Category talk:Container categories

These can't all be parent cats

... as I understand the concept. The many "Lists of competitors in xxxx Olympics" clearly can be parented into "Lists of Olympic competitors by year", the many Ships categories can assigned a similar de facto ships parent, which can be listed here. In short, with over a hundred sub-cats, things need cleaned up a bit. // FrankB 17:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not follow your thinking. As far as I can see, they all do appear to be parent categories. A parent category exists when there are too many articles for a single category and there are enough sub categories to hand the numerous articles that would otherwise be in the parent category. Dbiel ^(Talk) 20:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Breaking some class of categories by some criteria, such as year, means they can have a sole parent, lacking years-- a true parent. Competitors is a parent, not a competitors by years. Simple logic. OIC, you've artificial designated parents, what I'd call nodal categories defining a categorization schema and are construing "parent" as a category containing only categories. Fine. In this case, I question the need to hide it though applaud the tagging--just wrote a similar template on the commons a few nights back. So pardon my misconception. // FrankB 05:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I am unable to understand what you have just written. Which categories are you stating should not be considered parent categories? I will review them and respond with my understanding and recommendations. Dbiel ^(Talk) 20:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with FrankB. You can't have a whole set of competitors sub-cats, each for a different year, and label them all parent categories. that seems a bit pointless. what's better is to find the one category which they are all a part of, and designate that one as a parent category. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Came here from ANI. I have to agree with FrankB and Steve. This is making the "Parent categories" category unworkable. Why can't we just stick with Category:Olympic competitors by year as the parent? — Satori Son 20:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Dbiel, didn't mean to raise a fuss, but the problem is in choosing the word "parent". Suggest "Categories only" or "Nodal" or "nodal category" vice "parent" which the tag defines as a categories only category would be far less confusing. People do understand "only" and some of us use and understand the more technical "node" (intersections basically) and the problem is simply people have a different meaning for parent. "Olympic Competitors" is a parent, not by years of such.

  You're effectively trying to change a definition in people's heads would be another way of saying that. Since it's all template driven, I'd suggest nodal category, as there I've used it in the same sense (well at least a similar sense and with an expanded schema purpose) on the commons in maps categories. See

   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Nodal_category and

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:NewScheme and for a use example, see

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_by_divisions_of_Asia and

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_by_divisions_of_India with corresponding 'parent categories

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_Asia and

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_India. This is very new (so new I haven't even recatted anything into the Divisions of India page yet), and I want to graph out various schema and do some planning before doing systematic recategorisations using it. Fortunately, it will not involve recatting anything but categories pages, so shouldn't be too bad.

The difference in use of 'parent categories is that I'm designing this schema to be systematic and compatible across the many schema of categorizing maps. No one way of finding maps or particular category tree is correct. Some are splinters of other kinds of schema such as "Categories by type" or "Categories by Geography", political affiliation (country), and so forth. The nodal category seems to be the best way to bridge between such systems of classification.

In A directed graph, unfortunately, parent and child relationships have a distinct relationship that you're violating behind the fig-leaf of being "hidden". Hence a "sensibilities problem" of perceptions. Changing a Paradigm is really hard.

Now, I realize my "nodal categories" and what you are trying to do aren't identical, but can it be made to fit? I think it likely. Where was this scheme discussed previously, btw. Answer here or my talk, please. It should be linked here up top as first section.

There is another issue involving templates. {{catlist-up}} is designed to reveal and list upperlevel categories down in the trees, and again your "parent category" will be somewhat in conflict. If you want a hand, ask. Best wishes // FrankB 21:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• as a related aside, see your Sorry, I do not follow your thinking. As far as I can see, they all do appear to be parent categories. A parent category exists when there are too many articles for a single category and there are enough sub categories to hand the numerous articles that would otherwise be in the parent category. Dbiel (Talk) 20:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Answer on that is WP:CAT, in general, with side note numbers are not a criteria. See also my post here on Wikipedia_talk:Categorization. Basically, there is an institutional inertia in play (based historically on an old now not needed technical issue) that causes "dispersion", which is now no longer necessary for technical reasons, so is "habitual", a mindset.

Like that user says, and prefers, there are benefits to large categories, and a parent, is not defined by the number of members, but by it's relationship to the primary category via the hierarchical tree of categories. (I see someone has really messed with that system now. Now that's a fundamental change![1]) Yikes! // FrankB (time above)

I agree that the term parent category maybe confusing to some. I am simply replying based on the consensus as related to the template:parent category which contains the following instructions "Tag parent categories with {{Parent category}} to inform editors that they should remain relatively empty." with the template reading as follows:

This is a container category. Due to its scope, it should contain only subcategories.

I have simply been involved in keeping several parent categories empty. I have had no involvement in the development of the concept and have no problem with making changes to it. We just need to be consistent and follow consensus Dbiel ^(Talk) 22:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I see now the problem with the way the categories display under CAT:Contents Apparently due to the way the template works, the tree listing under Parent Categories is completely broken. This is something that is way over my head, but is definitely worth addressing. Dbiel ^(Talk) 22:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep, agree. If you don't know anything about me, know that I don't do a lot of talk page postings... Hmmm, lookee what I seen:

“ Shall only contain other main categories - no articles.
—from CommonsRoot ”

Another possible solution

Maybe that's an avenue. Main vice Parent... certainly works in your template. I'm leaning on posting this conundrum to CFD for proper mastication. For what it's worth, there didn't used to be a Contents (though there may have been a Root like the Commons [nope! I know Mac (talk · contribs · count) from prior experience, and he's prone to youthful errors of judgment and enthusiasm, being very young. He created this Root, no doubt in one such spate of enthusiasm. Did similar "insensitive" creations on other sisters I had to explain away.) and the root (parent <g>, Sorry) was just Categories which, even the commons adopted categories, iirc— kicking and screaming along the way. The original basic cat structure was from Meta, and was supposed to be left alone, more or less. Since you're interest was involvement the template side, suspect this should be discussed at CFD. I was hoping you'd have a talk link for me to peruse. Cheers! // FrankB 23:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, err, i hate to admit it, but I'm totally confused by the discussion above. the issue here seems pretty simple to me; each category within Category:parent categories should be a simple root category, not a dozen permutations of one grouping. the latter aspect would defeat the whole purpose of this category. that's my basic point. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem appears to be the fact that the term "Parent Category" is used in two different way. 1) by the template:Parent category where it simply means any category that should basicly contain only sub categories and maybe a limited few articles. 2)A single parent category from which all other related categories are sub categories. I have no idea on how to resolve this difference. Dbiel ^(Talk) 23:31, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Dbiel, I appreciate your open and constructive reply. However, I have what i feel is a fairly simple way to resolve this. I feel that we should not use the approach which results in having two dozen sub-categories listed here, all on minor variations on a single topic.

So let's try to fix this by just include the single parent category at the root of related subcategories; not all two dozen subcategories.that's my thought on this. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 02:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I have found a way to accomplish both things. It will involve editing the template to be able to use the template without including the category. Please post the names of the specific categories you believe should be fixed, you only need to list the true parent category(s). Dbiel ^(Talk) 03:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems that a few people have another notion of what a parent cat is. AFAIK, the parentcat tag has been only for maintenance purposes, and not as a leaping-off point for major categorization branches. That's why the category is hidden, since it isn't supposed to serve any real navigational purposes, right?

Is there another tag for categories which should not have articles? The {{catdiffuse}} tag is close; but, my understanding (and, it seems to be backed byt the CFD discussion linked at the top of the page) is that catdiffuse is only for categories which temporarily suffer from an influx of articles which should be subcategorized. Parentcat is the only tag I know about that sits idly by and encourages editors to properly subcategorize their articles. Neier (talk) 22:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the idea about changing the template to use it solely as an advisory message, and not as a means to add categories to category:Parent categories. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Actual solution

here is the actual solution to this dilemma:

Simply use the category below instead of Category:Container categories.

Category:Categories by parameter

Also, some of the contents here are not container categories. such as Category:15th-century Ottoman people.

--Sm8900 (talk) 20:38, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

This category has far too many subcategories

It's almost at 5,000.

How about creating container categories by parameter?

Examples:

• Category:Container categories by century
• Category:Container categories by topic
• Category:Container categories by geographical location

Then people can actually navigate through this mess, assuming that's useful. What exactly is the purpose of this category if not for navigation? I understand that it's a tracking category, but even tracking categories deserve some organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.181.78.234 (talk) 07:18, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I tried to create an actual Category:parent categories, but it was deleted. --Sm8900 (talk) 21:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

"Category category"

From the banner infobox - Category category. This category contains categories that are not subcategories.

If a category is contained within another category, then by definition it must be a subcategory. Can anyone explain what this is supposed to mean, and word it more coherently? Grutness...wha? 00:22, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

How does one do a search for articles belonging to Container categories?

The infobox clearly states that container categories should not contain articles. Is there a way to prevent articles from being added to container categories? Also, how would I be able to do a search that only returns articles that belong to Container categories? I tried doing a search with "incategory", but I guess it doesn't work with hidden categories? --Slivicon (talk) 14:48, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

You can search for such articles using, for example, this[2] (note:this only shows the first 300). I would argue that in many cases it's the category being tagged as "container" that's wrong, not the categorization of the article (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Categories#Misuse_of_Container_categories.3F). DexDor 05:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

@DexDor: I'm starting to see where you are very correct, that it is often the category that somehow was tagged as a container when it would seem it should not have been. I see you also saw my post about misuse of containers :) Thank you for your help and input. --Slivicon (talk) 14:35, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Container Category as subcategory

Why is this category not one of its own members? By definition, it must be, as it contains no articles and is not intended to. Speedstyle101 (talk) 13:30, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Container Categories Containing Pages

Should there be a maintenance category for container categories that contain pages? Having one would make fixing them easier as container categories should only have subcategories and no pages. DemonStalker (talk) 01:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)