Help:Categories

MediaWiki allows you to categorize pages and files by appending one or more Category tags to the content text. Adding these tags creates links at the bottom of the page that take you to the list of all pages in that category, which makes it easy to browse related articles.

Category Names

The Category namespace is global, thus category names must be unique and unambiguous. To help this, the following naming rules are necessary.

Category names must start with the name of the public namespace to which they belong to, followed by a colon. For example:

Category:Control:ControlStudio

The exception to the rule is superior category names, that collect common public pages; for example:

Category:Templates

Category:MC-Basic

Create a Category Page

A category can be created the same way as other wiki pages (See Help:Starting a new page); just add "Category:" before the page title. (Category lists exist even if their description page is not created, but these categories are isolated from others and serve little purpose for organization or navigation.)

To avoid extra work, try searching within your wiki before creating a new category. The list of all categories can be found in "Special pages" in the "tools" box of the sidebar.

Category page content

The category page should only contain two things:

• a short description, which kind of pages it collects
• a link to the front-page of the category

The easiest way to create a category page is to use the {{Template:Category}}. The description is on the template page.

Add a Page to a Category

To add a page or uploaded file to a category, simply edit the page and add the following text (where NAME is the name of the category you want to add it to).

[[Category:NAME]]

Any number of Category tags may be added to the page and the page will be listed in all of them. Category tags can be added wherever you like in the editing text, but they are usually added at the very bottom for the convenience of other editors.

Adding Category tags to category pages will make them subcategories. It is a good idea to organize all your categories into a hierarchy with a single top level category.

Spaces and line breaks before categories are ignored, thus

* A list item
[[Category:Some category]] Some text

will be rendered the same as

* A list item Some text

You will need to manually add a <br /> tag or a line break after the category.

Sort key

A sort key specifies where the page will appear in the category list, and under which letter heading. (By default, the page is sorted under the first letter of its full name excluding its namespace.) You can add a sort key to a page by adding it inside the Category tag. For example, the tag below will add the page under the heading "S".

[[Category:NAME|SORT]]

Sort keys are case-sensitive, and a space is also valid. The order of the sections within a category follows the Unicode sort order. The sort key does not change the page title displayed in the category.

Category front-page

The category front-page is itself part of the category.

Its main purposes are:

• to give an overview of the topic, collected by the category
• to provide structured and commented contents of the category for non insiders

Link to a category

To create a link to a category, use a leading colon before the category name. (Without this colon, it will add the current page to the category.) To change the link text, write the text inside the link tag after a pipe.

[[:Category:NAME]]
[[:Category:NAME|TEXT]]

For example, to link to "Category:Help", write "[[:Category:Help]]", which will result in Category:Help.

Redirect pages (to categories) must also use the colon, otherwise it will be added to the category instead of redirecting.

Move a category

To move (rename) a category use the Rename category special page in the toolbox. When a category is moved, the category tags of all category members are renamed. This procedure requires edit rights for all pages in the category!