Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jc37 (talk | contribs) at 04:51, 15 December 2024 (typo). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages editing guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts WP:CAT WP:CATEGORY WP:MOSCAT

This page contains guidance on the proper use of the categorization function in Misplaced Pages. The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to pages in Misplaced Pages within a hierarchy of categories. 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 at Categories for discussion. Please use it before undertaking any complicated re-categorization of existing categories or mass creation of new categories.

Categorizing pages

Every Misplaced Pages page should belong to at least one category, except for talk pages, redirects, and user pages, which may optionally be placed in categories where appropriate.

• WP:CATSPECIFIC
• WP:PARENTCAT
• WP:GRANDPARENT

Each categorized page should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs. And pages should not normally be placed in both a given category and any of its sub- or parent (super-) categories. For exceptions to this, see § Eponymous categories and § Non-diffusing subcategories.

This means that if a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not normally placed directly into C.

• For example, the article "Paris" need only be placed in Category:Cities in France, not also in Category: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.

Since all categories form part of a tree-like hierarchy, do not add categories to pages as if they are tags.

Creating category pages

• WP:CREATECAT

Before creating a new category

• WP:BEFORECAT

Categories are not the only means of enabling users to browse sets of related pages. And categories have several disadvantages, including that categories only show the page name of each page being categorized, therefore:

• While the category 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, to verify a page meets a category's criteria of inclusion.

So, consider whether a list 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, a list of Nobel laureates. And can provide options for sorting the entries.

Also, consider whether the category might be considered category clutter. Please see Misplaced Pages:Overcategorization, for more information on this.

Choosing a name for the category

A good category name is accurate and neutral, 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 for every 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 described here (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.

• For example: You might want to add a subcategory for people to Category:Mexicans. By starting at Category:People by nationality, you will discover that Mexicans are placed in Category:Mexican people.

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 the tree 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:

1. Add a page to the intended category. Do this by editing that page, and add the name of the new category: (e.g.: ] )
   • Shortcut
     • MOS:CATORDER
     By convention, categories are placed at the end of the wikitext, but before any stub 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.
2. Save your edit. The as-yet-undefined category name will now appear as a red link in the category list at the bottom of the page.
   • Shortcut
     • WP:CATREDLINK
     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.
3. Next, click on that red link, which brings you to the new category page to create.
4. Finally, at the bottom of the category page, simply add the parent category (e.g.: ] ), which should usually be a hypernym 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 ], not ].

Category description

• WP:CATDESC

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, can help with that.

However, only linking to a Misplaced Pages 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 the list 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 Misplaced Pages pages, in particular to other related categories which do not appear directly as subcategories or parent categories, and to relevant categories at sister projects, such as Commons. Another technique that can be used is described at Misplaced Pages:Classification. Like disambiguation pages, category pages should not contain either citations to reliable sources or external links.

Various templates have been developed to make it easier to produce category descriptions; see Category namespace templates. There are hatnote templates including {{Category main article}} and {{Category see also}}; others are listed at Misplaced Pages:Hatnote#Categories.

Additional considerations

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 at Help:Category § Displaying category trees and page counts.

Category pages can have interlanguage links in the "Languages" list in the left sidebar (in the default skin), linking to corresponding categories in other language Wikipedias. To edit these on Wikidata, click on the "Edit links" link at the end of the languages list.

Categorization of articles

Naming conventions

This guideline documents an English Misplaced Pages naming convention. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts WP:CATNAME WP:NCCAT

This page in a nutshell: Category names should be specific, neutral, inclusive, and follow certain conventions, such as Category:Natural history of Venezuela, Category:Hospitals in Denmark or Category:Australian journalists.

This page contains a list of guidelines concerning naming conventions for categories. If you wish to propose a new naming convention for categories or modify an existing convention, please do so on the talk page.

General conventions

• When naming a category, use sentence case, do not use title case. Specifically, do not capitalize regular nouns except when they come at the beginning of the category name.
• Do not write the category structure in names. Example: "Monarchs", not "People – Monarchs". This includes creating categories that are subpages of other categories.
• Choose category names that can stand alone, independent of the way a category is connected to other categories. Example: "Geography terminology stubs", not "Terminology" (a subcategory of "Geography stubs").

Project categories

• Categories used for Misplaced Pages administration, are disambiguated by prepending with the word "Misplaced Pages" (no colon) if this is needed to prevent confusion with content categories. For example, Category:Inactive project pages (where no confusion is likely), but Category:Misplaced Pages tools (as distinct from the content category Tools).
• All WikiProject categories should have "WikiProject" (or "WikiProjects") as part of the name. Note that this does not apply to the names of categories that projects might create for the use of assessments. In these cases, the advice given in Project Categories, which conforms to Category:Misplaced Pages 1.0 assessments is advised, though not mandatory.
• For geographical photo requests, the category name should be "Misplaced Pages requested photographs in xxx" as in ]; see Category:Misplaced Pages requested photographs by location.
• For categorization in userspace, see Misplaced Pages:Categorization § User pages and Misplaced Pages:User categories § Naming conventions.

Naming conventions for article categories

• Standard article naming conventions apply: Generally, category names are based on what the subject is called in verifiable reliable sources (particularly for technical subjects), so that those sources may be used to support inclusion of information. When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among them by considering several principles: the ideal category name uses words and phrases which precisely identify the subject; it is neutral, short, natural, distinguishable and recognizable; and resembles names for similar categories.
• Avoid subjective adjectives such as famous, large, or beautiful in category titles.
• Avoid abbreviations. Example: "Category:Military equipment of World War II", not "Category:Military equipment of WW2". However, acronyms that have become the official, or generally used, name (such as NATO) should be used where there are no other conflicts. Exceptions to this should be explained in the category description.
• Because no two articles can have the same title, it is sometimes necessary to add distinguishing information, often in the form of a description in parentheses after the name. When a topic requires disambiguation, any category eponymously named for that topic should include the same form of disambiguation, even if no other articles are likely to have an eponymous category.
• Naming guidelines for subcategories of Category:Stub categories are listed at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming conventions § Stub categories.

Topic and set categories

• WP:TOPICCAT
• WP:SETCAT

• Topic categories are named after a topic (usually corresponding to the name of a Misplaced Pages article), and should be singular.

  For example, Category:France contains articles relating to the topic France. Other examples: "Law", "Hillary Clinton".

• Set categories are named after a class, and should be plural. A category may be explicitly labeled as such using the {{Set category}} template.

  For example, Category:Cities in France contains articles whose subjects are cities in France. Other examples: "Writers", "Villages in Poland".

• 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), while Operas is a set category (containing articles about specific operas).

• Sometimes, for convenience, the two types can be combined, to create a set-and-topic category

  For example, Category:Voivodeships of Poland contains articles about particular voivodeships as well as articles relating to voivodeships in general.

Categorizing articles about people

Descent

For categorizing people by ancestry or ethnicity, the format is: "FOOian people of BARian descent", where "FOOian" is the person's nationality (country of citizenship) and "BARian" is the person's ethnic ancestry (such as Category:Irish people of Ghanaian descent and Category:American people of German descent).

Occupation

Currently, Misplaced Pages supports categorizing people by occupation, such as: People by educational institution and People by company, as well as other more specific categories.

For categorizing people by occupation, the format is: FOOs, where FOO is the occupation name (such as Category:Editors); or People in FOO or FOO people, where FOO is the topic of the occupation (such as Category:People in agriculture‎ or Category:Music people).

Occupation categories should not be divided into "current" or "former" categories. For example, Category:Former child actors and Category:Current Minnesota Twins players should not exist.

Residence

For categorizing people by place of residence, the format is: People from Foo (not "Natives of Foo"). Where the commonly used English name for residents of a place is well-known globally (usually the original place of that name), Fooite demonym categories should be {{category redirect}}ed to People from Foo, in order to assist with automated categorization (for example, Category:New Yorkers).

Place of burial

For categorizing people by place of burial, the format is: Burials at Foo Cemetery.

Time periods

By convention, a category name designating a time period with a number (in Arabic numerals) represents a calendar year in the Common Era. For categorizing people by years BCE, the format is: "<year number> BC", for example Category:220 BC deaths.

For categorizing people by century, the format is: Category:xx-century foos or Category:xx-century BC foos.

Categories by country

All categories whose subcategories are categories by country (roughly all categories that are members of Category:Categories by country) shall have a per-category naming convention which will apply to all of their subcategories. These naming conventions, their guidelines and their exceptions are listed here. Non-conformance to these naming conventions shall be treated as a criterion for "speedy category renaming" as defined on WP:CFD.

Events

Categories regarding events in countries (along with years and time) are named "... in country." This guideline applies to:

Millennia - Centuries - Decades - Years - Establishments - Disestablishments

Manufactured objects

For categorizing permanently located manufactured objects by country, the format is: "... in country". This guideline applies to:

Airports - American football venues - Amusement parks - Archaeological sites - Art museums - Association football venues - Athletics (track and field) venues (mostly named "athletics" as per non-U.S. usage) - Baseball venues - Basketball venues - Bridges - Buildings and structures - Casinos - Castles - Cathedrals - Cemeteries - Churches - Cities - Cricket grounds - Forts - Gardens - Ghost towns - Golf clubs and courses - Horse racing venues - Hospitals - Hotels - Indoor arenas - Libraries - Monasteries - Motorsport venues - Mosques - Museums - Palaces - Parks - Prisons - Railway stations - Reservoirs - Roads - Rugby union stadiums - Schools - Shopping malls (or shopping centres, based on local usage) - Skyscrapers - Sports venues - Theatres - Towns - Universities and colleges ("Universities" categories are also legitimate in countries where universities and colleges are distinct, i.e. most countries, and are often a subcategory) - Villages - World Heritage Sites - Zoos

Landforms

For categorizing landforms by country, the format is: "... of country". This guideline applies to:

Landforms (top category) - Beaches - Hills - Islands - Lakes - Mountains - Mountain passes - Mountain ranges - Peninsulas - Rivers - Volcanoes

Companies

For categorizing "by country" subcategories of all <company type> by country categories, the format is: ... of country. This guideline applies to:

Airlines - Banks - Book publishing companies - Companies - Defunct companies - Engineering companies - Financial services companies - Insurance companies - Manufacturing companies - Retail companies

State-based topics

For categorizing topics usually in the domain of the state, the format is: "... of country".

Administrative divisions - Foreign relations - Government - Military - Military equipment - Military units and formations - Municipalities * - National parks - Postal systems - Protected areas

• Administrative divisions use the "of" format and settlements use the "in" format. Municipalities are usually found in non-English speaking countries as third tier administrative divisions covering the whole country including rural areas. In most cases, there are separate designations for settlements such as cities and towns. However where the designation "municipality" is used solely for urban settlements (example, Romania) or where it is the only official designation for cities and towns (example, Spain), the category takes the "in" form.

Political office-holders

For categorizing subcategories of <political office> by country, the format is:

• ... of country for those concerning holders of a specific office with jurisdiction over a country
• ... in country for those that group offices of a certain type, operating within a country

This guideline applies to:

Political office-holders - Heads of government - Heads of state - Legislators - Government ministers (or "cabinet secretaries" if that is local usage) - minister lists - Presidents - Prime ministers

• For categorizing specific jurisdictions within a country, province, state, or equivalent, the format is: ... of places in ...
• For categorizing the specific jurisdiction, the format is: ... of place

This guideline applies to:

Mayors

Sport

For categorizing "by-country" subcategories of all <sport name> by country, the format is: ... in country. This guideline applies to:

Athletics - Association football (Australia, Canada and USA: "soccer") - Baseball - Basketball - Clubs and teams - Cricket - Cycle racing - Golf - Horse racing - Ice hockey - Motorsport - Rugby league - Rugby union - Sport (or sports if that is local usage) - Tennis

Miscellaneous "of country"

For categorizing subcategories of these categories, the format is: "... of country".

Cinema - Coins - Demographics - Economies - Environment - Fauna - Geography - History - Languages - Natural history - Politics - Ships - Trade unions - Weapons

Miscellaneous "in country"

For categorizing subcategories of these categories, the format is: "... in country".

Aviation - Business - Capital punishment - Communications - Crime - Disasters - Education - Ethnic groups - Health - Human rights - Landmarks - Law enforcement - Mass media - Nature conservation - Political parties - Populated places - Public holidays - Rail transport - Religion - Science and technology - Television - Tourism - Transportation (or transport if that is local usage)

Miscellaneous "involving country"

For categorizing subcategories of these categories, the format is: "... involving country".

Battles - Military operations - Naval battles - Sieges - Wars

Miscellaneous

Aircraft ("manufactured by Foo") - Charities ("based in Foo") - Environmental organizations ("based in Foo") - Newspapers ("published in Foo") - Organizations ("based in Foo")

Undecided by country

The convention for these categories is yet to be decided. See the talk page for details. These will be moved up as consensus develops.

• Films - Category:Films by country
• Magazines - Category:Magazines by country
• Law - Category:Law by country (currently mostly "Fooish law")

Technical categories

• For categorizing Images by country, the format is: "Images of country".
• For categorizing Lists by country, the format is: "Country-related lists"
• For categorizing Stubs by region, the format is: "Country stubs".

How to name the country

For "of country" and "in country" categories, the name of the country should appear as it does in the name of the article about that country, with a lowercase "the" if needed for grammatical purposes. Non-sovereign, disputed, supranational, and historical countries and geographic equivalents may be included if the articles to be categorized require it. For reference, see List of sovereign states, List of dependent territories, and the following list.

In category naming, country names should not be abbreviated (except to the extent that they are already in their respective article titles – for example, "United Kingdom", but not "UK" or "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland").

(Note: Links to articles are shown only for reference; links obviously cannot appear in the actual title of a category.)

• of the Republic of the Congo for Congo-Brazzaville
• of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for Congo-Kinshasa (formerly Zaire)
• of China (common name for the People's Republic of China)
• of Taiwan (common name for the Republic of China)
  • See also: Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV
• of the Republic of Ireland (for the modern-day state)
• of Northern Ireland (for the modern-day country)
• of Cyprus (Greek and Turkish Cyprus usually have combined categories)
• of Samoa (independent country)
• of American Samoa (U.S. territory)
• of Russia (for the modern-day country)
• of the Bahamas
• of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• of the British Virgin Islands
• of the Cayman Islands
• of the Central African Republic
• of the Comoros
• of the Cook Islands
• of the Czech Republic
• of the Dominican Republic
• of Eswatini
• of the Falkland Islands
• of the Faroe Islands
• of the Federated States of Micronesia
• of the Gambia
• of Georgia (country)
• of the Isle of Man
• of Ivory Coast
• of Kosovo
• of the Maldives
• of Malta
• of the Marshall Islands
• of the Netherlands
• of North Macedonia
• of the Philippines
• of the Pitcairn Islands
• of Saint Kitts and Nevis
• of Seychelles
• of the Solomon Islands
• of Ukraine
• of the United Arab Emirates
• of the United Kingdom
• of the United States
• of the United States Virgin Islands
• of Vatican City
• of Wallis and Futuna
• of Western Sahara
• of Azerbaijan
• of East Timor
• of Yemen (the modern-day country that unified former North and South Yemen in the 1990s)
• of North Korea
• of South Korea
• of Slovenia
• of Croatia
• of Serbia
• of Montenegro

Dealing with overlaps

When historical and political complexities (such as mergers and splits) create articles that belong to two countries, do not create a "Foo of X and Y". Instead, list articles in both "Foo of X" and "Foo of Y"; for example, "Foo of Russia" and "Foo of the Soviet Union", not "Foo of Russia and the Soviet Union". The same applies for geographic features that cross national borders, for example "Foo of the United States" and "Foo of Canada", not "Foo of the United States and Canada".

Categories by nationality

All categories whose subcategories are categories by nationality (roughly all categories that are members of Category:People by nationality or Category:Works by nationality) shall have a per-category naming convention which will apply to all of their subcategories. These naming conventions, their guidelines and their exceptions are listed here. Non-conformance to these naming conventions shall be treated as a criterion for "speedy category renaming" as defined on WP:CFD. Changing these conventions shall require a consensual discussion either directly at WP:CFD or publicized there.

Cultural topics

National subcategories of these categories are named using the nationality rather than the country name, as they follow the national diasporas. However, the container categories are named "by country", e.g. Category:Art by country and Category:Culture by country.

Art - Cuisine - Culture - Literature - Music - Plays

Note that many other sub-topics of "Society" are named using the country name, and so are some cultural topics e.g. Architecture and Classical music.

People by nationality

For categorizing subcategories of People by nationality, the format is: "nationality ...".

Murderers - Musical groups - People by nationality and occupation - People by occupation and nationality - People

Nationality and occupation

For categorizing people by their nationality and occupation, the format is: "fooian fooers", such as Category:Ethiopian musicians.

Concurrent citizenship may be reflected by categorizing the article by each nationality. For example, Category:Canadian actors and Category:American actors for a dual American–Canadian citizen. Categories that combine two nationalities with an occupation, generally should not be created.

The category description should mention the most commonly used names ("Fooians", or "Fooers"), which can be found in verifiable reliable sources.

The template {{Fooian fooers}} can be used to provide navigation on each category page. For example:

• Please note that this template may need to be modified for some categories. To avoid ambiguity, some nationalities are listed as "People of Foo" instead of "Fooian"; for example, "Georgian people" could mean either Category:People from Georgia (country) or Category:People from Georgia (U.S. state). For those categories, use {{Fooers from Boo}}. For sub-categories of Category:People from Northern Ireland by occupation, use {{Fooers from Northern Ireland}}.
• Similarly, some nationalities are listed as "Country people" instead of "Fooian people", such as Category:Bosnia and Herzegovina musicians and Category:Democratic Republic of the Congo musicians. In those cases the value used for "nationality" is the name of the country.

How to name a nationality

A list of adjectival forms of place names is available on Misplaced Pages. In situations where multiple adjectives are possible for a particular nationality (e.g., Argentine vs. Argentinean), discussions at categories for discussion have frequently opted for one alternative over another to ensure consistency in category naming. Note that the singular-form demonym and adjective for many nationalities are not interchangeable. (i.e., Icelander vs. Icelandic; New Zealander vs. New Zealand). Most category names use the adjectival form, not the noun-form demonym.

Some states do not possess unambiguous (i.e., "Congolese" for Democratic Republic of the Congo) or universally-applicable (i.e., "Bosnian" for Bosnia and Herzegovina) adjectives. In these circumstances, the format is: "Country FOO", where Country is the unamended name of the country.

The list below reflects the most recent consensuses on what form to use for particular nationalities. These adopted forms may be subject to change by consensus and proposals to do so can be made by nominating the affected categories at categories for discussion. References are included to discussions that have discussed particular name formats.

Current nationalities

• Abkhazian FOOs (Abkhazia)
• Afghan FOOs (Afghanistan)
• Albanian FOOs (Albania)
• Algerian FOOs (Algeria)
• American FOOs (United States)
• American Samoan FOOs (American Samoa)
• Andorran FOOs (Andorra)
• Angolan FOOs (Angola)
• Anguillan FOOs (Anguilla)
• Antigua and Barbuda FOOs (Antigua and Barbuda)
• Argentine FOOs (Argentina)
• Armenian FOOs (Armenia)
• Aruban FOOs (Aruba)
• Australian FOOs (Australia)
• Austrian FOOs (Austria)
• Azerbaijani FOOs (Azerbaijan)
• Bahamaian FOOs (The Bahamas)
• Bahraini FOOs (Bahrain)
• Bangladeshi FOOs (Bangladesh)
• Barbadian FOOs (Barbados)
• Belarusian FOOs (Belarus)
• Belgian FOOs (Belgium)
• Belizean FOOs (Belize)
• Beninese FOOs (Benin)
• Bermudian (Bermuda)
• Bhutanese FOOs (Bhutan)
• Bissau-Guinean FOOs (Guinea-Bissau)
• Bolivian FOOs (Bolivia)
• Bonaire FOOs (Bonaire)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina FOOs (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Botswana FOOs (Botswana)
• Brazilian FOOs (Brazil)
• British FOOs (United Kingdom)
• British Antarctic Territory FOOs (British Antarctic Territory)
• British Indian Ocean Territory FOOs (British Indian Ocean Territory)
• British Virgin Islands FOOs (British Virgin Islands)
• Bruneian FOOs (Brunei)
• Bulgarian FOOs (Bulgaria)
• Burkinabé FOOs (Burkina Faso)
• Burmese FOOs (Myanmar)
• Burundian FOOs (Burundi)
• Cambodian FOOs (Cambodia)
• Cameroonian FOOs (Cameroon)
• Canadian FOOs (Canada)
• Cape Verdean FOOs (Cape Verde)
• Caymanian FOOs (Cayman Islands)
• Central African Republic FOOs (Central African Republic)
• Chadian FOOs (Chad)
• Chilean FOOs (Chile)
• Chinese FOOs (China)
• Colombian FOOs (Colombia)
• Comorian FOOs (Comoros)
• Democratic Republic of the Congo FOOs (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
• Republic of the Congo FOOs (Republic of the Congo)
• Cook Island FOOs (for people); Cook Islands FOOs (for inanimate things) (Cook Islands)
• Costa Rican FOOs (Costa Rica)
• Croatian FOOs (Croatia)
• Cuban FOOs (Cuba)
• Curaçao FOOs (Curaçao)
• Cypriot FOOs (Cyprus)
• Czech FOOs (Czech Republic)
• Danish FOOs (Denmark)
• Djiboutian FOOs (Djibouti)
• Dominica FOOs (Dominica)
• Dominican Republic FOOs (Dominican Republic)
• Dutch FOOs (Netherlands)
• East Timorese FOOs (East Timor)
• Ecuadorian FOOs (Ecuador)
• Egyptian FOOs (Egypt)
• Emirati FOOs (United Arab Emirates)
• English FOOs (England)
• Equatoguinean FOOs (Equatorial Guinea)
• Eritrean FOOs (Eritrea)
• Estonian FOOs (Estonia)
• Ethiopian FOOs (Ethiopia)
• Falkland Islands FOOs (Falkland Islands)
• Faroese FOOs (Faroe Islands)
• Fijian FOOs (Fiji)
• Filipino FOOs (for people); Philippine FOOs (for inanimate things) (Philippines)
• Finnish FOOs (Finland)
• French FOOs (France)
• French Guianan FOOs (French Guiana)
• French Polynesian FOOs (French Polynesia)
• Gabonese FOOs (Gabon)
• Gambian FOOs (The Gambia)
• FOOs from/of Georgia (Georgia)
• German FOOs (Germany)
• Ghanaian FOOs (Ghana)
• Gibraltarian FOOs (Gibraltar)
• Greek FOOs (Greece)
• Greenlandic FOOs (Greenland)
• Grenadian FOOs (Grenada)
• Guadeloupean FOOs (Guadeloupe)
• Guam FOOs (Guam)
• Guatemalan FOOs (Guatemala)
• Guinean FOOs (Guinea)
• Guyanese FOOs (Guyana)
• Haitian FOOs (Haiti)
• Honduran FOOs (Honduras)
• Hong Kong FOOs (Hong Kong)
• Hungarian FOOs (Hungary)
• Icelandic FOOs (Iceland)
• Indian FOOs (India)
• Indonesian FOOs (Indonesia)
• Iranian FOOs (Iran)
• Iraqi FOOs (Iraq)
• Irish FOOs (Ireland)
• Israeli FOOs (Israel)
• Italian FOOs (Italy)
• Ivorian FOOs (Ivory Coast)
• Jamaican FOOs (Jamaica)
• Japanese FOOs (Japan)
• Jordanian FOOs (Jordan)
• Kazakhstani FOOs (Kazakhstan)
• Kenyan FOOs (Kenya)
• I-Kiribati FOOs (Kiribati)
• Kosovan FOOs (Kosovo)
• Kuwaiti FOOs (Kuwait)
• Kyrgyzstani FOOs (Kyrgyzstan)
• Laotian FOOs (Laos)
• Latvian FOOs (Latvia)
• Lebanese FOOs (Lebanon)
• Lesotho FOOs (Lesotho)
• Liberian FOOs (Liberia)
• Libyan FOOs (Libya)
• Liechtenstein FOOs (Liechtenstein)
• Lithuanian FOOs (Lithuania)
• Luxembourgian FOOs (Luxembourg)
• Macau FOOs (Macau)
• Macedonian FOOs or North Macedonian FOOs or FOOS from/of North Macedonia (North Macedonia) per the specific naming convention
• Malagasy FOOs (Madagascar)
• Malawian FOOs (Malawi)
• Malaysian FOOs (Malaysia)
• Maldivian FOOs (Maldives)
• Malian FOOs (Mali)
• Maltese FOOs (Malta)
• Marshallese FOOs (Marshall Islands)
• Mauritanian FOOs (Mauritania)
• Mauritian FOOs (Mauritius)
• Mexican FOOs (Mexico)
• Federated States of Micronesia FOOs (Federated States of Micronesia)
• Moldovan FOOs (Moldova)
• Monegasque FOOs (Monaco)
• Mongolian FOOs (Mongolia)
• Montenegrin FOOs (Montenegro)
• Montserratian FOOs (Montserrat)
• Moroccan FOOs (Morocco)
• Mozambican FOOs (Mozambique)
• Namibian FOOs (Namibia)
• Nauruan FOOs (Nauru)
• Nepalese FOOs (Nepal)
• New Caledonian FOOs (New Caledonia)
• New Zealand FOOs (New Zealand)
• Nicaraguan FOOs (Nicaragua)
• Nigerian FOOs (Nigeria)
• Nigerien FOOs (Niger)
• Niuean FOOs (Niue)
• North Korean FOOs (North Korea)
• FOOs from/of Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland)
• Northern Mariana Islands FOOs (Northern Mariana Islands)
• Norwegian FOOs (Norway)
• Omani FOOs (Oman)
• Pakistani FOOs (Pakistan)
• Palauan FOOs (Palau)
• Palestinian FOOs (State of Palestine)
• Panamanian FOOs (Panama)
• Papua New Guinean FOOs (Papua New Guinea)
• Paraguayan FOOs (Paraguay)
• Peruvian FOOs (Peru)
• Pitcairn Islands FOOs (Pitcairn Islands)
• Polish FOOs (Poland)
• Portuguese FOOs (Portugal)
• Puerto Rican FOOs (Puerto Rico)
• Qatari FOOs (Qatar)
• FOOs from/of Réunion (Réunion)
• Romanian FOOs (Romania)
• Russian FOOs (Russia)
• Rwandan FOOs (Rwanda)
• FOOs from/of Saba (Saba (island))
• Sahrawi FOOs (Western Sahara)
• Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha FOOs (Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha)
• Saint Kitts and Nevis FOOs (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
• Saint Lucian FOOs (Saint Lucia)
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines FOOs (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)
• Salvadoran FOOs (El Salvador)
• Samoan FOOs (Samoa)
• Sammarinese FOOs (San Marino)
• São Tomé and Príncipe FOOs (São Tomé and Príncipe)
• Saudi Arabian FOOs (Saudi Arabia)
• Scottish FOOs (Scotland)
• Senegalese FOOs (Senegal)
• Serbian FOOs (Serbia)
• Seychellois FOOs (Seychelles)
• Sierra Leonean FOOs (Sierra Leone)
• Singaporean FOOs (Singapore)
• Sint Eustatius FOOs (Sint Eustatius)
• Sint Maarten FOOs (Sint Maarten)
• Slovak FOOs (Slovakia)
• Slovenian FOOs (Slovenia)
• Solomon Islands FOOs (Solomon Islands)
• Somalian FOOs (Somalia)
• Somaliland FOOs (Somaliland)
• South African FOOs (South Africa)
• South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands FOOs (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)
• South Korean FOOs (South Korea)
• South Ossetian FOOs (South Ossetia)
• South Sudanese FOOs (South Sudan)
• Spanish FOOs (Spain)
• Sri Lankan FOOs (Sri Lanka)
• Sudanese FOOs (Sudan)
• Surinamese FOOs (Suriname)
• Swazi FOOs (Eswatini)
• Swedish FOOs (Sweden)
• Swiss FOOs (Switzerland)
• Syrian FOOs (Syria)
• Taiwanese FOOs (Taiwan)
• Tajikistani FOOs (Tajikistan)
• Tanzanian FOOs (Tanzania)
• Thai FOOs (Thailand)
• Tokelauan FOOs (Tokelau)
• Tongan FOOs (Tonga)
• Trinidad and Tobago FOOs (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Tunisian FOOs (Tunisia)
• Turkish FOOs (Turkey)
• Turkish Cypriot FOOs (Northern Cyprus)
• Turkmenistan FOOs (Turkmenistan)
• Turks and Caicos Islands FOOs (Turks and Caicos Islands)
• Tuvaluan FOOs (Tuvalu)
• Ugandan FOOs (Uganda)
• Ukrainian FOOs (Ukraine)
• United States Virgin Islands FOOs (United States Virgin Islands)
• Uruguayan FOOs (Uruguay)
• Uzbekistani FOOs (Uzbekistan)
• Vanuatuan FOOs (Vanuatu)
• Vatican City FOOs (Vatican City)
• Venezuelan FOOs (Venezuela)
• Vietnamese FOOs (Vietnam)
• Wallis and Futuna FOOs (Wallis and Futuna)
• Welsh FOOs (Wales)
• Zambian FOOs (Zambia)
• Zimbabwean FOOs (Zimbabwe)

Former nationalities

In general, the formats for people of former nationalities is less settled. The list below represents examples which are reasonably well settled.

After September 2022, "of" is now deprecated and "from" will become the standard for former countries that have compound names.

Therefore, for categorizing people of former nationalities with a compound name, the format is: "FOOs from Country".

• Austro-Hungarian FOOs (Austria-Hungary)
• Byzantine FOOs (Byzantine Empire)
• Czechoslovak FOOs (Czechoslovakia)
• Dutch Antillean FOOs (Netherlands Antilles)
• Ancient Egyptian FOOs (Ancient Egypt)
• East German FOOs (East Germany)
• West German FOOs (West Germany)
• FOOs from the Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Empire)
• Rhodesian FOOs (Rhodesia)
• FOOs from the Russian Empire (Russian Empire)
• Serbia and Montenegro FOOs (Serbia and Montenegro)
• Soviet FOOs (Soviet Union)
• Republic of Venice FOOs (Republic of Venice)
• North Yemeni FOOs (Yemen Arab Republic)
• South Yemeni FOOs (South Yemen)
• Yugoslav FOOs (Yugoslavia)

Works of art categories by artist

All categories whose subcategories are categories by creative artist (roughly all categories that are members of Category:Works by artist) shall have a per-category naming convention which will apply to all of their subcategories. These naming conventions, their guidelines and their exceptions are listed here. Non-conformance to these naming conventions shall be treated as a criterion for "speedy category renaming" as defined at WP:CFD. Changing these conventions shall require a consensual discussion either directly at WP:CFD or publicized there.

Music by composer

For categorizing music by composer, the format is: "Compositions by ".

Compositions by composer – Operas by composer – Symphonies by composer – Songs by composer

Music by performer

For categorizing music by performer, the format is: " works".

Albums by artist – Songs by artist

Visual arts

For categorizing articles of each type of work of an artist, the format is: "s by " (for example, Category:Paintings by Salvador Dalí). For categorizing subcategories of different types of work of an artist (for example, for paintings and sculpture), the format for the parent category is: "Works by Foo".

Paintings by artist – Sculptures by artist

Architecture

For categorizing architecture by architect, the format is: " buildings", with exceptions for architects involved in more than one type of work.

Buildings and structures by architect

Literature

For categorizing literature by writer, the format is: "s by ".

Works by writer – Novels by writer – Books by writer – Essay collections by writer – Essays by writer – Picture books by writer – Plays by writer – Poetry by writer – Short stories by writer – Short story collections by writer

Stage and screen

For categorizing stage and screen works by contributor, the format is: " by ".

Films by director – Films by screenwriter – Plays by writer – Television shows by writer

Name of the artist

The name used should match the name of the biography article about the person, including any disambiguator, e.g. Category:Books by Peter Carey (novelist). The only exceptions are categories for visual arts, where the name used for the artist may instead match usage within the articles on the works; e.g. Category:Paintings by Sergei Ivanovich Osipov does not have to follow the article name Sergei Osipov (artist).

Works of art categories by subject

Category names of a subject should match the name for that subject within articles and citations (including spelling and capitalisation), rather than the name of the Misplaced Pages article on the topic. For example:

• Category:Entombment of Christ in art and Category:Paintings of the Entombment of Christ, although the generic parent Category:Burial of Jesus follows the article Burial of Jesus

Additionally, disambiguation is not always necessary if the subject is unambiguous. For example:

• Category:Venus in art and Category:Temples of Venus, although the generic parent Category:Venus (mythology) follows the article Venus (mythology)

Notes

1. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 October 18#Category:Culture by nationality
2. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Afghan
3. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#American
4. Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 May 15#People by nationality sub-category pages
5. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Antigua and Barbuda
6. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Argentine
7. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 April 13#Armenian emigrants
8. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Aruban
9. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 May 27#Category:Azerbaijan surnames
10. Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 23#Category:Music of Belize
11. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Bissau-Guinean
12. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Bosnia and Herzegovina
13. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Botswana
14. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#British
15. Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 September 15#Brunei
16. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 June 17#Category:Burma football clubs
17. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Canadian
18. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 April 5#Category:Cayman Islands footballers
19. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 July 26#Category:Central African people
20. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Comorian
21. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Democratic Republic of the Congo
22. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Republic of the Congo
23. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Cook Island
24. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 15#Category:Croatian people
25. ^ Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 March 26#Category:Aruban people
26. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 August 7#Category:Czech writers
27. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Danish
28. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Dominica
29. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Dominican Republic
30. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#East Timorese
31. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 March 21#Category:United Arab Emirati people
32. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 15#Category:English people
33. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Equatoguinean
34. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 June 10#Category:Falkland Islander people
35. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Equatoguinean
36. ^ User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Filipino / Philippine
37. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Finnish
38. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 September 21#Category:People from French Guiana
39. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 November 15#Category:French Polynesian people
40. Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 11#Category:Law of Gabon to Category:Gabonese law
41. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#from/of Georgia (country)
42. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 January 21#Category:People from Ghana
43. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 December 7#Category:Gibraltarian people
44. Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 May 6#Category:People of Greenland to Category:Greenlandic people
45. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Guadeloupe
46. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 October 24#Category:Guamanian musical instruments
47. Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 May 7#Haitian people
48. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Indian
49. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Ivorian
50. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Kazakhstani
51. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 October 31#Kiribati
52. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 February 12#Kosovar or Kosovan people
53. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Kyrgyzstani
54. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Laotian
55. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Lesotho
56. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Liechtenstein
57. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Luxembourgian
58. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Macau
59. Per Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Macedonia) § Adjectival form of North Macedonia: "Article names, categories, and templates should avoid adjectival use altogether. The use of neutral formulations such as "of North Macedonia", "in North Macedonia," etc. is preferred."
60. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 April 16#Category:Madagascan archaeologists
61. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 January 29#Category:People of the Marshall Islands
62. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 21#Category:People of the Federated States of Micronesia
63. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Monegasque
64. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 July 2#Category:Montenegro chess players
65. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 January 29#Category:Montserrat people
66. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Luxembourgian
67. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#New Zealand
68. ^ Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 15#Category:South African people
69. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Northern Ireland
70. Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 June 3#Category:Women of Pakistan to Category:Pakistani women
71. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Papua New Guinean
72. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 September 24#Booian Peruvians to Peruvian people of Booian descent
73. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Polish
74. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 June 23#Category:People from Puerto Rico
75. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 September 6#Category:People from Réunion and Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 January 27#Réunionnais people
76. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Saint Kitts and Nevis
77. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 13#Category:Vincentian people
78. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Salvadoran
79. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 December 16#Category:San Marinese Wikipedians
80. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 14#Category:People from São Tomé and Príncipe
81. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Saudi Arabian
82. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Scottish
83. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Singaporean
84. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Slovak
85. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Slovenian
86. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Solomon Islands
87. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 October 12#Category:Somali people
88. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 July 24#Category:Southern Sudan politicians
89. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Spanish
90. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 August 14#Category:People from Suriname
91. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Swedish
92. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 September 7#Swiss people
93. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Tajikistani
94. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Trinidad and Tobago
95. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 February 19#Category:People from Tunisia
96. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 October 14#Turks to Turkish people
97. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 17#Category:Turkmen people
98. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 June 10#Category:Turks and Caicos Islander people
99. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 May 19#Category:People from Tuvalu
100. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#United States Virgin Islands
101. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Uzbekistani
102. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 20#Ni-Vanuatu
103. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 September 4#Category:People of the Russian Empire
104. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Czechoslovak
105. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 July 23#Category:Antillean baseball players
106. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#West German
107. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 September 13#Ottoman people
108. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 December 3#Russian Empire people
109. Use for the state that existed from 1992 to 2006. From 1992 to 2003, this state was officially known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FR Yugoslavia), but in categories "Yugoslav" is used only for the larger state that existed from 1918 to 1992.
110. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Serbia and Montenegro
111. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Soviet
112. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Republic of Venice
113. Use for the state that existed from 1918 to 1992. For the state that existed from 1992 to 2006 and was known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FR Yugoslavia) from 1992 to 2003, use "Serbia and Montenegro FOOs".
114. User:Good Olfactory/CFR#Yugoslav
115. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 September 28#Various author and painter categories
116. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 September 28#Entombment of Christ
117. Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 September 28#Art of mythology

Categorizing articles

In general, categories of articles must be:

• Shortcuts
  • WP:CATV
  • WP:CAT#V
  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.

• Shortcuts
  • WP:CATPOV
  • WP:POVCAT
  • WP:CAT#N
  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 a list 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.

• Shortcuts
  • WP:CATDEF
  • WP:CAT#D
  Defining: Defining characteristics of an article's topic are central to categorizing the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently refer to in describing the topic, such as the nationality of a person or the geographic location of a place.

  For example, Italian and artist are defining characteristics of Caravaggio, because virtually all reliable sources on the topic mention them, so that article is included in categories such as Category:Italian Baroque painters.

Be sure to include categories for all defining characteristics. For non-defining characteristics, editors should use their judgment to choose which additional categories (if any) to include.

For example, Caravaggio is included in the non-defining category of Category:Deaths from sepsis.

Categorizing articles about people

• WP:SEPARATE

• For articles about people, categorize by characteristics of the person the article is about, not characteristics of the article: e.g., do not add ] to an article. Sub-categories of Category:Biography (genre) may legitimately contain articles about biographical films or biographical books, but should not contain articles about individual people. The article is a biography; the topic of the article – the person – 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 of category tree of people articles.

Categorizing articles about works

• Individual works by a person should not be included in an #eponymous category but should instead be in a subcategory such as Category:Novels by Agatha Christie.
• Shortcut
  • WP:CATFICTION
  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.

Categorizing list pages

If there are more than a few lists in a particular subject area, it may be appropriate to create a specific subcategory that contains only the list pages and no other types.

• For example, Category:Countries contains the subcategory "Category:Lists of countries", which in turn contains the list pages "List of Soviet Republics", and "List of countries by population".

When placing list pages in such a category, use a sort 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 ] and will make it be sorted in the S section.

Eponymous categories

• WP:EPON
• WP:OCEPON
• WP:EPONYMOUS

A category that covers exactly the same topic as an article is known as the eponymous category for that article (e.g. New York City and Category:New York City; Mekong and Category:Mekong River; Abraham Lincoln and Category:Abraham Lincoln).

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:

• Both New York City and Category:New York City fit well in Category:Cities in New York (state).
• The article New York City is in Category:Populated places established in 1624, but this category is not necessarily relevant to the content of Category:New York City, so it should not be used on the eponymous category.

Articles with eponymous categories

• WP:CATMAIN

• 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 article France appears in both Category:France and Category: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:

1. Keep both the eponymous category and the main article in the parent category. This is used in Category:Countries in Europe to allow that region's country articles to be navigated together.
2. Keep just the child article. This is used in Category:British Islands, to prevent a loop.
3. Keep just the eponymous category. This is used for Category:Farmers in Category:People by occupation. Such "X by Y" categories sometimes cover a limited navigational set, not a topic (see § Category tree organization below), thus there is no logical article content.

If eponymous categories are categorized separately from their articles, it will be helpful to make links between the category page containing the articles and the category page containing the eponymous categories. The template {{Related category}} can be used for this. An example of this set-up is the linked categories Category:American politicians and Category:Misplaced Pages categories named after American politicians.

Categorizing draft pages

• WP:DRAFTNOCAT

Drafts, no matter whether in the draft namespace or your userspace, are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories such as Living people or Biologists. 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 either by inserting a colon character to link to each category (e.g. change ] to ]), or by wrapping them in {{Draft categories}} (e.g.{{draft categories|1=] ]}} etc.). After you move the draft into article space, remove the leading colons 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.

Two scripts are available to help with these tasks: User:DannyS712/Draft no cat and User:DannyS712/Draft re cat.

Drafts may be placed in the appropriate subcategories of Category:Misplaced Pages drafts.

Categorizing project pages

Misplaced Pages administrative categories

• WP:PROJCATS

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.

Administrative categories include stub categories (generally produced by stub templates), maintenance categories (often produced by tag templates such as {{cleanup}} and {{fact}}, and used for maintenance projects), WikiProject and assessment categories, and categories of pages in non-article namespaces.

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 tag that is placed on articles), then in most cases it should be made a hidden category, as described in § Hiding categories below.

There are separate administrative categories for different kinds of non-article pages, such as template categories, disambiguation page categories, project page categories etc.

In maintenance categories and other administrative 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.

Files

• WP:FILECAT

Category tags should be added to file pages of files that have been uploaded to Misplaced Pages. 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:Misplaced Pages files. To categorize a new file when uploading, simply add the category tag to the upload summary.

Freely licensed files should be uploaded to, and categorized on, Wikimedia Commons, instead of uploading and categorizing on Misplaced Pages. Existing freely licensed files should usually be moved from Misplaced Pages to Commons, with a mirror page automatically remaining on Misplaced Pages. (For an example of one such mirror page, see here.) Categories should not be added to these Misplaced Pages mirror pages, because doing so creates a new Misplaced Pages page that is subject to speedy deletion. Exceptions to this principle are made for mirror pages of images that are nominated as featured pictures and for those that appear on the Misplaced Pages Main Page in the Did You Know? column.

Images that are used in Misplaced Pages that are non-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.

Templates

• WP:CAT#T

Templates are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories. It is however a recommendation to place them in template categories – subcategories of Category:Misplaced Pages templates – to assist when looking for templates of a certain type. For example, Template:Schubert string quartets is categorized under Category:String quartets by composer navigational boxes, which should be a subcategory of Category:Music navigational boxes (type) but Template:Schubert string quartets should not be categorized under Category:Franz Schubert or Category:String quartets (content).

It is usually desirable that pages using a template are not placed in the same categories as the template itself. To avoid this, the category for the template should be placed on the template's documentation page, normally within a <includeonly>{{Sandbox other|...}}</includeonly> block; if there is no documentation page, the category for the template may be placed on the template itself, within a <noinclude>...</noinclude> block. When a <noinclude>...</noinclude> block is the last item in the template code, there should be no spaces or new lines between the last part of the template proper and the opening <noinclude> tag.

User pages

• WP:USERNOCAT

User pages are not articles, and thus do not belong in content categories such as Living people or Biologists. They can however be placed in user categories – subcategories of Category:Wikipedians, such as Category:Wikipedian biologists – which assist collaboration between users.

Similarly, user subpages that are draft versions of articles should be kept out of content categories, but are permitted in non-content or project categories, like Category:User essays. If you copy an article from mainspace to userspace and it already contains categories, wrap them inside {{Draft categories}}, remove them, or comment them out. Restore the categories when you move the draft back into article space. Two scripts are available to help with these tasks: User:DannyS712/Draft no cat and User:DannyS712/Draft re cat.

Also, do not transclude articles into your user pages: this will result in the user page being included in all the article's categories.

At Database reports/Polluted categories, a list of affected categories is maintained.

Categorization using templates

• WP:TEMPLATECAT
• WP:TCAT

Many templates include category declarations in their transcludable text, for the purpose of placing 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. See Template: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 ordinary content 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, see Category 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.

Hiding categories

• WP:HIDDENCAT

In cases where, for technical reasons, administration categories appear directly on articles rather than talk pages, they should be made into hidden categories, so that they are not displayed to readers. This rule does not apply to stub categories or "uncategorized article" categories – these types are not hidden.

To hide a category, add the template {{Misplaced Pages category|hidden=yes}} to the category page (the template uses the magic word __HIDDENCAT__). This also places the page in Category:Hidden categories.

A logged-in user may elect to view all hidden categories, by checking "Show hidden categories" on the "Appearance" tab of Preferences. 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.

Redirected categories

Do not create inter-category redirects. See Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion § Redirecting categories for the policy, and Misplaced Pages:Redirect § Category redirects for the technical details.

Category tree organization

• WP:CAT#TREE

Categories are organized as overlapping "trees", formed by creating links between inter-related categories (in mathematics or computer science this structure is called a partially ordered set). Any category may contain (or "branch into") subcategories, and it is possible for a category to be a subcategory of more than one "parent" category. (A is said to be a parent category of B when B is a subcategory of A.)

There is one top-level category, Category:Contents. All other categories are found below this. Hence every category apart from this top one must be a subcategory of at least one other category.

• WP:TOPICCAT
• WP:SETCAT

There are two main kinds of category:

• Topic categories are named after a topic (usually sharing a name with the Misplaced Pages article on that topic). For example, Category:France contains articles relating to the topic France.
• Set categories are named after a class (usually in the plural). For example, Category:Cities in France contains articles whose subjects are cities in France. A category may be explicitly labeled as such using the {{Set category}} template.

Sometimes, for convenience, the two types can be combined, to create a set-and-topic category (such as Category:Voivodeships of Poland, which contains articles about particular voivodeships as well as articles relating to voivodeships in general).

Subcategorization

• WP:SUBCAT
• WP:SUPERCAT

If logical membership of one category implies logical membership of a second (an is-a relationship), then the first category should be made a subcategory (directly or indirectly) of the second. For example, Cities in France is a subcategory of Populated places in France, which in turn is a subcategory of Geography of France.

Many subcategories have two or more parent categories. For example, Category:British writers should be in both Category:Writers by nationality and Category:British people by occupation. 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. Category chains formed by parent–child relationships should never form closed loops; that is, no category should be contained as a subcategory of one of its own subcategories. If two categories are closely related but are not in a subset relation, then links between them can be included in the text of the category pages.

Except for non-diffusing subcategories (see below), pages for subcategories should be categorised under the most specific parent categories possible.

Sometimes proper subcategorization requires the creation of new categories.

Note also that as stub templates are for maintenance purposes, not user browsing (see § Misplaced Pages administrative categories above), they do not count as categorization for the purposes of Misplaced Pages's categorization policies. An article which has a "stubs" category on it must still be filed in the most appropriate content categories, even if one of them is a direct parent of the stubs category in question.

Diffusing large categories

• WP:DIFFUSE

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 into Category:Albums, but into the metacategory Category:Albums by artist, which itself appears in Category:Albums. (See Category: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.

Non-diffusing subcategories

• WP:ALLINCLUDED
• WP:DUPCAT

Not all subcategories serve the "diffusion" function described above; some are simply subsets which have some special characteristic of interest, such as Best Actor Academy Award winners as a subcategory of Film 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 category purely 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:

• The {{Non-diffusing subcategory}} templates should be used for subcategories that are non-diffusing, like Category:American novelists of Asian descent.
• The {{All included}} can be used for categories where all child articles of a certain type are in the parent, like Category:Presidents of the United States or Category:Mountains of Switzerland.

Subcategories defined by gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality should almost always be non-diffusing subcategories. The Misplaced Pages:Categorizing articles about people guideline outlines the rules on these categories in more detail.

Note that some categories can be non-diffusing on some parents, and diffusing on others. For example, Category:British women novelists is a non-diffusing subcategory of Category:British novelists, but it is a diffusing subcategory of Category:Women novelists by nationality.

Sort keys

• WP:SORTKEY

Sort keys are sometimes needed to produce a correct ordering of member pages and subcategories on the category page. For the mechanics, see Help:Category § Sorting category pages.

Categories of people are usually sorted by last name rather than first name, so "surname, forename" sort keys are used (as in "Washington, George"). There are many other rules for sorting people's names; for more information, see WP:NAMESORT.

Other sort key considerations (in no particular order):

• In English Misplaced Pages, sort order merges (ignores) case and diacritics. For example, "Baé", "Båf", "BaG" would be sorted in that order.
• 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: ] 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: ] 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 for El 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 for Mr. Bean should be {{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Bean}} and Dungeons & 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 as Isle 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, while Isle of Wight uses {{DEFAULTSORT:Wight, Isle of}}, the categories for the county/district are sorted "Isle of Wight". Also for settlements such as Isle 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 with O', 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, so Pope John IX might have a sort key "John 9". To get the correct sort order zero padding may be required, thus the actual sort key in this case is "John 09" this ensures that Pope John IX sorts before Pope 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. So 10,000 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 as Category: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, in Category:2004 the page 2004 in film would have the sort key "Film", and in Category:2004 in Canada the page 2004 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 appear after the key article and before 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 characters before numbers and Latin alphabet (0–9, A–Z) is (partial list):

! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 9 : ; < = > ? @ ^ _ ` A Z a z { | } ~ É é —

See also: Meta:Help:Sorting#Sort modes for more information.

• Sort keys may be prefixed with Greek letters to place entries after the main alphabetical list. The following letters have special meaning by convention:
  • "Σ" (capital sigma) is used to place stub 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 for barnstars.
  • "Δ" (delta) is for documentation, where sorting by Latin D is undesirable.
  • "ι" (iota, displays as "Ι") is for Misplaced Pages images.
  • "ρ" (rho, displays as "Ρ") is for portals.
  • "τ" (tau, displays as "Τ") is for templates. Keep in mind, template categories should not be added to content categories per WP:CAT#T.
  • "υ" (upsilon, displays as "Υ") for user templates.
  • "ω" (omega, displays as "Ω") is for WikiProjects.

  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 after Z.

  Note: Not all of these types are suitable for inclusion in content categories. For one-type categories, such as template 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. Per MOS: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.

Inappropriate categorization

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 is disputed, please discuss the categorization on the talk 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, Misplaced Pages:Categorizing articles about people, Misplaced Pages:Overcategorization, or other Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines), you can participate in, or post a new, discussion about the category.

Category talk pages are not always widely watched. Consider whether you can invite more potentially interested people to take part in a discussion, such as by discussing it at a relevant WikiProject, or at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Categories. Another option could be to nominate the category for discussion at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion, or if the category name has an obvious typographical error, you can list it for speedy renaming at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Speedy.

See Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Howto for instructions on how to use the templates for: deletion ({{cfd}}), renaming ({{cfr}}), or merging ({{cfm}}).

If you are in a content dispute, see Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution for what to do next.

Category cleanup templates

• Article with insufficient categories
  • {{Improve categories}} template indicates that the article needs additional or more specific categories. It is recommended that this template be placed at the bottom 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 template on the top of articles.
• Category unknown
  • If you're not sure where to categorize a particular page, add the {{uncategorized}} template to it, and other editors (such as those monitoring Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Categories/uncategorized) will help find appropriate categories for it.

See also

• Misplaced Pages:Categorization dos and don'ts (information page summarizing key points of this guideline)
• Misplaced Pages:Category suppression
• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Categories
• m:Association of Categorist Wikipedians
• m:Help:Sorting
• Category:Misplaced Pages essays about categorization
• Misplaced Pages:FAQ/Categorization
• Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot, script for moving subcategories between categories
• Misplaced Pages:Maintenance

For browsing

• Misplaced Pages:PetScan (formerly CatScan)
• Misplaced Pages:Classification (category tree jumping)
• Misplaced Pages:Category intersection (ability to find articles that are in more than one category)
• Special:Categories (lists all existing categories alphabetically)
• Special:CategoryTree
• Category:Misplaced Pages categories

For maintenance

• Special:MostLinkedCategories
• Special:UncategorizedFiles
• Special:UncategorizedPages
• Special:UnusedCategories
• Special:WantedCategories
• Misplaced Pages:Category combinatorics
• Misplaced Pages:Database reports#Categories
• Template:Category link with count
• Template:Misplaced Pages categorization navbox

Notes

1. in declarative statements, rather than table or list form
2. Mathematically speaking, this means that the system approximates a directed acyclic graph.
3. This condition can be formulated in terms of graph theory as follows: the directed graph that has the categories as vertices and the parent-child relationships as edges should be acyclic.
4. There is an exception to this for maintenance purposes. For example, Category:Hidden categories is a direct subcategory of itself and of Category:Misplaced Pages extended-confirmed-protected pages and Category:Container categories, each of which is a direct subcategory of Category:Hidden categories.
5. In 2016, English Misplaced Pages's category collation was changed to "uca-default", which is based on the Unicode collation algorithm (UCA). The most noticeable difference is that UCA groups characters with diacritics with their non-diacritic versions. See Misplaced Pages talk:Categorization/Archive 16 § OK to switch English Misplaced Pages's category collation to uca-default? and Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)/Archive 149 § Sorting in categories unreliable for a few days.

• Misplaced Pages editing guidelines
• Misplaced Pages naming conventions
• Misplaced Pages categorization
• Misplaced Pages how-to
• Misplaced Pages project content guidelines
• Misplaced Pages Manual of Style (related guidelines)