meets a category's criteria of inclusion.
So, consider whether alist would be more appropriate for such a grouping of pages. Lists would also be more useful where it is important to see dates, for example, alist of Nobel laureates. And can provide options for sorting the entries.
Also, consider whether the category might be considered category clutter. Please seeWikipedia:Overcategorization, for more information on this.
A good category name is accurate andneutral, and, as much as possible, defines the category's inclusion criteria in the name itself.
Important: Moving non-conventionally categorized pages to another category name (see{{Category redirect}}) imposes an additional overhead – an edit forevery categorized page and subcategory.
So, when choosing a name for the category, please be sure a similar category does not exist. Before creating a category, try to find it under a similar name. You can search existing category names as describedhere (top of page). Another way to determine if suitable categories already exist for a particular page is to check the categories of pages concerning similar or related topics.
Note:Eponymous categories (categories whose name and topic is the same as an article, such as a category named after a person) should only be created if enough directly related articles exist.
Creating the category
After you have determined an appropriate category name for the category, next try to find a suitable place for the new category. (For example, categories of people should be in thetree of "people" categories.) Please see#Category tree organization for more information on this.
Once you have determined where to categorize this new category, you should be ready to create the new category.
To create a category:
Add a page to the intended category. Do this by editing that page, and add the name of the new category: (e.g.: [[Category:New category name]] )
By convention, categories are placed at the end of the wikitext, but before anystub templates, which transclude their own categories.
Eponymous categories should appear first. Beyond that, the order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first.
Save your edit. The as-yet-undefined category name will now appear as ared link in the category list at the bottom of the page.
A page should never be left with a non-existent (redlinked) category on it. Either the category should be created, or else the link should be removed or changed to a category that does exist.
Next, click on that red link, which brings you to the new category page to create.
Finally, at the bottom of the category page, simply add the parent category (e.g.: [[Category:Parent category name]] ), which should usually be ahypernym of the subcategory. This will add the new category into the appropriate parent category.
* If something goes wrong, double check to see if you followed the steps properly and check if the wikitext is correct. For example, if the category fails to list in the parent category, the wikitext should be [[Category:Parent category name]], not [[:Category:Parent category name]].
While it should typically be clear from the name of an existing category which pages it should contain, sometimes, a common-sense guess based on the name of the category isn't enough to figure out whether a page should be listed in the category. So, rather than leave the text of a category page empty (containing only parent category declarations), adding a main article which describes the topic, see§ Articles with eponymous categories, can help with that.
However, only linking to a Wikipedia article explaining the title is often not sufficient as a description for a category. It can be helpful – to both readers and editors – to include a clear description of the category, indicating what pages it should contain, how they should be subcategorized, and so on, and linking to one or more pages as background information.
In such cases, the desired contents of the category should be described on the category page, similar to how thelist selection criteria are described in a stand-alone list. The category description should make direct statements about the criteria by which pages should be selected for inclusion in (or exclusion from) the category. This description, not the category's name, defines the proper content of the category. Do not leave future editors to guess about what or who should be included from the title of the category. Even if the selection criteria might seem obvious to you, an explicit standard is helpful to others, especially if they are less familiar with the subject.
The description can also contain links to other Wikipedia pages, in particular to other related categories which do not appear directly as subcategories or parent categories, and to relevant categories atsister projects, such asCommons. Another technique that can be used is described atWikipedia:Classification. Likedisambiguation pages, category pages should not contain either citations toreliable sources orexternal links.
Categories may have hundreds of members, displayed over many pages, with, at most, only 200 category entries on a single category page. To make navigating large categories easier, a table of contents can be used on the category page. The following templates are some of the ways of doing this:
{{Category TOC}} – adds a complete table of contents (Top, 0–9, A–Z)
{{Large category TOC}} – adds a complete table of contents with five subdivisions for each letter (Aa Ae Aj Ao At)
Consider using{{CatAutoTOC}} which uses the appropriate TOC for the number of pages on a category page.
Likewise, a maximum of 200 subcategories are displayed at a time, so some subcategories may not be immediately visible. To display all subcategories at once, add a category tree to the text of the category page, as described atHelp:Category § Displaying category trees and page counts.
Category pages can haveinterlanguage links in the "Languages" list in the left sidebar (in the default skin), linking to corresponding categories in other language Wikipedias. To edit these onWikidata, click on the "Edit links" link at the end of the languages list.
Verifiable: It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories. Use the{{Unreferenced category}} template if you find an article in a category that is not shown by sources to be appropriate or if the article gives no clear indication for inclusion in a category.
Neutral: Categorizations appear on article pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then alist article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate.
For example, a politician (not convicted of any crime) should not be added to a category of notable criminals.
Defining: Defining characteristics of an article's topic are central to categorizing the article. A defining characteristic is one thatreliable sourcescommonly andconsistently refer to[1] in describing the topic, such as the nationality of a person or the geographic location of a place. Articles should normally be included in the categories that are most closely related to the subject's defining characteristics.
For example,Italian andartist are defining characteristics ofCaravaggio, because virtually all reliable sources on the topic mention them, so that article is included in categories such asCategory:Italian Baroque painters.
Fornon-defining characteristics, editors should use their judgment to choose which additional categories (if any) to include.
For the full category naming guidelines (including topic-specific naming conventions), seeWikipedia:Category names.
Standardarticle naming conventions apply: Generally, category names are based on what the subject is called inverifiablereliable sources (particularly fortechnical subjects), so that those sources may be used to support inclusion of information. When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among them by consideringseveral principles: the ideal category name uses words and phrases whichprecisely identify the subject; it isneutral, short, natural, distinguishable and recognizable; and resembles names for similar categories.
Because no two articles can have the same title, it is sometimes necessary to add distinguishing information, often in the form of a description inparentheses after the name. When a topic requiresdisambiguation, any category eponymously named for that topic should include the same form of disambiguation, even if no other articles are likely to have aneponymous category.
Note that in some instances a topic category and a set category may have similar names – the topic category name is singular and the set category name is plural. Be careful to choose the right one when categorizing articles.
For example,Opera is a topic category (containing all articles relating to the topic), whileOperas is a set category (containing articles about specific operas).
Sometimes, for convenience, the two types can be combined, to create aset-and-topic category
For example,Category:Voivodeships of Poland contains articles about particular voivodeships as well as articles relating to voivodeships in general.
For articles about people, categorize by characteristics of the person the article is about,not characteristics of thearticle: e.g., do not add[[Category:Biography]] to an article.Sub-categories ofCategory:Biography (genre) may legitimately contain articles about biographicalfilms or biographicalbooks, but should not contain articles about individual people. Thearticle is a biography; the topic of the article – theperson – is not.
Keep articles about people separate. Categories with a title indicating that the contents are people, should normally only contain biographical articles and lists of people, and perhaps a non-biographical main article, though this can also be added at the top of the category. This is for clarity and ease of use, and to preserve the integrity ofcategory tree of people articles.
Articles on fictional subjects should not be categorized in a manner that confuses them with real subjects.{{Category see also}} is useful for interlinking examples of real-world and fictional phenomena.
If there are more than a fewlists in a particular subject area, it may be appropriate to create a specific subcategory that contains only the list pages and no other types.
When placing list pages in such a category, use asort key to adjust the page title to exclude the starting words "List of", or all lists would appear under "L".
For example, when adding List of Soviet Republics to the category, using[[Category:Lists of countries|Soviet Republics, List of]] and will make it be sorted in the S section.
Eponymous categories should not be created unless enough directly related articles or subcategories exist. However, this should not be done simply to reduce the number of categories displayed in an article.
An eponymous category should have only the categories of its article that are relevant to the category's content. For example:
The article itself should be a member of the eponymous category. It should be sorted with a space, so that it appears at the start of the category listing (see§ Sort keys below).
The article should be listed as the main article of the category using the{{Category main article}} template.
Articles with an eponymous category may be categorized in the broader categories that would be present if there were no eponymous category (e.g. the articleFrance appears in bothCategory:France andCategory:Countries in Europe, even though the latter category is the parent of the former category). Editors should decide by consensus which solution makes most sense for a category tree. There are three options:
Keep both the eponymous category and the main article in the parent category. This is used inCategory:Countries in Europe to allow that region's country articles to be navigated together.
Drafts, no matter whether in thedraft namespace oryour userspace, are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories such asLiving people orBiologists. If you copy an article from mainspace to draftspace or your userspace and it already contains categories, then disable those categories. This can be done in any of the following four ways (but only the first two ways are recommended, as a disadvantage of the last two ways is that the categories would not be linked on the page):
Inserting a colon character tolink to each category (e.g. change[[Category:Biologists]] to[[:Category:Biologists]])
Commenting (<!--...-->) them out (e.g.<!--[[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Biologists]]--> etc.).
Wrapping them in<nowiki>...</nowiki> tags (e.g.<nowiki>[[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Biologists]]</nowiki> etc.).
After you move the draft into article space, remove the leading colons (or uncomment out the categories or remove the<nowiki>...</nowiki> tags) to re-enable the categories. If using the draft categories template, the categories will automatically work as normal in mainspace, but the template should be removed. The same system may be used in a new draft to list the categories it may have when moved to mainspace.
A distinction is made between two types of categories:
Administrative categories – intended for use by editors or by automated tools, based on features of the current state of articles, or used to categorize non-article pages.
Content categories – intended as part of the encyclopedia, to help readers find articles, based on features of the subjects of those articles.
Article pages should be kept out of administrative categories if possible. For example, the templates that generate WikiProject and assessment categories should be placed on talk pages, not on the articles themselves. If it is unavoidable that an administration category appears on article pages (usually because it is generated by a maintenance template that is placed on articles), then in most cases it should be made ahidden category, as described in§ Hiding categories below.
Inmaintenance categories and otheradministrative categories, pages may be included regardless of type. For example, in an error tracking category it makes sense to group templates separately, because addressing the errors there may require different skills compared to fixing an ordinary article. For sorting each namespace separately, see§ Sort keys below.
Category tags should be added tofile pages of files that have been uploaded to Wikipedia. When categorized, files are not included in the count of articles in the category, but are displayed in a separate section with a thumbnail and the name for each. A category can mix articles and images, or a separate file/image category can be created. A file category is typically a subcategory of the general category about the same subject, and a subcategory of the wider category for files,Category:Wikipedia files. To categorize a new file when uploading, simply add the category tag to theupload summary.
Freely licensed files should be uploaded to, and categorized on,Wikimedia Commons, instead of uploading and categorizing on Wikipedia. Existing freely licensed files should usually be moved from Wikipedia to Commons, with a mirror page automatically remaining on Wikipedia. (For an example of one such mirror page, seehere.) Categories should not be added to these Wikipedia mirror pages, because doing so creates a new Wikipedia page that is subject tospeedy deletion. Exceptions to this principle are made for mirror pages of images that are nominated asfeatured pictures and for those that appear on the WikipediaMain Page in theDid You Know? column.
Images that are used in Wikipedia that arenon-free or fair use should not appear as thumbnail images in categories. To prevent the thumbnail preview of images from appearing in a category, __NOGALLERY__ should be added to the text of the category. In such cases, the file will still appear in the category, but the actual image preview will not.
Pages using a template should rarely be placed in the same categories as the template itself. To ensure this separation, the category for the template should be placed on the template's documentation page, normally after the two pipes in a<includeonly>{{Sandbox other||...}}</includeonly> block. Because template documentation is rarelyprotected, template categorization can be modified by all editors even when the template code itself is protected from editing by most editors. When there is no documentation page, the category for the template may be placed at the bottom of the template itself, within a<noinclude>...</noinclude> block. There should be no spaces or new lines between the last part of the template proper and the opening<noinclude> tag.
User pages are not articles and thus do not belong incontent categories such asLiving people orBiologists. Similarly,#Draft versions of articles should be kept out of content categories. Also, do nottransclude articles into your user pages, as this will result in the page being included in all the article's categories.
Manytemplates include category declarations in their transcludable text, for the purpose ofplacing the pages containing those templates into specific categories. This technique is very commonly used for populating certain kinds of administration categories, including stub categories and maintenance categories. SeeTemplate:Infobox roller coaster for an example that only adds a category by manufacturer if it exists, and otherwise uses a hidden category.
However, it is recommended that articles not be placed in ordinarycontent categories using templates in this way. There are many reasons for this: editors cannot see the category in the wikitext; removing or restructuring the category is made more difficult (partly because automated processes will not work); inappropriate articles and non-article pages may get added to the category;sort keys may be unavailable to be customised per category; and ordering of categories on the page is less controllable.
When templates are used to populate administration categories, ensure that the code cannot generate nonsensical or non-existent categories, particularly when the category name depends on a parameter. Also, seeCategory suppression for ways of keeping inappropriate pages out of template-generated categories.
Category declarations in templates often use{{PAGENAME}} as the sort key, because this overrides any DEFAULTSORT defined on the page.
Donot create inter-category redirects by adding#REDIRECT [[target]] to a category page. Unlike whenrenaming articles, categories cannot beredirected using "hard" redirects. Articles added to a "redirected" category will not show up in the target category. And since redirected categories do not become "red links", editors won't be aware even when they add an article to a redirected category.[2]
Instead, a form of "soft redirect" may be used in limited circumstances. You can create acategory redirect by adding{{Category redirect|target}} to the category page.Bots patrol these categories and move articles to the "target" of the redirect.
If you need to add anrcat to a{{Category redirect}}, use the template's second parameter. For example,{{Category redirect| Years of the 19th century in Ceylon|{{R from category navigation}}{{R from template-generated category}}}}
Category redirects arecostly. While placing a page in a category redirect is not abig problem, itis a problem. There areplenty of helpful uses of category redirects, but category redirects are not ascheap as regular redirects. Links to article redirects arenot broken: i.e. click on the link and you are automatically redirected to its target. However, links to category redirectsare broken and need to be fixed, except when resolved by a template (i.e. the template generates categories using a pattern, and some of the resulting category names are intentionally resolved by the use of{{resolve category redirect}} within the template, as in the Ceylon example above). Placing a page into a category redirect makes it show up in the category redirect — not its target — until a bot comes along and fixes the link.
Note: usually only do this at an unused category name which is ambiguous, e.g.Category:Lewis. If an ambiguous name is used for an active category because it is clearly theWP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and there are only 1 or 2 others, then use a hatnote like the one atCategory:Lewes. For longer lists, we can also create pages such asCategory:Bedford (disambiguation).
In cases where, for technical reasons, administration categories appear directly on articles rather than talk pages, they should be made intohidden categories, so that they are not displayed to readers. This rule does not apply tostub categories or "uncategorized article" categories – these types arenot hidden.
A logged-in user may elect to view all hidden categories, by checking "Show hidden categories" on the "Appearance" tab ofPreferences. Notice that "hidden" parent categories are never in fact hidden on category pages (although they are listed separately).
Hidden categories are listed at the bottom when previewing. All users of the desktop version can see hidden categories for a page by clicking "Page information" under "Tools" in the left pane, or by editing the whole page with the source editor.
Partial view of Wikipedia's category system from 2007. Arrows point from category to subcategory.
Categories are organized as overlapping "trees", formed by creating links between inter-related categories (in mathematics or computer science this structure is called apartially ordered set).
There is one top-level category:Category:Contents. All other categories are subcategorized below this category.
Atree structure showing the possible hierarchical organization of an encyclopedia
An item may belong to several subcategories of a parent category (as pictured).
If logical membership of one category implies logical membership of a second category (anis-a relationship), then the first category should be made a subcategory (directly or indirectly) of the second category (the "parent" category). Any category may potentially contain (or "branch into") subcategories.
For example, A is said to be aparent category of B when B is asubcategory of A.)[3]
When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the subcategory really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the parent also.
If two categories are closely related but are not in a subset relation, then links between them can be included in thecategory description of the category pages.
Categorychains formed by parent–child relationships should never form closed loops;[4] that is, no category should be contained as a subcategory of one of its own subcategories.[5]
Although there is no limit on the size of categories, a large category will often be broken down ("diffused") into smaller, more specific subcategories. For example,Category:Rivers of Europe contains no articles about specific rivers directly; they are all in subcategories.
A category may be diffused using several coexisting schemes; for example,Category:Albums is broken down by artist, by date, by genre etc.Metacategories may be created as ways of organizing schemes of subcategories. For example, the subcategories called "Artistname albums" are not placed directly intoCategory:Albums, but into the metacategoryCategory:Albums by artist, which itself appears in Category:Albums. (SeeCategory:Categories by parameter)
It is possible for a category to be only partially diffused—some members are placed in subcategories, while others remain in the main category.
Information about how a category is diffused may be given on the category page. Categories which are intended to be fully broken down into subcategories can be marked with the{{category diffuse}} template, which indicates that any pages which editors might add to the main category should be moved to the appropriate subcategories when sufficient information is available. (If the proper subcategory for an article does not exist yet, either create the subcategory or leave the article in the parent category for the time being.)
To suggest that a category is so large that it ought to be diffused, or substantially diffused, into subcategories, you can add the{{overpopulated category}} template to the category page.
Not all subcategories serve the "diffusion" function described above; some are simply subsets which have some special characteristic of interest, such asBest Actor Academy Award winners as a subcategory ofFilm actors. They provide an exception to the general rule that pages are not placed in both a category and its subcategory: there is no need to take pages out of the parent categorypurely because of their membership of a non-diffusing subcategory. (Of course, if the pages also belong to other subcategories that do cause diffusion, then they will not appear in the parent category directly.)
Non-diffusing subcategories should be identified with a template on the category page:
Subcategories defined by gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality should almost always be non-diffusing subcategories to preventothering. TheWikipedia:Categorizing articles about people guideline outlines the rules on these categories in more detail.
Sort keys are sometimes needed to produce a correct ordering of member pages and subcategories on the category page. For the mechanics, seeHelp:Category § Sorting category pages.
Categories of people are usually sorted by last name rather than first name, so "last name, first name" sort keys are used (as in "Washington, George"). There are many other rules for sorting people's names; for more information, seeWP:NAMESORT.
Other sort key considerations (in no particular order):
In English Wikipedia, sort order merges (ignores) case and diacritics. For example, "Baé", "Båf", "BaG" would be sorted in that order.[6]
The main article/s of a category, if existent, should get sorted with a space as key so that it/they appear(s) at the very top of the category. Example:[[Category:Example| ]] Those articles are typically homonymous or at least synonymous to their category. Furthermore, other general articles that are highly relevant to the category should be sorted with an asterisk as key so that they also appear at the top of a category but beneath the main article/s. Example:[[Category:Example|*]] Those articles are typically called "History of example", "Types of example", "List of example" or similar.
Leading articles—a, an, and the—are among the most common reasons for using sort keys, which are used to transfer the leading article to the end of the key, as in {{DEFAULTSORT:Lady, The}}. Please also apply these sort keys to deliberate misspellings of these words,e.g. "da" or "tha" for "the", as well as foreign language leading articles, such as "el" or "der" (but beware of non-article words that have the same spelling, e.g. that translate as "at" or "one"). However, leading articles in foreign-language-derived names which are no longer translated in English are not subject to this rule; e.g. the sort key forEl Paso should be left as the default value (i.e. no {{DEFAULTSORT}} required).
Spell out abbreviations and characters used in place of words so that they can be found easily in categories. For example, the sort key forMr. Bean should be {{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Bean}} andDungeons & Dragons should be sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Dungeons and Dragons}}. An exception is the times sign (×) as in "Men's 4 × 100 metre" relay; use the letter x in this case.
Landforms (and similar) that have noun prefixes such asIsle of Mull should have the noun sorted after as {{DEFAULTSORT:Mull, Isle of}}. However, this isn't usually done for settlements and administrative divisions; for example, whileIsle of Wight uses {{DEFAULTSORT:Wight, Isle of}}, the categories for the county/district are sorted "Isle of Wight". Also for settlements such asIsle of Wight, Virginia the prefix isn't moved.
Hyphens, apostrophes and periods/full stops are the only punctuation marks that should be kept in sort values. The only exception is the apostrophe in names beginning withO', which should be removed. For example,Eugene O'Neill is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Eugene}}. All other punctuation marks should be removed. (Commas can be added when re-ordering words, as in the previous example.)
Entries containing numbers sometimes need special sort keys to ensure proper numerical ordering. For example, IX comes before V in alphabetical order, soPope John IX might have a sort key "John 9". To get the correct sort order zero padding may be required, thus theactual sort key in this case is "John 09" this ensures thatPope John IX sorts beforePope John X – if we ever get to the hundredth Pope John, we would need to use three digits "John 009". Also note that numbers which include separators (such as commas or periods) will only have the part of the number before the first separator considered by the sorting algorithm. So10,000 Maniacs might have a sort key "10000 Maniacs". It is important to stick to the same system for all similar entries in a given category.
Systematic sort keys are also used in other categories where the logical sort order is not alphabetical (for example, individual month articles in year categories such asCategory:2004 use sort keys like "*2004-04" for April). Again, such systems must be used consistently within a category.
In some categories, sort keys are used to exclude prefixes that are common to all or many of the entries, or are considered unimportant (such as "List of" or "The"). For example, inCategory:2004 the page2004 in film would have the sort key "Film", and inCategory:2004 in Canada the page2004 Canadian federal budget would have the sort key "Federal Budget".
Use other sort keys beginning with a space (or an asterisk or a plus sign) for any "List of ..." and other pages that should appearafter the key article andbefore the main alphabetical listings, including "Outline of" and "Index of" pages. The same technique is sometimes used to bring particular subcategories to the start of the list.
Sort order of charactersbefore numbers and Latin alphabet (0–9, A–Z) is (partial list):
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 9 : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` A Z a z { | } ~ É é —
Sort keys may be prefixed withGreek letters to place entriesafter the main alphabetical list. The following letters have special meaning by convention:
"Σ" (capital sigma) is used to placestub categories at the end of subcategory lists. ("µ" (mu) was previously used, but the capital version "Μ" was confusing.)
"β" (beta, displays as capital, "Β") is forbarnstars.
"Δ" (delta) is fordocumentation, where sorting by Latin D is undesirable.
Similar to the handling of Latin letters, if the sort key is or begins with a lower case Greek letter, then the capital Greek letter will be displayed in headings on category pages. Items whose sort keys begin with lowercase letters will appear beneath corresponding capital letters. Several of these resemble Latin letters B, I, P etc., but they will sort afterZ.
Note: Not all of these types are suitable for inclusion incontent categories. For one-type categories, such astemplate categories, Greek letter grouping is not useful.
If a page is to be given the same sort key in all or several of its categories, the{{DEFAULTSORT}}magic word should be used. PerMOS:ORDER, this is placed just before the list of category declarations. Default sort keys are sometimes defined even where they do not seem necessary—when they are the same as the page name, for example—in order to prevent other editors or automated tools from trying to infer a different default.
Anyone may edit an article and remove a questionable categorization. If an article has an "incorrect" or "inappropriate" category, remove that category from the article, and replace it (if applicable) with a more correct category.
Even if an article may occupy the grey areas of a category's inclusion criteria, that is not a valid reason to keep the article in a category. If a particular article does not fit the inclusion criteria of a category,then the article simply should not be added to it.
If categorization of any particular page isdisputed, pleasediscuss the categorization on thetalk page of the page in question. If the category seems reasonable, but questionable in some cases, consider whether you can solve (part of) the problem by writing a clearer#Category description.
If you have a proposal for a better name for the category or for a wider re-arrangement of the categorization scheme; or if you have a concern that may apply to several members of the category (such as if the category violates one or more sections on this page,Wikipedia:Categorizing articles about people,Wikipedia:Overcategorization, or other Wikipediapolicies and guidelines), you can participate in, or post a new, discussion about the category.
{{Improve categories}} template indicates that the article needs additional or more specific categories. It is recommended that this template be placed at thebottom of the page, where readers will look for the categories.
Article with too many categories
Use{{Recategorize}} template when there are too many categories. Put this templateon the top of articles.
^This condition can be formulated in terms ofgraph theory as follows: the directed graph that has the categories as vertices and the parent-child relationships as edges should beacyclic.
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