Help:Categories

When to Use Categories

At least one category should always be included on each page. Don't go crazy with categories, but try to include all appropriate ones for the article you're working on. If you aren't sure which category (categories) are appropriate, you can view the full list of categories and try to determine the best fit for your article.

How to Use Categories

Adding an Article to a Category

To add an article to a category put the following at the end of the page you would like to categorize (do NOT edit the category page itself!):

[[Category: Category Name]]

where Category Name is the name of the category you want to add it to. Any number of category tags may be added to the page — the page will be associated with all of them.

Please note that capitalization matters for all letters after the first letter of the category's name. [[Category: Moped Jargon]] is the same as [[Category: moped Jargon]] but is different from [[Category: Moped jargon]].

Linking to a Category

Sometimes you'll want to link to a category, but you won't want the page to actually appear in the category. For example, if you are editing the Puch page and you want to add, "If you are looking for information on Motobecane's, please see the Motobecane category," you obviously don't want the Puch article to appear in the Motobecane category. To fix this issue, add a colon before "Category":

[[:Category: Category Name]]

or, following the example:

[[:Category: Motobecane]]

or, if you wanted to link to the Motobecane category and have the link say "Motobecane category" instead of "Category: Motobecane"

[[:Category: Motobecane|Motobecane category]]

Sort Parameters for Category Listing

You can also specify an additional {Sort} parameter that dictates where the page will appear, alphabetically, within the category. This is achieved by using the following markup:

[[Category: Category Name|Sort parameter]]

So for example, to add this page to the 'Help' category, you would use:

[[Category:Help|Categories]]

Note that we used 'Categories' as the sort parameter. Without this the page would be listed under 'H' for 'Help:Categories', instead of under 'C', which is more useful. Other situations where you might want to use the sort parameter is when you have articles about gangs that are titled as The GangName but within the category you want them listed as GangName, The.

Note: the {sort} parameter does not affect how the page title is displayed within the category listing, just how it is ordered in relationships to other categories. In the above example, the link to this page will still be 'Help:Categories', and not 'Categories'.

Making New Categories

Making a new category is accomplished in exactly the same way as making any other new page. You can:

1. Use the search function to search for Category: Desired name. When the search comes back and tells you that no such page exists, you can create the new page by clicking on the link that says "create this page". Note: If you use this method, the name of the category you wish to create MUST be prefaced with "Category:"
2. Go to one of the pages that you would like to see listed in the category you're trying to create. Edit that page with the following text: [[Category: Desired name]]. After you save that page, you will see a new red link at the bottom that says Category: Desired name. Click on this red link, type in a description for your new category, save the category page, and admire your new category and newly categorized article.

Visual Editor

Visual category editor

The visual editor now offers an interface to add/remove categories. One of the advantages of using the visual interface is the ability to search through all existing categories. Making a change in this visual interface will then write the appropriate wikitext (detailed above) for you.

You can find this category interface by opening the the "triple-line" menu on the visual editor toolbar.