Help:Categories

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This page explains what categories are, why they are important, and how you can create and use them. For more details, see Wikipedia's Help page on Categories.

What are Categories?

Categories help keep Coppermind organized by grouping pages with related content. Every article, template, and file should be categorized. It is important to categorize everything correctly, as categories are one of the primary ways that an article can be found. Articles should be able to be found from the main series categories (as listed on the main page) or through the main content categories in the sidebar on the left.

The categories for any given page are listed at the bottom of a page in a box. Note that categories are more like tags than folders. Pages will belong in multiple categories--usually at least three, as you'll see below. The more, the merrier!

Creating Categories

You shouldn't have to create categories very often, as most of them you may need already exist! But a category is created just like an article. You can navigate directly to the page by entering a URL or you can follow a red link to a nonexistent category. Create the page and you have created the category.

Note that you can use a category name even if the page doesn't exist. It will simply show up as a red link, and somebody else can come along later and create the page.

Category Pages

Category pages are titled Category:NAME, where NAME is the specific category name. A category page should begin with a description of what the category incorporates. The rest of the page will fill in automatically with any subcategories, followed by all articles, files, and templates that are tagged with this category.

Subcategories

Create subcategories by categorizing a category page itself. For example, the Category:Mistborn is tagged with [[Category:Books]], which makes it a subcategory of Category:Books.

Categorizing Pages

Using Templates

Many templates will automatically categorize the article they are placed in. This includes infoboxes, navboxes, and many other commonly used templates. For example, the {{book}} infobox template, used at the start of any book article, will automatically put the article into Category:Books. No need to do it manually. We'll cover templates on the Help:Templates page.

Manual Categorization

A page can be manually categorized by putting the name of any desired category page(s) in double brackets: [[Category:NAME]]. These tags should be placed at the very end of an article! They should be the last item in the "Notes" section as mentioned on the Help:Guidlines page.

Required Categories

There are three types of categories that article should be tagged with:

• Body region if relevant
• General Concept if relevant
• Procedure Region if relevant
• Article completeness tag (see guidelines section)