Help:Categories

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Categories on WikiFur help organization and offer visitors a way to browse through related articles.

Categories are placed on articles by putting [[Category:Name of category]] at the end of the article, either all in one line or on separate lines.

Like article names, category names should only be capitalized for words that are normally capitalized would be correct, but [[Category:Convention Terms]] would not: the correct name is Category:Convention terms. Please bear this in mind when creating new categories, as it gets harder to fix with each article added to the category.

Regarding sub categories, the most specific category wins. For example, if you are categorizing a movie, it belongs in [[Category:Movies]] and not [[Category:Culture]], which is the parent of [[Category:Movies]]. Otherwise, parent categories would find themselves filled with duplicates of what was listed in the narrower sub categories. The exception is an article on a person, which should always have Category:People.

If you are unsure of what category something belongs in, place it in [[Category:Unsorted]], and someone else will take care of it.

Information placement[edit]

Categories should reflect the information in the article, and vice versa. For example, a person's article could have Category:1980 births, but should also have (born 1980) in the article text.

Categories which are not refered to in the article may be deleted, or the information added to the article, as subsequent editors feel is appropriate.

Subcategory creation[edit]

Narrower categories can be created when they organise articles without losing information. (For example, [[Category:Leopard characters]] is a subcategory of [[Category:Feline characters]]. To do this, change the category links to the new name on the pages to be moved, then click on one of the resulting red links and create that page, adding the old category link at the bottom.

As a rule of thumb, create narrower categories when the new subcategory will have at least five articles in it.

Order of categories[edit]

Generally, put the most relevant category first. For example, Mixed Candy is, first and foremost, a fursuit studio; Anthrocon is a convention.

For a person, [[Category:People]] comes first, then furry-specific categories like Category:Fursuiters or convention staff membership, other categories, categories about their character (such as Category:Wolf characters), their location (only the most specific, e.g. Category:Toronto, not Category:Ontario or Category:Canada), and lastly their birth year such as Category:1980 births.

Categories are not[edit]

Categories are not

  • tags
  • a replacement for having information in the main text of the article.

Cautions[edit]

Unlike articles or user pages, categories cannot be easily renamed, moved, or redirected to. Therefore, please be careful when changing categories or creating new categories. If you are uncertain, or the category isn't very obviously in pattern with other categories used here on WikiFur: ask first.

Good places to raise discussion are at the Category talk page of a category related to the category you want to suggest changing or creating.

Categories on WikiFur are part of a particular structure and pattern, and are intended to be unambiguous. For example, we don't have a Panther characters category, because Panther can refer to a Cougar, a black Leopard, or a black Jaguar.