Wikipedia talk:Categorizing redirects/Archive 1

Initial discussion

The following initial points for discussion were copied from here. Please add more points and edit and expand/cut the proposed guideline as needed. Carcharoth 23:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Advantages

• Categorising redirects keeps track of them and keeps them organised and tidy.
• Doesn't favour one article title over another - both can be categorised.
• Allows readers to browse different category structures using different names for articles (some articles have alternative names that are widely used). eg. Pathera species, alternative names for stars, English language titles of foreign language books.
• Can allow clearer categorising, as redirects can be used to create uniformity in article titles, or clearer naming of articles, when an existing article (for various reasons) is at an unwieldy title name.

Disadvantages

• If done badly, excessive categorisation of redirects can overwhelm an existing category structure. If this happens, a possible solution can be to create new subcategories and reorganise that area of the category structure to make it easier to use.
• Including redirects messes up article counts, unless redirects can be excluded from the page count totals for categories.
• Increases reader expectation that categories are a complete list of articles on a particular topic, when in fact they are often incomplete (due to failure to categorise correctly or due to there being a lack of existing articles).
• Putting the article and the redirect in the same category can be confusing (but is sometimes needed). When they are not in the same category, there still needs to be a category tag on the article that leads people towards the right part of the category structure, even if not to the exact same category that the redirect appears in.
• If the article and redirect are not in the same category, then a reader cannot reach the category from the article, even if the redirect was followed.

Further discussion

• Is this a good start at explaining and laying out some of the issues involved? Carcharoth 23:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

General discussion

This looks like a good proposal. It only uses situations where categorization is imminently helpful, not vaguely as I've fought against with fictional character cats. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you give examples? It would be helpful to have examples of when not to categorise redirects. Carcharoth 23:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Take all these superpower cats for instance. You really don't need to categorize these things for redirects. For an example I directly deal with, take everything in Omnitrix. This thing lets the characters transform into all sorts of hero characters. Their powers are not so much the focus as his transforming, hence the lack of categories for each power. Basically, trivial categories don't need redirects in them. There's also the back-tracking concern with redirects, but in your outlined examples that wouldn't be a problem. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the proposal overall. Perhaps I'm not understanding all the types laid out and this would fit into one of them, but I don't see one type of case I occasionally find useful. This is when a local governmental entity changes character and name. For example, Kentwood, Michigan was formed from what remained of Paris Township, Kent County, Michigan. At present, there isn't enough to say about Paris Township to merit a separate article, so it is a redirect to the Kentwood article. Paris Township belongs to the Category:Defunct townships in Michigan, but that would be an inappropriate category for the city of Kentwood. This principle could probably be generalized as it could apply to other types of organizations and institutions that undergo name changes (or mergers and acquisitions). I don't think I'm up to trying to articulate this in a more generally comprehensible way right now though. older ≠ wiser 00:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirects covering name changes and mergers would be a good section to have. The road renaming thing below is another example. I can see how caegorising these might become excessive, and would suggest that such redirects and articles are put in separate subcategories named "Historical X" (I think 'historical' is the right word here, as 'historic' is closer in meaning to 'notable' than merely 'defunct' or 'old'). Or indeed "Defunct X". The important thing is whether someone browsing such a category and clicking on the links will understand why they have been redirected somewhere else - ie. do the destination articles say in the first few sentences "previously known as..."? The category title should also give the reader a clue as well - and "defunct" or "historical" serves well here. Of course, what would be nice is if the software displayed the name of the redirect below it in the category display. Something like:

Paris Township, Kent County, Michigan

see Kentwood, Michigan

Just like you get in paper indexes. That would make things a lot clearer. I'll raise this point at the village pump technical area. Meanwhile, do you want to have a go at writing a section covering when and how to categorise renames and real-life merges, also convering the important point that the redirects help categorise points that don't apply to the destination article? Carcharoth 09:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree that this should be used judiciously and only where the connection is obvious or clearly explained in the target article. Re: "historic" vs "defunct" or "obsolete" -- I think I had a discussion with someone a while back about this -- my take on it is that using the "historic" or "historical" appellation would be more confusing, as there are many existing entities that could justifiably claim to be historic. I may have to mull on it a while longer before adding anything though. One thought is that this approach is not so much about categorizing existing articles as it is about categorizing information (or in some cases, meta-information). But I think going to far along that line may run smack into the morass of trying to describe what categories are in Wikipedia. As for the technical change, that perhaps would make things clearer. I guess it doesn't bother me too much since I can hover over the link and see the target in a popup -- so simple italics is a good enough cue for me, but I can see how it might not be as helpful for everyone. older ≠ wiser 12:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• Support - This has been a bugbear of mine for a while. As part of WP:THOMAS we have successfully integrated a huge number of the individual 'Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends' characters into grouped pages, leaving a substantial trail of redirects in our wake. However, although we have a category for the Thomas characters (some are significant enough to warrant their own WP pages), this category omits a large number of non-trivial lesser characters as they only exist on the grouped pages. 'Allowing' redirects to be added to the category would solve the problem for a reader looking for one of these characters in a category but not knowing whether the character might be found on the 'Major characters' page, the 'minor characters' page, or one of the several 'railway' pages. The category could then be much more useful as a complete list of characters. EdJogg 01:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Make sure the minor character redirects are pointing to the section in the list. That way people won't be totally confused when they end up at a list and not an article. See Wikipedia:Redirect#How to make a redirect (redirect command) for details (apologies if you, personally, know this already - consider it a comment for the audience). Carcharoth 01:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Thank you, all the redirects do use anchored links -- unless a bot has been past without us noticing, since bots generally ignore suich niceties! EdJogg 07:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I still somewhat disagree with this particular use, but since it allows back navigation I won't object. It shouldn't be done if it's excessive (like Digimon categories for example). — Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
    • In the case of the 'Thomas' characters, they'd all fit on one cat page, but I understand your concerns. EdJogg 07:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't we solve this problem with lists? --NE2 01:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this is missing the point slightly. Some readers will 'navigate in' via the category pages, rather than the search box or wikilinks, and having a list won't actually help. In the case of the 'Thomas' grouped character pages, they are already in a kind of list, since each page covers a number of characters. EdJogg 07:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

How would you suggest dealing with the redirects to State Route 16 (Virginia)? A number of former designations - State Route 92 (Virginia 1933-1940), State Route 117 (Virginia 1923-1926), State Route 113 (Virginia 1928-1933), State Route 139 (Virginia 1931-1933), State Route 88 (Virginia 1933-1940) - all redirect there, and many other articles have similar redirects. Should these all go in Category:Historic Virginia state highways, probably making that several pages long? I think list of primary state highways in Virginia is more than enough to list them all, and is linked from every route article. --NE2 04:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I had a look at Category:Virginia state highways, and moved the articles languishing on the second page up to the front, so that category now serves as a good navigation point. For historic names no longer in use, it is unlikely people wil be looking for these names. However, people browsing that category might be puzzled at the absence of a number 1 highway or a number 88 highway (to pick two examples). When I types in Virginia State Route 1, I got redirected to the Virginia section of US Route 1. I'm not good on US highways, but I believe that the US Routes are a different road system, or something. That definitely needs explaining somewhere. It might be a good idea to put something at the top of the category page explaining where the historic numbers are, which I've done for Category:Historic Virginia state highways. I also found the category set-up slightly confusing - would it not be an idea to have a single "Virginia road" category, and then have three subcategories for interstate, US routes and state highways? Then have state highways set up as it is at the moment. Anyway, to get back to your original question, I don't think categorising the redirects here is helpful. Still maintain a list somewhere so that they are not forgotten about, but as long as they are listed somewhere, and the current navigational set-up works, no need to expand it too much. The main use for categorising redirects is for alternative names currently in use, and for well-known historic names that people might be looking for, or recognise. These historic highways names meet neither criteria in my opinion. Anyone looking for those has enough information already to find them, it just need to be made clear to those looking at that category page, where "the other numbers" have gone. Carcharoth 09:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually SR 1 is a special case: the only state route in Virginia ever numbered 1 became US 1. State Route 1 is bolded on U.S. Route 1 in Virginia. --NE2 13:36, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Revision

I've made some changes, shortened some sections, reorganized, etc... in an attempt to make things a little clearer. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 09:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Looking good! I've also made a rather ambitious request at the technical section of the village pump. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Further changing the display of redirects in category pages. I suspect it could be really simple to implement such a change, and this would, at a stroke, do away with the confusion surrounding why some bits are italicised, and the disorientation of anchored links. I'd ask for anchored links throughout the encyclopedia to be treated this way as well, but that might be going to far! :-) Carcharoth 10:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• Strong support

This would solve a major dilemma I'm involved in--handling small articles about academic journals. They are usually notable by the rules, being listed in reference sources and all that, but for some of the smaller ones there is often not all that much to say, and the material could be merged somewhere; but the title needs to be listed in the appropriate lists of publications by subject pages & typically one or two other categories, such as Open access journals. As a special case there are often a group of related journals published by the same society or publisher & put in the same article, but they do not all fit in the same categories: e.g. Physical Review, A B C D E . They all are physics journals, except that part B is generally also considered a chemistry journal.

There's about five or ten thousand titles of these sorts for which articles have yet to be made, and this would immensely speed up the work--I & the others doing these have been putting off the lesser ones because the articles tend to look like stubs, and we all know what tends to happen to stubs these days :) DGG 21:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Problem with categorizing alternate names for astronomical objects

I have been away from the internet for a couple of days, so I have not yet had a problem to comment. However, I see a problem with categorizing redirects for astronomical objects that are listed in astronomical catalogs (for example, listing both Sombrero Galaxy and Messier 104 in Category:Messier objects, a catalog that contains 110 objects). The status quo is to list both objects and their redirects in the categories, but this will confuse people who use these categories as substitutes for lists, as the categories will suggest that the catalogs contain more objects than they really do contain.

The alternative of not categorizing objects by their common name but only categorizing the redirects (e.g. listing Messier 104 but not Sombrero Galaxy in Category:Messier objects) will make it more difficult to navigate from the main articles to the categories themselves (e.g. it would be difficult to navigate from Sombrero Galaxy to Category:Messier objects), thus defeating the purpose of having the categories in the first place.

Hence, the only viable solution that I see is to not list redirects at all in categories for astronomical objects. Unless someone can propose an alternate solution, I suggest that this proposed guideline should make exceptions for things like categories for astronomical objects. Dr. Submillimeter 10:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not simply include an explanation on the category page that the category includes some intentional duplication? older ≠ wiser 11:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

This simple approach is better than the status quo or Carcharoth's proposals, although I still imagine that the duplicate entries would cause confusion. Dr. Submillimeter 07:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, if there is any real likelihood that people may mistake a category for a comprehensive list -- most every category should have a "use at your own risk" disclaimer -- there is never any guarantee, and indeed a very high probability that at any given time a category will be either incomplete or contain inaccurate or superfluous items. older ≠ wiser 01:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Or have Category:Messier objects with 110 members (common names and Messier numbers that are names - all articles), and Category:Messier catalogue numbers with 110 members (only the Messier numbers, some being redirects, some being articles). At the moment Category:Messier objects mixes numbers and names, and the overlap is not intuitively obvious. If you don't have a category for the numbers, then people will think that some articles are missing. Carcharoth 12:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The two category approach seems messy. This would solve the problem for objects known primarily by their common names (e.g. Sombrero Galaxy), but objects known primarily by their catalog designations (e.g. Messier 86) would effectively have two categories. Dr. Submillimeter 07:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary here; a sortable table can do the trick in a cleaner way. --NE2 05:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

A sortable table does not solve any problems with the category. Dr. Submillimeter 08:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

What problems? I'm arguing against listing redirects in the category. --NE2 09:26, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. I did not understand the context of your comment. Dr. Submillimeter 10:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Could an additional redirect Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) not be created and categorised instead of Messier 104? -- roundhouse0 15:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

At this point, I am going to acquiesce to the multiple listings within the category. However, I think that a warning (as described by [User:Bkonrad|older]] ≠ wiser) will be needed for some of the categories. Dr. Submillimeter 16:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

This is shaping up well. My personal suggestion would be that a redirect to a list article should not be in any category that is inappropriate for the list as a whole, because that would be confusing to readers. For instance, if there's a List of characters in some book, and one of those characters is a gorilla, then we shouldn't put that redirect in the Fictional gorillas category, because this would imply to a reader coming from the category that he's now on a page with fictional gorillas when in fact he's not. Thoughts please? >Radiant< 09:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Can this be generalized by saying "no redirect should be categorized unless the target is either an article clearly about the same topic but by a different name, or a section heading for a section of an article that covers the topic even if other sections are not relevant. A user should not have to search to find where the topic is mentioned in an article or list." --☑ SamuelWantman 09:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

That is also helpful, but doesn't really cover what I just said considering every character would be a section. >Radiant< 09:58, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what you're saying, Radiant. You are on a page with a fictional gorilla on it at that point, are you not? And the redirect should point you to the section about said fictional gorilla, which keeps the list from being overcategorized with fictional gorilla, fictional tiger, and whatever-else we've got in the fictional cats these days (it changes every few months, seems like). -- nae'blis 19:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm not clear either. If you end up at List of fictional animals in a section called ==Fictional gorillas== it would be ok if it were a list. If you end up at the same article ant there were no section on gorillas it would not be OK. If you end up at List of characters in some book it would not be ok even if there were a section for gorillas because the topic is not the same. Is this what we are talking about, or is there more to it. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 19:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. For instance, from an animal category, I could end up on a "list of Discworld characters" page, all of which are human except for one mon ape. Or from a cat on alcoholism to a "list of The Simpsons" characters, only a handful of which are alcoholics. >Radiant< 09:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced. If we still had separate short articles on the topics covered in the list article (which we don't or won't because of mergist tendencies), they'd be categorized as monke apes and alcoholics, yes? The redirect should be going directly to the section on the subject that relates to the category placed on it, which for an average reader is not that confusing, in my opinion. -- nae'blis 15:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, I'm still not sure what you are advocating because you agreed with my comment which is not how I read yours. If you had a redirect called Animal Discworld characters that redirected to List of Discworld characters it would be OK if you ended up at the section that is a sub-list called "Animals". If you simply ended up at the top of the page it would not be OK. Same thing for Alcoholic Simpson characters. So wouldn't the wording I came up with above cover this? -- ☑ SamuelWantman 20:26, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, except for the point that the "list of discworld characters" does not have an "animals" section, and neither does the "list of simpsons characters" have an "alcoholics" section, nor should they. So if Barney Gumble is a redirect, it shouldn't be in the alcohol cat, in my opinion. Does that help? >Radiant< 08:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Considering that this is all hypothetical -- IFF Barney Gumble were a redirect to List of characters in The Simpsons -- I would think it appropriate to have Barney Gumble in a category like Category:Fictional alcoholics (although there are likely to be problems with any category using the word alcoholic--this is just hypothetical). older ≠ wiser 10:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Not totally hypothetical. There really IS a sub-list called "Animals" at List of Discworld characters. So the concern, I gather from Radiant, is that this will lead to categorizing trivia. But this is a problem if Barney Gumble is a Redirect, a stub, or a complete article. As this is a wiki, I think we just have to let this develop on its own. Categorizing a redirect could add trivia to categories, it could also lead people to a section of an article that deserves a better treatment so they expand it to the point that it becomes a featured article. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 10:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think at a minimum, the target of the redirect should clearly identify both the Redirect by name and provide a substantive rationale for the categorization. older ≠ wiser 01:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-Fiction example

The above discussions have tended towards the particular issues concerning fictional characters, and the potential problems of trivial categorisation. May I throw in a 'real' example to show how a category for a redirect can be helpful?

Foxton Locks is a flight of ten canal locks on the Grand Union Canal in the UK. They are notable in themselves, and hence have a WP article. However, they were built to replace an adjacent boat lift called the Foxton Inclined Plane, and the article descibes both the locks and the inclined plane. At present, Foxton Locks is in a category for 'locks in the UK', which is fine for anyone looking for details about the locks, but the article title is incongruous in a category of 'canal inclined planes' or 'canal boat lifts', for example. Hence the redirect Foxton Inclined Plane is in a separate category, that is not specific to canal locks, to assist users looking for other types of boat lift.

This arrangement is entirely in keeping with this proposal (and predates it), since the current guidelines would suggest that the 'canal inclined planes' category be added to the locks article, rather than the redirect, which would be inappropriate, as described above.

(Incidentally, I think that the section describing the inclined plane should be in its own article, as it is a distinct entity, and there should be new sub-categories such as 'canal boat lifts' and/or 'canal inclined planes' created. However, the 'problems' with the article are not the concern of this discussion, especially since splitting the article and creating sub-cats at this time would defeat the use of it as an example!!)

EdJogg 11:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like an example worth adding to the guidelines. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 21:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm pleased you think it would make a good example. However, I am concerned that future improvements to the article might lead to the Inclined Plane section being split-off into its own article, thus destroying your example. (This is quite likely, as the Plane is the subject of an ongoing restoration project.) Although this example could be used initially, it might be wise to request alternative examples for replacing it in future.

EdJogg 22:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If it get split off into its own article, it could become an example of how a categorized redirect can eventually become a categorized article. Any good example probably has a similar chance of growing into an article. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 00:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

A safer example? Try Wrafton railway station, which I've just created. This page redirects to Ilfracombe Branch Line, where Wrafton station is described in detail. It was a small, unremarkable station, so the section is unlikely to ever grow large enough to warrant its own article. However, the redirect page is in the Railway stations opened in 1874 and Railway stations closed in 1970 categories, since this information would not otherwise be available in category form. (The main article describing a railway line, with railway line categories, rather than a station.)

EdJogg 01:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Experimenting with Category:Genus Panthera

I've created this category as an experiment about how Linnaean classifications could be categorized using redirects. As it is now, it is difficult to navigate up and down the classification tree because listings are sometimes burried deep within pages or are not alphabetical. If there was a category taxonomy for this, it would be much easier to use.

What is the best way to connect this hierarchy to the targets of the redirect (for example Lion)? If this categorization was acceptable, it probably would make sense to add a classification on top of the articles, or integrated somehow into the taxo box.

Subcategories for the subspecies have not been created, but they are easy to imagine. Stubs for the missing species have been created. It was easy to do, and completed the category. I considered making redirects out of the missing species to Pantera, since the missing species are mentioned there in the list. However, this would not be in keeping with the discussion above (Radiant!'s concern). It is harder to replace a redirect with a stub or article, than to add material to a stub. So it seemed that having the stub would encourage the creation of an article.

I'm also wondering about a style guideline for these categories. I've used double capitals to indicate that Panthera is a name of a Genus. Other possibilities are "Genus: Panthera", "Genus - Panthera" and "Panthera (genus)". We should probably discuss this as it relates to categorized redirects, and then the discussion about details can move to a Wikiproject if it is to be implemented more fully.

Another possibility is making categories containing complete listings of all species, genus, etc... For example Category:Genus (index) or Category:Species (index). These might be useful (albeit large) categories.

Comments? Suggestions? -- ☑ SamuelWantman 21:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Difference in appearance of redirects in Windows XP/Internet Explorer and Linux/Iceweasel

Redirects listed in categories do not look any different from normal articles when I use Internet Explorer in Windows XP to view the categories. However, using Iceweasel in Linux, the redirects appear as italics. This could potentially highlight a usability problem for Windows users. Has anyone else noticed this problem? Dr. Submillimeter 22:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm using IE7 on Vista and IE5.5 on Win98SE, and both show a mixture of italic and non-italic entries in Category:Genus Panthera.

EdJogg 22:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The following was first posted by User:Rick Block at Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization --☑ SamuelWantman 00:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It's the redirect-in-category style in MediaWiki:Common.css, so not skin dependent but not visible until your browser reloads the css file (see Wikipedia:Bypass your cache). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

More on fictional characters

Personally, I object to having fictional characters categorized. If they don't warrant their own page, they shouldn't show up in the categories. For example, Eulogio Pla is categorized under Category:Fictional gay men, though clicking it redirects to Halfway Home (TV series), where there's a small paragraph about the character. That totally clutters the category with non-articles. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

You say, "That totally clutters the category with non-articles. ". I don't quite understand this. I can understand that we don't want to clutter a category with trivia, so that it makes it hard to find the articles, but certainly there are things worth finding that don't yet have an article. We've set the bar at "needs to have a section of an article about the topic". In most cases, this will make categories larger, but I don't see that as a problem. Some redirects point to sections of articles that are longer than most stubs. Having both the redirects and stubs in the category might help speed their development into articles. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

While I can understand the desire to leave room for articles that could be created (like red-links in a list), categories tend to be filled with articles - in fact, Wikipedia:Categorization *only* deals with articles. So does Wikipedia:Categorization FAQ. I don't see a need to put non-articles in categories. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the original example, I think it's just common sense where you need to draw the line. There are thousands of fictional gay men, and obviously we can't reference every single one of them here. Oscar Martinez has his own article, and a bunch of other categories, so it's a no-brainer that he's notable enough to add here. But if you were adding it to someone who only appeared in one episode/comic page/wor hatever, it becomes less and less deserving of it's own category as it becomes less notable. Here is a simple rule of thumb I use: If someone was asked to list as many Fictional Whatevers's as they could, would they mention Character X? If you asked an average wikipedian to name a bunch of fictional gay people, they might not think up Eulogio Pla because he's not notable enough yet. This is even more apparent in underpoulated categories. There's not a whole lot of people listed under Category:Fictional_circus_performers, but there have to be more than 3 of them in the entire history of fiction. People come to wikipedia for information. Let's give it to them, and they can decide for themselves which is important and which isn't.--Piemanmoo 04:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

And in your quest to shove as many pointless categories into every redirect you can find, you fail to realize that not one of your examples is the least bit notable, nor do they allow for category navigation as the system is intended to be used. So what if x one-episode guy is gay? He's not notable, he's not important, and he doesn't need to be listed just so some trivial category can be bloated to a ridiculous level from two or three list articles. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

A real live example

You probably didn't need to create an experimental example. I long ago categorised all articles on Banksia taxa into Category:Banksia taxa by scientific name, and all common name redirects and disambiguation pages into Category:Banksia taxa by common name. It works well. Hesperian 01:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful! Thanks so much for this. It's a great example, and I can chuck out the Panthera example. Carcharoth 14:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The contrast of these two examples "Banksia" and "Panthera" brings up some interesting issues. The Panthera category was set up using the current names of the articles. Most of them use the common name like "Lion" or "Tiger". The Banksia category is set up the other way, where most of the articles use the Scientific classification. This seems to be a more efficient way to do things because many species, especially plants, have multiple common names. Having all the common names redirect to the scientific name seems more encyclopedic, and is similar to how many plant encyclopedias are set up. However, naming guidelines say that we should use the most commonly known name in English. Perhaps it is time to revisit the naming guidelines. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I thnk you will find pages and pages and pages of debate about this if you dig through the right archives... :-) My feeling is that it depends. Some taxonomies are simple, others are complicated. Some species have only one common name, some have many, and so on. Carcharoth 09:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:PLANTS decided a little while ago that all plant taxon articles should be located at the scientific name. This is great for us because it imposes consistency. However the animal people don't have the luxury of declaring such a convention, because Wikipedia would look very foolish if it preferred the title "Canis familiaris lupus familiaris" over "dog". Hesperian 11:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Canis lupus familiaris, I believe. :-) Carcharoth 11:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

"Foolish" indeed :-) Hesperian 11:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Fish are an interesting example of animals widely distributed that have many different common names, and are often best referred to by their scientific name. But my gut feeling is that the presence of exceptions (eg. Great White Shark) means that case-by-case is the way to go. Better example is Coreoleuciscus splendidus. See also WP:FISH. Carcharoth 11:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Even among plants there are some exceptions to names, such as wheat and maize, where the common name is used. As a note, we at WP:FISH have decided on a naming policy for fish-related article. In any case, IMO it really doesn't matter too much what the article names are in terms of categorizing redirects; that seems to be getting at a different issue. If we include all redirects, the only affect is that redirects appear italicized in lists. If I'm missing something, chime in. Cheers. MiltonT 12:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:PLANTS convention is for the taxon to be at the scientific name, and any plant product to be at the common name. e.g. Zea mays is about the plant, and takes the taxobox; Maize is about the plant product. Ditto Triticum / wheat; Cocos nucifera / Coconut; etc. However many articles were created at the common name before the convention was put in place, and we have been in no rush to convert them all over. (But we're getting quite a way off topic here)Hesperian 13:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed addition

I propose changing the second sentence of the section "When to categorize a redirect" to read:

Examples include misspellings, minor variations of article titles, obscure alternate titles, fictional characters, and abbreviations.

My reasoning is:

1. If a character is notable, it will have it's own page (thus no redirect to be categorized).
2. Searching a category is not the way people will find non-notable characters. Users will most probably look under the title of the book/show/piece. As an example, I'm not going to be searching through Category:Fictional extraterrestrials for Gloria (Smallville) - I'm going to look at the Smallville article.

-- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:05, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. It's nice that you navigate categories that way, but not everyone does, and this restriction harms some readers ability to navigate the encyclopeida. This reasoning is very different than the reasoning for the other examples listed, and if your reasoning #1 were valid, it would mean that *no* redirects should have categories, because after all, if they could support an article they would be one. The problem with that reasoning is that many of these redirects point to substantial text. That the text is merged into a listed of related items is irrelevant to whether the content is "fictional characters", subspecies of an extinct species, or dialects in a language, and should likewise be irrelevent to the categorization of that content. I was brought here because someguy insists that Kristin Wells should not be categorized as a DC supporting character, because supposedly that is a "trivial" categorization. I find that absurd. It's not obvious this character is written about as part of a list, and if it's not in the category, some would assume the article doesn't exist. I thought this issue had been resolved weeks ago over at WP:REDIRECT. Gimmetrow 04:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
• Gimmietrow, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. "trivial categorization" is POV. And worse, it makes information harder to find. Someguy is not the world's authority on what's notable and what isn't. In fact, nobody is.--Piemanmoo 04:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support to prevent exactly this kind of nonsense. It's just shoving things into categories that more often than not can't be back-navigated from. While I acknowledge that Gimmetrow's example is not one of these, and my opposition to that is on different grounds, every one Piemanmoo keeps trying to force is. The category system is pointless if you can only go one way, worse still when that one leads you to an article you can't even multi-level back navigate from. Fictional characters who are redirected aren't going to be searched for in categories. They'll be searched for in the search bar. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  The category system is not pointless even if it only goes one way in some cases. Your last statement seems rather difficult to support, as one of the reasons people browse categories is to find content whose exact title they don't know—and in that case the search bar is useless. Gimmetrow 04:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  I said your redirect category was different. However, it is still pointless. Anyone searching for your example will already known she's Superwoman, thus doubling her in the cat for the sake of an alternate name is pointless. As for categories in general, people do not browse them to find something they can't spell, because that's not how searching works. Categories list, first and foremost, related topics. They are used to browse series of related articles. One cannot search them without finding a related item first, hence the need for back-navigation. You can't search a related series of articles when you end up in an article without the category, nor can you find the title of something you know by searching categories without knowing what categories it belongs to in the first place, and if the reader doesn't even know how to spell what they're looking for, they won't possibly know what categories it's in. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  You have asserted that "anyone seraching will already know she's Superwoman". That may or may not be true. Someone may be looking for that odd time-traveling character. Even if they know she is Superwoman, at least some readers may not think to look *there* to find the content. You seem to have a very narrow idea of how people browse categories, so let me just make this as clear as possible: Some readers browse categories in ways you do not. Please do not restrict their ability to use the encyclopedia. Gimmetrow 05:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  And again you fall back on this. It is not restricting their ability to use the encyclopedia, because they simply cannot navigate in such a way without being familiar with the subject in the first place. This is where your argument is flawed. The average reader, coming here from any given article, is first and foremost directed to the search bar. There is no simple way to search categories, and anyone who knows or figures out how to will have already found what they're looking for. Using your example, no one will know to search for "DC supporting characers" (or whatever it's named). They do not know what the category is called, nor will they have a frame of reference from which to search. They will search the name, or the alias, and find the character that way. Your exotic method of navigation is limited to basically you, because you cannot possibly prove that any random user could navigate in such a fashion without prior knowledge as to what categories the character would be in and how to find those categories through the characters who are related through the cat. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  And again you assume that anyone will automatically know the name. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that that someone did not know the name of this rather minor character, but recalled the general idea of a time-traveling character in the superman comics. Wouldn't the natural way to find that character be to look at the superman comics, and browse appropriate categories? Gimmetrow 06:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  Ok, I'll follow this logic. Reader X knows not the name of this woman nor her tenure as Superwoman. All he knows is that she traveled through time. Now, assuming all this, how is X to know this woman's name when he sees it? Surely he must have some idea, if he is to find the woman in the category. For your argument to have merit, she would have to be categorized at "fictional time travelers". Now, because she is categorized as such, X will need to find another character that also traveled to time. You assume X will know another person who has traveled through time. Furthermore, you assume he has prior knowledge of category navigation. This is an assumption we simply cannot make. This is what X will do, because X is not into your abstract searching method. X will first search for the woman based on her name, which he will surely have a general idea of how to spell. Failing that, X will find a topic to which this woman is related, namely the comic or comic series in which she appears. He will then browse said article for a mention or reference to her, invariably leading him to a character list. What you suggest, quite simply, is impossible, because the situations to make it true are contradictory. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  Reader X knows this is a DC comic character related to Superman/Supergirl. May start with categories from either article, and checks the female names in the category to see if it's the character. If the redirect isn't there, reader X can't find the content. Would be fine with me if "fictional time travelers" were added too, but I think that has been listified. Gimmetrow 06:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  I'd actually be against that. I was just making a point. Now you have given X more knowledge, but again you make the one fatal assumpution: you assume X knows what categories are, how they are sorted, and most importantly which category this woman would be in. This is wrong, and using your example I will show you why. Assuming X does not think to search "Superwoman", yet for some reason searches both Superman and Supergirl, and also assuming X beyond all logic decides to dive into the categories rather than reading the article, he will end up with this choice of categories (assuming he has the knowledge to avoid the irrelevant ones:

  1. Superman (in both)
  2. DC Comics aliens (in Superman)
  3. DC Comics superheroes (in both)
  4. DC Comics supporting characters (in Supergirl)

  See now that of X's potential choices he has a one in 6 chance of picking the correct category. Should he not, he will have to travel through as many as three other categories to find the correct one, this assuming he has even has an idea of what category he is supposed to be looking for. Don't you get it yet, Gimmetrow? Your suggestion is ridiculous. No user can possibly navigate in this fashion. Without prior knowledge of how the categories work or some idea of the character's name, X would take hours digging through categories trying to find this person. Categorizing her alternate name is pointless, because in order to even find it the person would have to know what he's looking for in the first place. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  Since your reply has nothing to do with redirects, you have just argued that articles should not be categorized. Thank you for proving that a restriction on categorizing redirects is largely arbitrary and damaging to the encyclopedia. Gimmetrow 07:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  Thank you for missing the point entirely. I am showing you why your categorizing this redirect is not going to help anyone find the character. You have ignored this and gone off on an ignorant tangent about me claiming all categories as bad. So, I say this to you: show me how someone is supposed to find this woman with no knowledge of her name, identity, and only a vague idea of her being a time traveler, all by only using categories. Show me why any normal reader will go through the ridiculous effort of skipping the entire article to navigate a secondary navigation aid which doesn't provide any context as to who those listed within it are. Explain, because I'm getting tired of your roundabout assertions that by removing this category the reader will somehow be incapable of finding this woman. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  If you are unable to relate to non-linear search mechanisms, that's fine. If you don't understand the concept of browsing a category, that's your loss. If you wish to mock and ridicule other readers, that's also your choice. However, I don't need to explain anything - it's patently obvious that categorizing content is helpful in some way. On the contrary, you need to explain why content in an "article" can be categorized, but the exact same content pointed to from the exact same title (as a redirect to a list entry) cannot be categorized. Such an arbitrary distinction seems absurd, and impossible for the reader to know without already being at the title in question and seeing whether it is an article or a redirect. Gimmetrow 07:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  Typical non-answer. You have no valid reason to categorize this redirect. It doesn't aid in navigation, it's not in an obvious or easily accessible category, and no user would have to do what you suggest to find the person. All you're doing is trying to use abstract situations to justify something you can't otherwise justify with simple logic. There is no logical way to find this person through categories. It's that simple. Your entire argument has basically boiled down to "what if a reader does the exact opposite of what any normal person would", which still doesn't work because the situations you use to justify it don't even stand up to scrutiny. As for the categorizing redirect to same content thing, it's called entry duplication, whereby the same article is repeated multiple times in parent or sub cats. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 08:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  I am highly tempted to call your response a typical non-answer too. It's patently obvious that not having content listed in the category under its obvious name harms navigation. In this case, it's not obvious that "Superwoman" is a list article, nor that the Wells content might be there. I have asked before, what is wrong with "entry duplication" in a category? You are the one attempting to remove content that another editor finds useful, and you have not justified your removal in any way. Gimmetrow 10:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  (ec)I'm confused by what you just wrote, Gimmetrow. If I understand you correctly, let's say a wiki reader can't remember Eulogio Pla. So instead of looking for Halfway Home (TV series), they're going to look through the Category:Fictional gay men? That doesn't make sense to me. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

  I have no idea what you're talking about. See above.Gimmetrow 05:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support I've once mentioned before that I, for a long while, was completely unsure if redirects needed the fictional-related categories, and as such, I admit to categorizing some redirects with "superfluous" cats. in the past. Thanks to a few acknowledgeable users, it had been established (at least between us) that those categories are just trivial, hence, they don't even need those types of categorizations. In other words, it is pointless to even have them — the categorized redirects are italicized and it makes the articles within the category page look wierd. This whole category scuffle started at WP:REDIRECT and continues here. Lord Sesshomaru

  The redirect in question pointed to a section of an article. That section has now been split off as a test. If possible, could you explain precisely why the content can be categorized as stand-alone text, but it could not be categorized as a redirect to the same text? Gimmetrow 05:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Come again? Lord Sesshomaru

  The redirect in question pointed to a section of an article. That exact section has now been placed at the redirect location. Someguy, and you, would not allow the redirect to be categorized. The exact text to which the redirect pointed is now an article, and can presumably be categorized. Explain to me exactly what the difference is? The *only* difference I can see is that, when the redirect is categorized, the content appears in italics in the category, but when the text is placed *at the same location*, then it appears without italics. What else is different? Gimmetrow 05:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - I think you're still missing the point here: I'm not real big on huge explainations so, to make a long story short, it is senseless to fill redirects with uneeded categories. You created the Kristin Wells, that's fine, the categories placed there won't be italicized and make the category page look ugly. I feel like I'm repeating myself anyways, that's basically the point here. Lord Sesshomaru
  • From my perspective, you seem to be saying that the only thing that matters is that items in categories are not in italics. You realize the italics typeface is a new feature, and you can change the typeface with CSS preferences? As long as the name "Kristin Wells" is in the DC supporting characters category, if you click on it you go to the same content, whether it's a redirect to a list entry, or a stand-alone article. Gimmetrow 05:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I have a hard time understanding both you and DC&Marvel maniac; I'm not sure what both your points on this are, I'm not sure why you two argue (even less do I understand what you're arguing about) — I have, however, discovered this archived talk in case you're interested in seeing another reason. I was actually gonna show that link to Someguy, but he seems to be annoyed by this topic anyhow. I sure am, and want this over ASAP. Lord Sesshomaru

• Support – despite my comments earlier on this page I now find myself agreeing that fictional character redirects should not, in general, be added to categories, for the reasons given by the proposer. The more I try to think of reasons to dispute the suggestion, using examples from the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends character pages, the more I realise that the problems I am trying to solve actually require re-arrangement of the grouped (ie list) articles instead. However, I say in general since there may be occasions where such categorisation would be appropriate. As the suggested wording would still permit this use ('any rule may be broken'), I think the revised wording should be adopted. EdJogg 13:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The proposed wording was added to the main text by one editor removing a category from a redirect as if any such category were against policy. It was cited by another editor to remove a category from a redirect, again as if any such category were against policy. Therefore this proposed wording is not being interpretated as "in general" with exceptions, and must be rejected. Gimmetrow 13:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I would have thought that the fact we are discussing a guideline (not a policy), and that the guideline is introduced with "Most redirects should not be categorised..." (my emphasis) would allow enough flexibility in the way I suggested above.

Excluding only "...most fictional characters..." exposes us to POV disputes, yet allowing 'any' risks diluting the content of certain categories beyond their usefulness. Hence we need to define a number of criteria where fictional character redirects may be categorised.

I, for one, would love to see this discussion closed and the guideline adopted.

EdJogg 14:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm only objecting to this new entry. The guideline itself, as a guideline, seems reasonably fine. My concern is primarily with lists of short content, which has here been involved specifically with lists of minor fictional characters. If these list articles were split out into stubs, the stubs would be categorized. I see no reason that redirects to list entries could not also be categorized, and in many cases should be categorized. If certain editors would cease removing categories from a tiny handful of redirects, I might even believe the proposed text was intended to allow exceptions. Gimmetrow 14:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

For the sake of harmony, I'm changing the wording from "fictional characters", to "trivial subjects". There seems to be agreement that we don't want every bit of trivia categorized. We don't have to draw the line between trivia and notability on this page. The issue is already being discussed on so many others. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - what is the definition of "trivial subjects"? Lord Sesshomaru

Case study

Someguy and Sesshomaru have decided that the redirect at Dana Dearden does not deserve any categories, citing this proposed guideline in support. As a result, the content to which the redirect points does not appear in Category:DC Comics supporting characters under the name Dana Dearden, so someone browsing the category would have difficulty finding it. Were Dana Dearden a stub, the stub would of course be categorized. Please, Someguy and Sesshomaru, explain clearly and explicitly why you wish to make browsing this category more difficult in this case. Gimmetrow 03:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

See "supporting character"? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

So you agree the redirect should be categorized? Gimmetrow 04:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, that page has a horrible definition, but using it, does she develop a relationship with Superman? I haven't read the issues, and I don't even know how many issues she's in, but the List of supporting characters in Superman seems to suggest that "supporting" characters are with him throughout the series or develop a significant relationship. Discuss it on the List page or on the Superman page - see what others think that know the subject. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:45, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you're saying the character is not even a "supporting" character, that's something neither Someguy nor anyone else has brought up before, and therefore was not a consideration in the removal of the categorization. This character is listed under Superwoman, which is categorized as a supporting character, for what it's worth. The issue here is that this content is difficult to find without some categorization of a redirect to the section. Gimmetrow 04:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

And your entire argument hinges on the fact that someone would somehow be unaware of her tenure as Superwoman, yet somehow know the woman's name and how to find her. It's ridiculous. Secret identities don't need categorization, because those identities will automatically be associated with the superhero ones. This isn't an issue of difficulty finding anything, because this is not a case where both names are equally well-known and just as easily confused. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Why would everyone know this content must be under some particular article called "superwoman", which is not identified as a list, and when linked in various articles is described as relating to Lois Lane? Again, your argument is stating that this is never, under any possible circumstances, possibly helpful in any way. As at least one editor finds it helpful, your argument is prima facie wrong. If you cannot imagine a scenario where this helps, that's not my problem. I continue to be amazed that you wish to fight over what constitutes less than a half-dozen redirects, when any normal, sane person would say "hmm, well this person thinks it's helpful to maybe it is" and go his merry way. Gimmetrow 05:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

You're the only editor finding it helpful. That's an WP:ILIKEIT position. The fact remains that you can't show how this is supposed to be helpful. You're categorizing it under a sub-cat of a category tree, one not easily found unless one goes to the right character in the first place. You continue to assert that it is somehow helping navigation, when in order to help navigation the person would have to know her name, hence the search function we have available. Your entire argument fails to realize the simple fact that categories cannot be searched as you suggest. Categorizing this redirect is pointless, because it does not aid in navigation. It only duplicates the page in the category, something that is quite explicitly frowned upon except in cases where it is genuinely necessary. This does not apply to secret identities, because they are a secondary name by which a superhero goes. It is not a name that will be just as well-known, it is a name that will be secondary to the superhero identity. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, you fail to understand how people *browse* categories. If you do not understand what browsing means, you have no business arguing about this. So to handle your arguments.

• "ILIKEIT". No, I assert it is helpful. You assert it is never, under any possible circumstances, ever, in any way helpful. Since you cannot prove such a statement, your argument is useless and amounts to "IDONTLIKEIT"
• "Secret identities shouldn't be categorized." Interesting, but the category includes other "secret identities", and it is not obvious that the "secret identity" is less known than the "heroic" identity. In this case, the "heroic" identity is hidden in a list article that is not identified as a list article, and which it is not obvious that a reader would expect to find in this article. I didn't, which is why I made the redirects to begin with.
• "Duplicating a page in a category is bad." This doesn't exactly do that, yet it entirely begs the question of why this is supposedly bad. I have asked numerous times with no response. I find that in this case and others, especially with redirects to list entries, having a duplicate listing is helpful for navigation. The exact same content would be categorized if it were a stub, so it has absolutely zero effect on the way the category looks to categorize a redirect to the same content, with the sole arbitrary difference that it appears in italics in the category.

I have addressed your arguments yet again. I am tired of this. Aside from Sesshomaru, who removed the categories apparently because italics look bad, you are the only one removing this category. Will you cease and desist removing these categories? Gimmetrow 06:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Come one guys, it is fairly obvious what the problem is here. Redirects were invented as search hints. You type "Dana Dearden" in the search box, hit the Go button, and instead of being presented with search results, you are taken straight to the right place. It was never intended that redirects would be used in the way we are discussing here, and as a result they only do half the job. If we categorise a redirect, we can easily get from the category to the redirect target, but we cannot easily get from the redirect target back to the category. Moreover, categorising redirects makes it possible to do all sorts of other things that were never intended, such as filling a category with hundreds of redirects to the same article. We all agree that categorising redirects isn't the ideal way of achieving our vision, and we all wish there was a better solution. Where you guys disagree is in whether there is any point deploying a half-arsed solution. One of you thinks there is, one of you thinks there isn't. I know you both hold your opinions strongly, but I don't see why this has to turn into a slanging match. Hesperian 06:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the slanging match is silly, and is partly due to a misunderstanding for the difference between browsing and searching. I disagree that redirects were never intended to be used this way. In once sense, categorising redirects should have been obvious from the beginning. There were worries that the category system was too rigid in the sense that only the name chosen for the article title would be visible in the category, and that you couldn't have the other names showing up. Well, once you categorise the "redirects from other names", then the other names are there and that problem is solved. It is just like the blind entry in a paper index. It says "for this subject, see this entry instead". When categories are used as indexes (and not all categories are like this), then including the blind redirects makes sense. If a category is used as a complete list (sometimes preferable to an actual list), then including duplicate entries is a problem, but then you use a parallel category structure. For example Category:Banksia taxa by common name and Category:Banksia taxa by scientific name.

The argument that back-navigation becomes a bit more difficult is a valid one, but can be answered. The answer is to ensure that the destination article still has relevant categories to lead the reader back to the part of the category structure that they came from. For the Banksia example, following one of the redirects in Category:Banksia taxa by common name brings you to the scientific name destination article. People now have the option to either press "back" on their browser to return to the category and continue browsing, or to go to the categories at the bottom, which include Category:Banksia taxa by scientific name. If they click the latter, they will see explantory text linking back to Category:Banksia taxa by common name, making it clear that they have two options over which category to browse. I hope this answers some of the concerns about back-navigation. Carcharoth 12:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

This is going to sound flippant because there is a mind-bogglingly obvious solution to the 'back-navigation issue' that everyone has ignored so far...

...most modern browsers are supplied with a 'back' button! So, if the user is unfamiliar with WP and doesn't realise that the redirect route is shown at the top of the article, they can always click back the way they came. (And, yes, I know they'll need to click twice for a redirect...). Just trying to make the point that the lack of back-navigation shouldn't be allowed to derail the proposal.

Besides which, I would have thought that the very use of categories to navigate/search/research indicates that the user has a degree of confidence/competence regarding the use and foibles of WP, and is prepared for such inconsistencies.

EdJogg 12:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I did point out that the back button can be used, but nearly forgot about it! So emphasising this sort of "so simple we forget about it as we use it all the time" user design point is extremely useful. Carcharoth 13:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It has been ignored so far because it is a non-issue. Sure you can use your browser's back button to navigate through the pages in your browser history. The point here is that when you are at an article, you can easily identify what categories the article is in and navigate to them. But you cannot easily identify what categories its redirects are in, nor can you easily navigate to them. Hesperian 05:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Why would you need to? All the relevant categories should already be there at the bottom of the article. Give me an example, and I will show you how a little bit or reorganisation gets around this problem. Carcharoth 17:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay; this might be a bit of a complex one though. For a while I've been toying with the idea of adding plant publication categories to the Category:Introductions by year category tree. e.g. Category:Plants published in 1810 would be a subcategory of Category:1810 introductions. Whether or not you agree that this is a good idea, implementation would be pretty straightforward in most cases. Difficulties arise, however, when categorising plants that have been transferred. For example Banksia collina was published in 1810, but in 1981 it was declared a variety of Banksia spinulosa, and given the new name Banksia spinulosa var. collina. It seems inappropriate to put Banksia spinulosa var. collina in both Category:Plants published in 1810 and Category:Plants published in 1981. It also seems inappropriate to create an article on Banksia collina, which is after all nothing more than a redundant name; clearly this should be a redirect to Banksia spinulosa var. collina. The most appropriate solution appears to be to categorise Banksia spinulosa var. collina into Category:Plants published in 1981, and to categorise the Banksia collina redirect into Category:Plants published in 1810. But there is a big problem with that: readers located at Banksia spinulosa var. collina can neither discover nor navigate to Category:Plants published in 1810. Hesperian 23:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, for starters we can say that Banksia spinulosa var. collina, as a name, didn't exist before 1810, so it is correct not to put that article in Category:Plants published in 1810. It may sound pedantic, but it would be correct to put it in Category:Plants published in 1810 and later renamed, which could be a subcategory of Category:Plants published in 1810, or there could simply be a link at the top of the category page to Category:Plants published in 1810. This 'renaming' or 'transferral' problem occurs with ships as well. Take a look at and compare Category:Republic of Korea Navy ships, Category:Naval ships of South Korea and Category:United States Navy ships transferred to the Republic of Korea Navy. The distinction being made there is between ships built in Korea, and old US Navy ships refitted and refurbished and sold to Korea. Many of the latter don't have much written about their Korean career, such as USS De Haven (DD-727), so the name of the ship while in Korea is usually just a redirect to the section of the US Navy ship article. In the case of the USS De Haven (DD-727), the Korean name and redirect is ROKS Incheon (DD-918). That redirect is categorised in Category:Republic of Korea Navy ships, while the main article is categorised in both Category:United States Navy ships transferred to the Republic of Korea Navy and Category:United States Navy ships (well, it should be and is eventually, but the monster Category:United States Navy state-related ships gets in the way somewhat...). Does that help at all? Carcharoth 01:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

• Printworthy redirects should be categorized; non-printworthy should not. How hard does this have to be? -- nae'blis 03:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Not very. That is genius in its simplicity! :-) Carcharoth 03:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Though to be pedantic, there is Category:Unprintworthy redirects and Category:Printworthy redirects. :-) Carcharoth 09:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Looks like a very good rule-of-thumb to use, and would be worth mentioning in the guidelines. Note that the majority of redirects that I have looked at / modified do not belong to either of these categories yet. Surely ALL redirects should be applied to one or other...? -- EdJogg 10:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
        • There are numerous "administrative" categories for redirects listed at Wikipedia:Redirect. Unfortunately many people (including myself) rarely use them. Creating a redirect is easy. Ferreting out the category to put it into is often too much effort... Carcharoth 10:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Pedantic? That's exactly the sort of categorization I was thinking of. In my opinion every template (R from xxx) in cat:unprintworthy is the sort of thing we don't want cluttering up our actual categories, but many of the others could/should be. I wasn't meaning to say that we should use that category as our criteria, but it outlines the right sort of criteria, in my view... -- nae'blis 13:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Examples

The examples for Subtopic categorization are obscure and do not seem to be representative. I really struggled to understand that Mantle Hood is a name of a person, not a hood over a mantle.

Better examples might be:

• Finnish general strike of 1905 - redirects to Russian Revolution of 1905#Finland
• Prohibition in Finland - redirects to Prohibition#Nordic countries
• Allied Control Commission (Finland) - redirects to Allied Commission#Finland

All are listed in Category:History of Finland and other Finland related categories. -- Petri Krohn 03:02, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand your struggle. Mantle Hood was known for wearing a cape. When I first met Mantle Hood, I didn't know who he was. Someone pointed him out to me and said, "There is Mantle Hood", which seemed like a very odd way to point out someone's cape. Of your examples, I like Prohibition in Finland the best, and will replace Mr. Hood. --☑ SamuelWantman 23:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that Prohibition in Finland wasn't categorised in Category:Prohibition, so I added that (but haven't updated this proposed guideline). Rather neatly, it now appears in the category alongside Prohibition in Russian Empire and Soviet Union. So we now have an example of a relevant subsection (the Finland one) and a relevant article (the Russian and Soviet one) appearing in the same, appropriate category. I hope everyone agrees this is an improvement, and that this method allows readers who are browsing categories to find things more easily. Carcharoth 12:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, the redirect Prohibition in Finland should not be in Category:Prohibition, because the main article Prohibition already is. If we start adding all these categorized redirects to the same categories as the redirected article, we will just end up with overcrowded categories. -- Petri Krohn 05:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

See the comment immediately below -- I just fell into this trap too! EdJogg 13:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

What also helps here is using the prefix index. Take a look at all the articles beginning "Prohibition in". I've now set up Category:Prohibition by country to take these articles under one umbrella, plus the section that may be an article one day (the Finland one). Carcharoth 13:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

If Prohibition in the United States (which is also listed earlier in the article) is replaced (in the 'See also' section of Prohibition) by the new Category:Prohibition by country then you regain your bi-directional navigability!

EdJogg 13:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Most of the problems over duplicate entries are solved by reorganising the structure, like I did by creating Category:Prohibition by country. The prohibition article should be the central article from which everything else flows, including the category structure. That category is a bit disorganised at the moment, but it is useful for editors trying to fill in the gaps in coverage. Hmm. I feel an "evolution of categories" (from being 'useful for editors' to being 'useful for readers') essay coming on! But not today. Carcharoth 17:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed revision to 'How to...' section

I have been bold and re-written the section titled "How to categorize a redirect".

There are three main reasons for this:.

(1) The requirement for category assignments to be in the same paragraph appears to be superfluous.

I tried an experiment with the redirect Meatchopper coupling, which I created yesterday following the guidance of the discussions above. No adverse effects were seen when each component was placed on a separate line, even with a blank separating line between.

(BTW, 'meatchopper coupling' is not some obscure sexual practice, it is an entirely un-smutty railway term!)

(2) I would guess that the majority of editors will continue to use the default CSS settings. The detail about how the italics are defined is 'a bit techy' for the average editor – hence separation to own section.

(3) The sentence "Possibly a stronger marking system is needed, as it is not clear to everyone what the italics mean." is not appropriate in the guideline text, although might be appropriate on this (or another) talk page.

I would suggest that any user who clicked on a link shown in italics would discover quite quickly that it was a redirect. It's not a difficult concept: more tidy than adding an icon, and less discriminating than changing the colour (considering the visually impaired).

For completeness I have included some example formatting. Hopefully the resulting whole better meets the needs of this section.

EdJogg 13:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Hm... The redirect doesn't seem to redirect. It also doesn't work if it is all on the same line. And now that I'm editing my comment, I notice that the link had redirects switched off. You had me fooled. For those wanting a wikilink you can click on Meatchopper coupling. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:47, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

My sincerest possible apologies, Sam! There was never an intention to fool anyone. In the context of what I was discussing, the redirect itself is nothing special; it's much the same as many others discussed on this page (a redirect to an article subsection). It was the content of the redirect – the formatting of the underlying code – that is different, which is why I used the external-URL link format (to disable the redirecting action) rather than a direct wikilink, so that anyone interested could junp directly to the redirect itself.

EdJogg 08:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Another example

What do people here think about Migrant Mother (Category:Photographs) versus Florence Owens Thompson (Category:Photographs (people))? The latter category was recently created by me to get all the "names after people" articles on iconic photographs into their own category. I personally feel that all the articles should be named after the name of the photograph, but sometimes the photographs are never named, but came to be 'associated' with the subject of the photograph. Carcharoth 22:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Counterexample

What this page needs (imho) is a few examples of when not to categorize redirects. >Radiant< 15:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, Category:Redirects from misspellings and the other ones listed at Wikipedia:Redirect#Spellings.2C Misspellings.2C Tenses and Capitalizations are too obvious, really, or is that what you meant? I think you mean printworthy redirects that might be misleading. Have a look through Category:Redirects from abbreviation, Category:Redirects from alternative names, Category:Redirects from historic names (only created recently), Category:Redirects from scientific names, Category:Redirects to scientific namesand Category:Redirects from alternative languages and see what you can find. I think there will be examples and counter-examples in all those categories. Carcharoth 13:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

To kick off the discussion, what about this example?

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone versus Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - should the redirect appear in any category? Carcharoth 13:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, it should not be in any category that already contains the "Philosopher's stone" link. >Radiant< 09:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    • People are constantly changing links from one version to the other and then it gets reverted back. Very few people seem to be aware that the film was released under both names. I wonder if this problem would be lessened by categorizing the redirect? -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

And people will know the book by one title or the other. Whoever goes to the category to see all the articles would think the book missing from WP.DGG 04:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. How about these:

• Comité Olympique et Sportif Luxembourgeois versus Luxembourgian Olympic and Sporting Committee?
• Magical Squadron Magic Ranger versus Mahou Sentai Magiranger?
• The Protector (2005 film) and Warrior King versus Tom-Yum-Goong?

I also looked through Category:Redirects from abbreviation, and in my opinion these should not be categorised other than in that category, unless (say in the case of proteins) a category specifically for the abbreviations was created. In many cases though, a sortable table is better for navigation around variant names within a limited group, as someone suggested for the Messier objects catalogue. For animals and plants though, I think both common names and binomial latin names should be categorised in separate structures, so people can browse either by common name, or by latin name. See Category:Redirects to scientific names and Category:Redirects from scientific names for more examples than you can shake a stick at! Carcharoth 11:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• Okay, how about this: A redirect to a page should not be in any of the categories that page is in, except if the page is a list and the redirect is an item on that list. >Radiant< 12:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  • That might work, though the cases of redirects to subsections of articles is interesting. I would venture that redirects to subsections of articles should only be categorised if they are "redirects with potential" (ie. the sections might one day grow to be their own articles). Sometimes you have redirects that are questionable, like one I created myself the other day: The Electras. That redirects to a section of the John Kerry article, but you have to read some way into that section before realising what the connection is. In my opinion, that redirect can go, and anyone searching for "The Electras" should get John Kerry near the top of their search results. No need for a redirect or categorising. Maybe add something along the lines of: some printworthy redirects may be non-notable, and should only be categorised if they are mentioned in a list. Or whatever. Carcharoth 14:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Radiant's suggestion would run contrary to lift bridge, which is in the same category as its target, and which people seem to accept. I wouldn't categorize The Electras because the section it points to is not devoted to that topic, unlike a typical redirect to a section in a list. By the way, both templates for redirects to list entries, {{R to list entry}} and {{R to section}}, have text saying they imply the redirect is not notable, which could be taken as contrary to a redirect with possibilities. Should that implication be removed? Gimmetrow 14:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, there's always an exception or two. I would be interested to know (1) whether it's actually useful to have "lift bridge" and "vertical lift bridge" in the same cat, and (2) whether such examples are common. >Radiant< 15:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Ah, well Vertical lift bridge is in the 'Bridges' category AND the sub-cat of Bridges: 'Vertical lift bridges'. If you remove it from 'Cat:Bridges', the problem goes away and someone looking for 'Lift bridge' (under 'L') in 'Cat:Bridges' will find what they're after. EdJogg 16:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

          In response to Sam's comments following... This suggestion follows (my understanding of) the general principle that an article will (only) reside in the lowest category of a tree, and not in parent categories. In this case, 'Bridges' is a parent cat of 'Vertical lift bridges'. I have seen MANY examples where editors have removed a cat from an article because it is a parent of another cat to which the article belongs (and have done so myself). If my understanding is wrong then it might be worth checking the appropriate policy pages concerning cats to ensure that other people are not mis-reading them in the same way. EdJogg 11:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

          There are several well accepted exceptions the idea of putting categories only at the bottom of the tree. One is the topic article exception. These are spelled out at WP:SUBCAT. The general concept of not having duplicates is common, but there are people like myself who think this is misguided and should change. There are wikiprojects that have decided to fully populate categories at multiple levels (eg. Operas and Bridges). I've put much less energy into fighting this battle, because I think the issue will become moot when category intersection is implemented. I was on a panel yesterday at a conference (representing Wikipedia) and afterwards David Weinberger who studies categorization methods was asking me about what some of the categorization "issues" were at Wikipedia. I told him about the duplication issue, and he asked something like, "So why is it a problem duplicating categories at different levels?" I replied that some people thought it would clutter up the listings for articles, and others thought it would make it much harder to maintain. I find both of these positions hard to justify (not that I want to justify them). I still believe that categories should be fully populated from the "topic article level" and down. If you read an article about the battles of the American Civil War, it makes sense that there would be a fully populated Category:Battles of the American Civil War. I don't understand the compulsion to turn the categorization system into a classification system, and depopulate perfectly fine categories into smaller and smaller subdivisions. Ah, don't get me started... --☑ SamuelWantman 08:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

          Hey, I'm on your side! :o) Seriously, thanks for pointing out WP:SUBCAT, I'll remember to put it into practice and to quote it in relevant discussions. Could it be added in some way as guidance for when to categorise a redirect? Some of the arguments would appear to be common to both. -- EdJogg 09:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

          Well, if you don't want to get started, I will. There is a perfectly fine category at Category:Photographs, and I then noticed someone had started a subcategorisation scheme of Category:Photographs by year, and one or two of the photographs had "disappeared" into the "by year" categories, so instead of having a category of 20 or so articles to browse, you had the frightening prospect of 20 different subcategories with lots of clicks needed to reach the articles. Part of this may arise because people can view the categories in different ways. Some people can see all the articles in the immediate subcategories of a category in one go (using something like the CategoryTree tool), but most readers cannot do this, or don't know how to. Maybe a word of advice somewhere reminding people to categorise according to the basic default layout seen by the readers, not the layout you may be using? Carcharoth 10:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

          • A little background. I added this redirect after CFD discussion about renaming the category from one to the other. The discussion pointed out that both were perfectly good names for both the category and the article. By having the redirect, someone browsing will find it in either place. Why is this a problem? Also, I don't think EdJogg's suggestion is a good one. Both the subcategory and the article belong in the category. The article is about a type of bridge, as is most of the other articles in the category. The sub-category contains specific bridges of the type. The topic article is duplicated in the sub-category, which is common practice and assists navigation from the topic article to the related category. I don't see any of this as a problem. Radiant! perhaps you could explain what problems you want to solve by implementing A redirect to a page should not be in any of the categories that page is in, except if the page is a list and the redirect is an item on that list. I'm not getting it. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
            • I think it is intended to dissuade people from putting things like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Category:Harry Potter books. My feeling is that a general rule won't work, but a section giving examples of cases where categorising redirects is misleading would be good. In the case of the vertical lift bridge, one problem is that the count of pages in the category is inflated, as it always will be in the case of a synonym, rather than the case of a subtopic that may one day have its own page (or not, in the case of a list). I think people should really use soft links a lot more. Have a category of "minor characters" that effectively lists all the entries on a list (which may not be arranged alphabetically), and at the top of the category have a link to the list article as a whole. The list article can then be categorised in appropriate categories elsewhere. The English language titles of foreign films could equally have their own categories, so you would have a category called Category:English-language films, or something, and put the original title in Category:Thai-language films, though the common practice of having soundtracks and subtitles in different languages makes this a bit silly, actually. The current practice of labelling the article with both languages seems sensible, or maybe not? Hmm. There are probably versions dubbed and subtitled in French, so why is English singled out here? Carcharoth 09:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
              • I don't understand why the count is important. Perhaps the wording should say "entries" instead of "articles". or say "...contains XX articles and YY redirects". Categories are for browsing, not for counting articles. Why not have alternate film names in categories if a film was widely known by an alternate name? The general guideline is that articles should be named with the name they are most know by (which could be in any language). If 60% of English speakers use one name and 40% use another it seems useful to those 40% to have a redirect categorized. So the question for me is how low do those percentages have to go when adding alternate titles. Since I see little or no harm done by adding the alternate listings, I'd put the percentage fairly low. If someone wants to defend categorizing a redirect because that is the name they know the topic by, and the alternative is not a minor variation, then it probably is OK to categorize the redirect. To be clear, I'm only talking about alternate names, not spelling variations. The differences should be significant. I'd probably just want one entry for The Bicycle Thief and Bicycle Thieves, since they'd be right next to each other. I also don't want to encourage people spending time coming up with alternate names just for the sake of adding alternate names. There is little or no reason to add a foreign language name for a movie or other work, if it is not known by that name by English speakers. There's no reason to categorize the redirect to The Shop on Main Street, I don't think it was ever released in English speakers as Obchod na korze. For the same reason, there's no reason to categorize an English language redirect to Così fan tutte. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 08:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

proposal or guideline?

Things have been very quiet here. Is this ready to become a "guideline"? --☑ SamuelWantman 07:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Support – Suits me -- I'd be glad to get it off my watchlist!

I've applied some 'polish' to the first section, essentially to add more whitespace around the examples to make them easier to follow. Feel free to adjust further, or revert if wrong.

I'd be quite happy with it as it is, providing there's no issue with the fact that the two sections are obviously written by different authors!

EdJogg 09:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• I have an awkward feeling about the "alternate name" clause, which I believe would lead to disputes. >Radiant< 12:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

In my albeit limited experience, alternate names have helped end disputes instead of leading to them. Do you have any examples you can cite? Can you explain your "awkward feelings"? -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

• I'm thinking of fiction, mostly. Is it helpful to have both "Anakin Skywalker" and "Darth Vader" in a category for Star Wars characters? Is not doing so to be considered a spoiler? I seem to recall a heated discussion about an issue like that. Perhaps we need to make an exception for people or characters with multiple names; I can't see much of a benefit in listing a real person under both his actual name and his nickname. Doing so would make a category of people seem to contain more people than it actually does.
• Aside from that, perhaps the "bridge" example isn't too good, considering "vertical lift" is an oxymoron. Perhaps there's a more suitable example? >Radiant< 09:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

• Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader? I had no idea! Seriously, perhaps a better example is an author known by two different pen-names, both equally well known. Instead of arguing which goes in the category, we'd just put both. Is this a problem? Vertical lift may be an oxymoron, but it is what engineers call the bridges, perhaps to distinguish them from draw-bridges. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 10:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

• (Aware that I'm veering wildly off topic...!) I think you mean tautology, not oxymoron – a 'horizontal lift' would be an oxymoron. (To be fair, I only spotted this when I went to check 'oxymoron'... :o) ) But 'vertical lift bridge' is neither, since we are describing a (lift-) bridge where the deck is lifted vertically (as opposed to pivoting about one end).</offtopic>

Agreed that 'lift bridge' and 'vertical lift bridge' is not a good example due to the similarity of the names, but it is at least clear what it represents. In their character category, Anakin/Darth should (probably) both be included since people unfamiliar with the films may not associate the names directly (as I didn't initially), but I don't think this is a good example either. And I haven't thought of any more examples yet, sorry. Incidentally, is it necessary to delay launching this as a guideline until we have 'good' examples? EdJogg 13:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

How about an author like Nora Roberts who wrote under several pseudonyms (J.D. Robb, Sarah Hardesty, Jill March). If an author writes in different genres each with a different pseudonym, some categories should use the real name (people from Maryland), some the pseudonyms (American romantic fiction writers ), and some the pseudonyms and the real name (American novelists). -- ☑ SamuelWantman 19:47, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a good point. The decision whether to include the article and its redirects in the same category depends heavily on which category is being considered. The guiding principle should always be whether a reader, knowing they are in a particular category, will (a) recognise the redirect as a member of that category and (b) when clicking on the redirect will realise immediately that they have been redirected and why. This should also work the other way around as well. When reading the category tags at the bottom of an article, will the reader agree with what they see there? If not, the category tag may belong elsewhere, possibly on a redirect, and a more precise category is needed for the main article. Carcharoth 10:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Categorising on the basis of article title

I propose we include a recommendation to categorise redirects where a category is defined in terms of article title, rather than article subject. For example, the plant Acacia tetragonophylla is commonly known as "Curara", a name of Australian Aboriginal origin. For this reason, Acacia tetragonophylla is currently in Category:Australian Aboriginal words and phrases. In my opinion it would be far more appropriate to put the Curara redirect into that category. There are many other examples of such categories: Category:Eponymous places, the already-mentioned categories Category:Banksia taxa by common name and Category:Banksia taxa by scientific name,.... Hesperian 03:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Can I rephrase this as:

it is recommended that redirects be created and categorized if an article name does not fit the definition of a parent category. For example, rather than adding the article Acacia tetragonophylla to Category:Australian Aboriginal words and phrases, it is preferable to add the redirect Curara. "Curara" is the name which is of Australian Aboriginal origin.

--☑ SamuelWantman 07:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Something like this would be good. A lot of the confusion about categorising arises from people putting articles or redirects in categories that seem OK, but on later inspection it turns out that a more precise name for the category would avoid confusion. Sometimes though people will look for both names, and we shouldn't try and second-guess which name they look for when looking through a category. Again, this is why I suggested making it clearer what the redirect is pointing to. If you had "Acacia tetragonophylla" and "Curara" both in Category:Australian Aboriginal bushcraft, but the entry for "Curara" appeared as "Curara - see Acacia tetragonophylla", this would reduce the possibility of confusion. Now, of the two, only "Curara" should appear in Category:Australian Aboriginal words and phrases, but "Acacia tetragonophylla" could appear in Category:Scientific names of plants used in Australian Aboriginal bushcraft, as opposed to "Curara" appearing in Category:Australian Aboriginal plant names. That list of Australian Aboriginal names should probably be subdivided anyway, into plants, animals, etc. With the list being maintained in parallel to the category. Carcharoth 10:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Another example (war memorials)

I recently found a section of a war article describing a war memorial. This was a classic case of categorising a section which may or may not become its own article. Hohenzollern Redoubt Memorial is the redirect, sending people to Hohenzollern Redoubt#Hohenzollern Redoubt Memorial. The redirect appears in Category:World War I memorials and cemeteries and Hohenzollern Redoubt appears in Category:Battles of the Western Front (World War I). Carcharoth 10:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice clear example to include. The two categories mentioned are clearly different. EdJogg 22:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Related question - would it be in order to add a location (coordinates template) to a redirect such as Hohenzollern Redoubt Memorial? (Eg as in Arts Tower - it just appears in the title bar.) This would also apply to the Zip code/postcode discussion below. -- roundhouse0 13:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It won't work on the redirect, as people won't see it there. Add it to the section, if that is possible. Just found it is not possible. Use another co-ord template (one that stays where it is and doesn't float up to the title bar). If that doesn't exist, ask for one! The idea would be that if the section ever grew to become its own article, it would carry the template with it (and the template would be changed to the title one). Carcharoth 16:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Try Template:Coor d instead. Carcharoth 16:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking more from the point of view of Google Earth, which collects coords from Wikipedia, but at present only takes 1 coord per article (ie the title coord, or the one in the infobox, or perhaps the first one). So if Google Earth was told to scrutinise redirects it could then pick up Hohenzollern Redoubt Memorial. And indeed the zip code example below would become more attractive if it served 2 purposes; I expect there is a database somewhere of zip codes, a name, and a pair of coordinates, into which a creative bot could be plugged. -- roundhouse0 10:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

So Google Earth collects the co-ord information from the redirect. How does that help Wikipedia readers? We want them to be able to click the co-ord and then be taken to a Google Earth image, or maybe offered the option of several map imaging services. Carcharoth 09:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

In the specific example Hohenzollern Redoubt Memorial (I have spent some time on google and google earth trying to locate this, the article having been singularly uninformative geographically) I would place the coords (if I could find them - it is apparently on the Vermelles-Hulluch road - I have found a graveyard 50.485°N 2.789°E / 50.485; 2.789) in both the redirect and the section; and Hohenzollern Redoubt itself (which is marked roughly on google earth but not by wikipedia) would have its own coords (it seems to be a couple of miles north of the memorial). In more general cases one could imagine a bot rooting out coords from within an article XXX and creating redirects (to the nearest section) placed in category XXX. Eg there is List of United Kingdom locations: Ma-Maq with many redlinks - I am not claiming to have thought this out completely. There is also an existing partial categorisation of UK post codes (see eg B postcode area) and one might imagine redirects (or indeed articles) for the sub-codes such as B1, B2, ... , suitably coordinated and sub-categorised. -- roundhouse0 13:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Zip Codes

Recently I created a redirect for 94117 the Zip Code for Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California. Wikipedia has List of ZIP Codes in the United States but does not have the information for each Zip Code. I think this would make a fine set of categories of redirects. While this information is available elsewhere on the web, it is not connected to Wikipedia articles. I think this would be an interesting way to browse, and also a useful way to find Zip Code information. There would be categories like Category:ZIP codes starting with 9 which would have subcategories like Category:Alaska ZIP codes and Category:California ZIP codes, etc... These categories would have all the two number combinations, and each subcategory below that would hold up to 1000 redirects. --☑ SamuelWantman 07:10, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

You will start running into disambiguation pages at some point. 10000 for example. So some will have to be 10000 (zip code) (OK, so it probably isn't a zip code), and there will be other cases as well. If the number of zip codes is finite, a sortable table might be a better way of presenting this data. Carcharoth 02:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems that 10000 is in New York somewhere... Carcharoth 02:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I think adding zip codes as redirects is a bad idea.

• For a start, you'd need to create 100,000 redirects. That could take quite a long time. (I've been on WP a year and only recently exceeded 5000 edits.)
• Secondly, how many users would expect to enter a number in the search box and be (re-)directed to a settlement in the US? (How many would actually want to?)
• Thirdly: "interesting way to browse"? Are you serious? 'Useful', maybe...

Your ideas for categorising the zip code redirects seems sound, but I agree with Carcharoth that a much better solution would be a set of list pages, although even that would be an enormous job (a WikiProject in its own right, I would say.)

Please don't let this idea divert attention from the need to decide whether this guideline can be formally accepted.

EdJogg 08:59, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I vaguely recall that various ZIP code lists have gone through AfDs. The list Sam quotes above was the only survivor I think. There wasn't much stomach for massive lists like that. Too much like a phone directory. Carcharoth 09:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect the list would get deleted these days. Many useful lists are getting thrown out. I'd like to see Wikipedia become a more comprehensive source of information. I wasn't thinking that I'd add all the zip code redirects myself. I figured that people would notice the categories and say "Hey! my zip code is missing", and it wouldn't take long before most got populated. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 09:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it ought at least to be 94117 USA ... other countries might well have ZIP codes. Also the H-A article doesn't seem to mention 94117 so the re-direct is a little baffling. Here in the UK we have post-codes ... would a redirect such as MK89DP UK make sense to a non-UK person? (I've created it - it's the postcode for part of one side of a road in Great Holm. To be exact it should be MK8 9DP, but the last triple is always NXX where N is an integer between 0 and 9. The first bit can be 2, 3 or 4 chars. The British have a genius for cumbersome code.)
I would have thought a bot could do much of the work. (Look for ZIP codes in US articles, create re-direct if present.) The list could then link to the re-directs. -- roundhouse0 10:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Towards a guideline

What is still needed:

• Writing an introduction and updating Wikipedia:Redirect#Categories for redirect pages.
• There should also be something noted at Wikipedia:Categorisation.
• The wording of the "alternate name" bit needs thrashing out and better examples found. I think a distinction should be drawn between synonyms (eg. bulbar sheath vs Tenon's capsule) and true alternate name (eg. psydonyms and aliases).
•  Done - Archive the talk page
•  Done - Create shortcuts for main page and talk page
• Creating a longer list of examples, from the talk page archives and elsewhere, and linking to it from the main page.
• Advertise the proposed move from proposal to guideline. Where should it be advertised?

Plus anything else that is needed. Carcharoth 09:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC) (and updated at various times thereafter)

Well, it's now a guideline. Hopefully the best guidelines are just common sense and don't attract controversy. Let's see what happens. Carcharoth 23:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Two questions.

First: Is there anything in particular to say on the issue of specific people? I guess it can sort of go into the redirects to a section, but that's not always the case. I bring this up because I recently moved Nick Perry (a person not really notable outside one incident) to 1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal, and most of the old categories only applied to Mr. Perry. So I stuck them on the redirect. This would seem to be a reasonable usage of categorized redirects to me... but not exactly covered by this current page?

Secondly: Radiant suggested in the talk page archives that redirects to a list might be reasonable in a category. I happen to agree with this. Any comment on the issues in this CFD, in which this page was cited as not supporting my stance? It deals with whether categorized redirects to a list should be preserved, something I don't see this page as opposing. Since these are redirects to specific sections, I don't see the problem, and moreover see little harm in the general case of categories with lots of redirects. It may not be the most amazingly useful thing ever, but if a small category is going to exist anyway, then why not have an additional redirect list to sections? SnowFire 01:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

On the first point, we don't want too many categories on redirects. If Nick Perry doesn't have an article, he shouldn't really appear in the births and deaths categories. This feels like a tricky one to me. It feels like a case where there should be a special category for "names of people redirected to other articles". In many cases, the redirect might only be there to preserve edit history after a merge, in which case it should be labelled as such (unfortunately we only have an old Category:Redirects with old history that was created for redirects from CamelCase articles). Probably in this case, you want to create a template to populate Category:Redirects from merged biography articles, and then have them dealt with as a group with no other categories applied to such redirects. Carcharoth 20:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

On the second point, whether or not to have a group of list redirects appearing in an article category that readers browse is ultimately, in my view, an editorial decision. I agree with the view that it does no harm to have both the list and the category of redirects to the list. What I will say, though, is that the redirects should still be categorized somewhere, usually in some administrative category managed by a WikiProject. Otherwise it is easy to lose track of them, and anchored list redirects like this are very valuable for linking directly to an entry in a list. Have a look at Category:Middle-earth redirects and its subcategories to see how administrative categorising of redirects can be useful (if incredibly tedious at times). Carcharoth 20:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Potential problem

I've just looked into this and there are a mass number of trivial-related redirects categorized in Category:EastEnders characters. I've been reverted more than once today for attempting to de-categorize some of these per this guideline. Can somebody look into this? Thanks. Lord Sesshomaru 00:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The members of Wikiproject EastEnders want their redirects categorised this way. Is this a problem? — AnemoneProjectors (?) 10:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say there isn't a problem here. When you click on the redirects, you get taken to exactly what you would expect to see. The problem seems to be whether the redirects in question are "trivial", and here I'd say not. Minor characters in a list should be removed from the list if trivial. If they remain in the list, they are not trivial. In this case (and many others), redirects to sections of a list of minor characters is a good use of categorising of redirects. The issue tends to be not whether to categorise the redirects or not, but whether to: (a) lump the 'articles' and 'redirects to sections' together in the same category; or (b) to create a subcategory for the minor characters. If there are a lot of minor characters that overwhelm the articles about the main characters, then I'd say create a subcategory. You then have a choice of setting up: (a) a "main category", with the minor characters in a subcategory, with no overlap; (b) a parent category with all articles and redirects in it, with two subcategories for "main" and "minor" characters (using the same criteria used on the lists of characters), where the sum of the two subcategories equals the parent category. There are other possibilities, but those are the most logical ones.

Also, the best argument for categorising the redirects is that this allows the category to be an alphabetical index to the characters, allowing the lists to be ordered chronologically by appearance date. Carcharoth 16:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

All and all Carcharoth, what would you suggest for WP:WPEE? Lord Sesshomaru 16:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem? older ≠ wiser 17:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought it was against guideline at all costs to categorize trivial-related subjects. This one sort of makes sense to me now. Lord Sesshomaru 18:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that was the problem, hopefully sorted now. In case I was too verbose before, I'm saying that I think categorising the redirects is good in this case. But the guideline should have been clearer. I'll change it. Carcharoth 20:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to clarify something: If we can categorise our redirects in the EastEnders characters category, can we categorise the redirects in other categories they'd be in if they were articles instead of redirects to list entries (e.g. Category:Fictional characters by occupation or Category:Fictional characters by nature)? I'm not too worried about it but would just like to know. — AnemoneProjectors (?) 22:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it would depend. If they are a really minor character, never likely to expand beyond a paragraph or two, then I wouldn't put too many categories on them. The best thing to do is look at the category you are thinking of adding them to, and think to yourself: "would I really expect to see this person here, or am I just trying too hard to put them somewhere"? If they are just a minor character in Eastenders, then that is probably about the only place they should be categorised. If they are really notable for being, say, a fictional orphan, then maybe put them there, but maybe not. WP:OVERCAT applies to redirects as much as any other thing being categorized. Carcharoth 23:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think the problem here is that people are trying to implement a list by using a category instead; this could lead to a slippery slope if people start using it more. I think the best idea is to restrict this to categories like "<foo show> characters", and not use it for "fictional characters by trait / profession / nation / etc". Otherwise the latter would become clogged to the point of unusability. >Radiant< 11:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree. Only use as a browsing alternative to a list (by definition, as we are categorising a redirect, the redirect must go to a article section or to a list - otherwise it is just its own article). How best to phrase that I wonder, and how best to get across the point that subcategories for redirects is sometimes best to avoid clogging. I would say a "category of list sections" should consist of: (a) the list; and (b) all the redirects pointing to sections in that list. This is an example of where categories and lists can work together. The category provides an alphabetical order and browsing point, while the list provides an annotated overview of the whole category. Carcharoth 12:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

New section - categorising list entries

The guideline wasn't clear on this before, so I've added a new section with examples of when people have categorized list entries. See my edit here. Some people have expressed concern before that minor characters maybe shouldn't be categorized this way, so please discuss here if you have any concerns. Thanks. Carcharoth 21:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest this practice be deprecated.

The guideline suggests this technique be used so readers can see an alphabetic listing when the original article has information that is not presented in alphabetic order. Maybe in 2007 wikitables weren't sortable. But they are sortable now. Creating a category merely to present links in alphabetic order seems like a bad idea to me.

Using categories in this way overlooks their serious weaknnesses -- for instance categories provide no history -- one can't know which elements where once in a category, and have now been removed. Geo Swan (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

A specific example that has arisen

There has been a bit of conflict revolving around the Super Smash Bros. fighters category. The issue is that, certain characters that would go in this article, like Ness and Falco Lombardi, don't have their own articles and merely redirect to their specific entries on the lists of their game's character page. User:Someguy0830 feels that this isn't an acceptable way to link to them, and seems to have felt an edit war is needed. Rather than continue this, I was hoping anyone else here could offer their opinion or advice on how this should be handled. My rational on it is further discussed on Category talk:Super Smash Bros. fighters. Thanks for taking the time. The T 02:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. Replied over there. Carcharoth 13:57, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Synergy between lists and redirects and categories

Copy of an earlier post at Wikipedia talk:Categorization.

Have a look at Category:Trends journals and Category:Current Opinion journals. Does this look like a good way to combine lists, categories and categorization of redirects in a synergy that allows people to see the existing structure of redirects with disrupting the list and still prompting people to expand the redirects into stubs if appropriate? Category:Trends journals directly categorizes the redirects, while Category:Current Opinion journals lists the redirects in the editable part of the category page. Which way do people here think is best? (In both cases, the redirects are still categorized in the "journal by topic" categories, so Trends in Molecular Medicine still appears in Category:Medical journals, regardless of whether it is listed at Category:Trends journals, or categorized there). Carcharoth 13:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• Neither strikes me as useful. Using a category as a list of suggested or hypothetical articles-to-be-written is both impractical and ineffectual. >Radiant< 13:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
  • (Reply copied from Wikipedia_talk:Categorization) Could you expand on that a bit more? Where are the guidelines for what a category introduction should say? Have people in the past tried what I've done there and the discussions said that this is not appropriate? If not, then new discussions are needed. Have a look at Category:Nature Reviews journals. The only difference between that and Category:Trends journals and Category:Current Opinion journals, is that the Nature Review journals have articles. Are we deleting categories now because the articles haven't been written yet? What we have in each case is a list article that might, eventually, produce separate articles for each of the journals. It would seem silly if I had to write stubs for each journal to 'justify' the existence of the category. Let's take another example. While browsing through the journal articles, I came across List of pharmaceutical sciences journals. If I created Category:Pharmaceutical sciences journals, and put List of pharmaceutical sciences journals in there, would the same argument apply? Does List of pharmaceutical sciences journals have to sit in Category:Pharmaceutical sciences until enough journal articles have been created to start to fill a category? What is the tipping point, one, two, three articles? Carcharoth 19:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
    • That was my opinion, not a guideline. I think that yes, we should delete categories for articles that haven't been written yet, because there isn't any point to those, and there's no guarantee that the articles will get written. I guess I fail to see how it helps. >Radiant< 09:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
      • So if Category:Nature Reviews journals had only had one article in it, you would prefer to see it deleted and then recreated as more articles were written? Carcharoth 12:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Yes, but note that is my opinion. I am unaware of consensus, precedent or guideline on that particular subject, so if it were to come up a lot, I would probably drop a handful of test cases on CFD to see what the community think. >Radiant< 13:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Of course, in some cases, the articles exist, but just haven't been added to the category yet. Not this category, obviously, but categories, like articles, don't come in existence fully-formed. Carcharoth 13:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Build a Glossary of Terms by categorizing numerous redirects that each link to a tag with an id attribute

I am a novice wikitext/wikimarkup user and so I am really looking for advice/guidance. Based on my research to date, I suspect that this particular example/application might be worthy of a dedicated section at this page.

The subject of categorizing redirects is already discussed adequately. In example 2 of that discussion it specifically addresses a redirect to an article subsection using a [[<page name>#<subsection name>]] style link anchor.

Today I was looking for inspiration and/or best known methods for efficiently producing a Glossary of Terms page by studying how some glossary pages are written here on wikipedia. I noted this page's use of the id attribute in the start tag of a span element to create a target anchor (among other things):

;<span id=keyword1 style="font-weight: bold">keyword1</span>
:explanation of keyword1

and this other page's more simplistic approach using the unadorned ; & : wikimarkup symbols to produce a classic Definition style list format but which does not create any target anchor:

;'''keyword2''' :explanation of keyword2.

I do have one question about the style attribute but I will leave that for a subsection at the very end.

Laziness being the mother of efficiency, this prompted me to think that the first or second time that the term "keyword1" shows up on a wiki page is usually where the meaning of that newly introduced term is explained. Therefore a lazy man's approach to an effective, alphabetically ordered Glossary of Terms might be to wrap the first (or most relevant) occurrence of "keyword1" at the wiki page named "parent article" in a <span id=keyword1>keyword1</span> type of HTML markup to create a target anchor to that specific line/sentence/paragraph of "parent article" that best explains the meaning of "keyword1".

Then the lazy editor creates a redirect named "keyword1" that is simply:

#REDIRECT [[parent article#keyword1]]
[[Category:Glossary of Terms]] 

Doing this for all keywords that are adequately defined in already existing wiki pages (and using the already suggested redirect to an article subsection for those trivial cases where a keyword is already used as the title of a suitable subsection) the end result should be that:

• the category page for "Glossary of Terms" lists all keywords in a consistent order. Each link is to a redirect that takes the reader to an article that explains the meaning of "keywordN".
• any other place where "keywordN" is used it can conveniently be wrapped in [[ and ]] to take advantage of the redirect named "keywordN" for ease of cross referencing.

One wiki page might be a page created using the classic Definition style list format with the specific purpose of listing and defining all those keywords that have been used at one or more wiki pages but which are never satisfactorily defined at any one of those pages. Such a wiki page could be named "Glossary" but since this classic Definition style list would not duplicate definitions of jargon/terms that are already adequately defined at various existing wiki pages, this make-up page might (more appropriately) be named "Other Jargon".

1. Is this a common practice?
2. Do you see any shortcomings with this approach?
3. Is there a better method to achieve the same (or similar) Glossary of Terms page?

Question about use of the style attribute

With reference to the two blocks of wikitext above. Could somebody please explain the virtue of the first example using the attribute style="font-weight: bold" to cause bold font as opposed to simply wrapping keyword1 in three single quote marks "'''" as was done in the second example.

As I said, I am a novice wikitext user so if any of my questions are best answered at some help article or tutorial then please respond with a URL for my further reading.

(Najevi (talk) 18:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC))

Problems

The method described does produce he desired result at the category page but an unexpected disappointment is that a wiki search does not result in a match for a redirect page whose name partially matches the search string. Only exact Page name matches and Word matches within page heading Titles or page body are found. (Najevi (talk) 00:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC))

Salting the earth?

If after a (controversial) move the redirect is categorized (or edited at all), the move can not be reverted by a regular user. This has been compared to Salting the earth [1]. -- Matthead  Discuß   09:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

A clear example?

I think that putting Category:Fictional coyotes in Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner is wrong because, looking at the title, only one of the two is a coyote. (Also, only one of the two is a fictional bird, and you can't be a coyote and a bird at the same time.) However, putting the category in Wile E. Coyote, a redirect, has been reverted several times, pointing to this page as a rationale. So, either something's wrong with this guideline, or someone has misconstrued what it means. GregorB (talk) 18:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner is put in that category is to ensure people can get from the page to the category. But you are right that the correct display would be the redirect. We already have hidden categories. What is also needed is a way to edit the category tag to change what is displayed in the category. ie. Have Category:Fictional coyotes at the bottom of the article, but for Wile E. Coyote to show up in the category. For now, I think the best solution is to have either both article and redirect in the category, or just the article. I know it's not quite what this guideline says, but this is, after all, only a guideline. Carcharoth (talk) 18:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the "dual solution" would be the best - but this is perhaps only a consequence of the fact that Wikipedia categorization is not a real ontology: putting page P into category C can mean either "P is an instance of C" ("Wile E. Coyote" is an instance of "Fictional coyotes") or "P is related to C" ("Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner" (the cartoon) is related to "Fictional coyotes"). Maybe this distinction will be possible some day, etc.

To cut a long story short: in the meantime, the only thing we could do is to broaden the guideline a bit to say that a redirect should be categorized if the target title is incompatible with the category. One more example: the redirect in dubio pro reo belongs to Category:Latin legal phrases, while its target, Presumption of innocence, doesn't. As you noted, this is not exactly what the guideline says: the closest example is perhaps 24 Heures (newspaper), but this is an "alternate name", while "Wile E. Coyote" and "in dubio pro reo" are not. GregorB (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Does this mean that Road Runner should be categorized as a fictional bird? It would be nice to specify such triviality in the guideline. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd say yes. Also: Category:Fictional characters who can move at superhuman speeds. Wile E. Coyote is not a member of this category, which drives the entire plot... :) GregorB (talk) 19:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to add examples or draw finer distinctions in the guideline. Carcharoth (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

What precisely should be written? I was thinking about copy-pasting what GregorB said above. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The bit about Latin phrases and the other examples? Looks good. Carcharoth (talk) 21:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if I understand that bit. I was thinking about including this though: "... a redirect should be categorized if the target title is incompatible with the category.". How's that sound? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking about changing the current bullet point #2 ("Alternate names for articles") into something slightly more general along these lines ("incompatible with the category"). This bullet point already says that "alternate names should not look out of place on a category page" - the "in dubio pro reo" example is in fact one such case, just like the "24 Heures". I'm considering doing it myself, but in fact if someone beats me to the punch I'd be grateful. GregorB (talk) 09:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

By all means, go for it. Also can you come up with something so that one doesn't go out of their way to overcategorize redirects? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I had an idea about something that the current guideline does not mention. For example: names of people notable for only one event are normally redirected to the main article, but this redirect should contain only the category that is related to their notability (provided it's incompatible with the target title, of course). E.g. redirects of murder victims should be categorized under Category:Murder victims (or its subcategories), but not under e.g. Category:1988 births. It's still tricky: for example, we'll probably agree that this redirect is overcategorized, but which categories exactly should be removed? GregorB (talk) 09:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

"Redirects whose target title is incompatible with the category"

I've expanded the guideline slightly by taking the existing bullet point ("Alternate names for articles") and splitting it in two. The wording is in fact identical to the preexisting one - it's just that these two cases are now described separately. I've also added Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner as an example - see full discussion in the previous talk page section.

Overall, I think this is more a clarification then an actual guideline change. Feel free to tweak, of course. GregorB (talk) 20:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure 'articles' was correct. It's the article whose title is incompatible, so one creates a redirect with a compatible title. Occuli (talk) 08:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

But articles don't have "targets" - redirects do. GregorB (talk) 08:26, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ganondorf

Seems like the categorization here needs to be looked through. If you ask me, the only categories which may actually be appropriate are Category:The Legend of Zelda series characters and Category:Super Smash Bros. fighters. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

He is definitely a king.He's a king in every single game pretty much. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 20:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Ganondorf uses magic. This is in fact a major plot point in OoT and TWW.
2. I left out "emperor", because the mention I remember says Ganon while showing Ganondorf.
3. He's always a King.
4. Frankly, he's also a fictional deity.
5. He's a video game boss.
6. He's an SSBB fighter.

Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 00:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change

Please see the discussion at WT:Categorization/Archive 10#Sortkeys for geographic entities with names in multiple languages. (It seems that categories on "alternative name" redirects ought to be in addition to, not instead of, the same categories on the target page.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the presence or absence of redirects has no bearing on the defining characteristics of an article: so it should be 'in addition to'. Occuli (talk) 09:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Categorization of list entries

Category:Middle-earth horses is cited here as an example of Categorization of list entries (User:Carcharoth added it in June 2007). It has now been proposed for deletion at CFD Sept 21, which seems inappropriate while it is cited in the policy. Please join the discussion at CFD. - Fayenatic (talk) 20:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed table

I removed the large table of reasons for redirects and associated templates/categories - it used to be at WP:Redirect, I moved it here a few days ago (replacing it with a more compact list of reasons on the original page). But now I see the same information is already set out (more clearly) at WP:Template messages/Redirect pages, so I don't think we need the table, just a link to that page. (In any case, the table is largely out of date, since the messages that allegedly appear on preview seem not to any more.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:30, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

WikiProjects and redirects?

Carcharoth's comment in Wikipedia_talk:Categorizing_redirects#Two_questions. above mentions using WPP as a means of categorizing redirects, by which I suppose is meant adding the WPP to the talk page with the class= or type=redirect or type=NA. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Assessment#Page_types for example does that. That might be useful to add to the Project page here. Incidentally, is there a page addressing WikiProject assessment generally, not specific to any single WPP? There is Category:Redirect-Class articles but it doesn't discuss the matter. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Having names of redirects not appear on the category page or appear with a different name?

It seems to be the case that redirects that are spelling and capitalization variations as well as abbreviations should not be categorized, in order not to clutter up the category for the reader browsing it. However, as noted this can result in such redirects getting "lost." Is there some way to categorize a redirect but have it be hidden? Or to specify that it should display in a certain way, so that if redirects X, Y, and Z to article Foo are told to all display as X, then X (3) would display in the category, indicating that there are three redirects that have been displayed by that name, preferably with the option to click to show those redirects.

By the same token, if the category is Foo, and there are articles and redirects in it with the names X (Foo), Y (Foo), Z (Foo), the category page would be less cluttered if the "_(Foo)" parts of the article names did not display, displaying only as X, Y, Z, since one already knows they are the relevant topics by those names for category Foo as opposed to the articles X (Otherfoo), Y (Otherfoo), Z (Otherfoo) which of course aren't in the category. It seems like software would have the potential capability of doing this, but there may not be a way of implementing that capability at present? Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 17:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Categorizing redirected song titles

I have a question regarding the categorization of redirects of song titles to the album article for which the song appears. Should these redirects be categorized just as any song article would such as Category:1995 songs and Category:Foo songs for the artist Foo, even when the album article contains zero information about the song except as a track in the track listing. When I look through a category list, I expect to find some information about each item in the list. If it is appropriate, I would think a redirect could be created for every song on an album so the category for Foo songs contains an article or redirect for every song by that artist. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 17:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you could.. but it sounds like a very tedious job. I think it's more important to categorize only those songs which have articles, you could also place existing redirects into categories such as 'Category:1995 songs' but I wouldn't recommend creating a redirect for every single track on an album and categorizing it. That's just a waste of time. As anyone who types a specific song in the search bar or clicks on a song link from a category expects to find information about the actual song and would only be disappointed if all it did was redirect him to the album. -- œ^™ 16:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Category:Genus Panthera

The guideline gives Category:Genus Panthera as an example of what should be done. Yet, that category (created in 2007) still describes itself as experimental and has no equivalent in the category structure. I stumbled upon this category because its parent categories were deleted. The only option now is to make it a subcategory of Category:Panthera which sort of defeats the purpose. Thoughts anyone? Pichpich (talk) 18:43, 21 February 2011 (UTC)