Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Wikipedia's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Wikipedia policies of Wikipedia's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

	Categories
This page is within the scope of WikiProject Categories, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of categories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CategoriesWikipedia:WikiProject CategoriesTemplate:WikiProject CategoriesCategories articles

I'm not that much of a CAT-gnome, and I recently ran into a problem with a blank sort key that had been properly used in an article, until a well-meaning editor incorrectly "fixed" it by removing the blank, who I guess figured that a blank param is meaningless, so why not get rid of it. I undid their change, but I can understand why an editor might do that. I wonder how frequent a problem this is, because I've got an easy fix. The solution would be simply to create a template, maybe to be called {{Cat sort top}}, that resolves to a space. Nobody is going to remove a template call embedded in a Category item who doesn't understand precisely what it's doing there, so that will stop it from happening. But is it a problem that's frequent enough or annoying enough to bother with? Even if infrequent, it could be the kind of thing that would slip by without anyone noticing for quite a while. Mathglot (talk) 03:55, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A template would work as a prevention mechanism. Unfortunately, nobody is going to use it because it's so long to type. I think it's better to use incorrect removals of space as sort keys to inform new editors about the guidelines at WP:SORTKEY. —⁠andrybak (talk) 14:41, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if this is in the wrong place.

I'm really struggling with this sentence: "The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to pages in Wikipedia, in a hierarchy of categories which readers, knowing essential—defining—characteristics of a topic, can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics."

I started to make minor edits, but realized I wasn't even sure what it was trying to convey. "Which" should probably be "that", the punctuation is random, there's no agreement between subject/verb/object, and it's run-on. I've taken my best stab and edited it to read: "The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to pages in Wikipedia within a hierarchy of categories. Using essential, defining characteristics of a topic, readers can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics." Ghost writer's cat (talk) 22:51, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization is something I have used many times, and that I sometimes fix. However, I am not a super expert about it. Still, I would say that you nailed it with your edit. Well done, -- Kjkolb (talk) 08:24, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Categorization#Sort keys says "In English Wikipedia, sort order merges (ignores) case and diacritics." I dearly wish this was true, but it appears it is untrue for macrons (a diacritic), and always has been. Am I missing something or is the statement inaccurate? Nurg (talk) 04:53, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nurg, so you have an example? —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:37, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for asking. I can't find an example now and it appears that the statement is true after all. I am not sure when I did last see an example. Perhaps sorting of diacritics was fixed years ago and I was confusing English Wikipedia with Commons, where diacritics are not merged. Nurg (talk) 10:48, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all, I'm going to be subdividing Category:Archaeological organizations down by country, i.e. Category:Archaeological organizations based in (country), similar to how Category:History organizations by country functions (as some have a wider scope than the nation they're based in).

There is currently only one subcat serving this purpose, the relatively new Category:British archaeological organisations, which does not seem to conform to category naming standards. Can this be safely moved to Category:Archaeological organizations based in the United Kingdom? – TCMemoire 14:22, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@TCMemoire, you can nominate the category for speedy renaming according to criteria WP:C2C. —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:41, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a tool that can automatically trace how the likes of Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination, Brehon, The Political Machine, etc., are in subcats of Category:Deaths by year without manually browsing through hundreds of parent cats? This would be helpful for spotting potential maintenance issues. Star Garnet (talk) 18:13, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Star Garnet, for article Brehon, the answer is easy – it's part of the hidden category Year of death unknown, which is directly under Category:Deaths by year. —⁠andrybak (talk) 01:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For article The Political Machine:

• Deaths by year → 2001 deaths → 2001 suicides → September 11 attacks → Aftermath of the September 11 attacks → War on terror → Iraq War → Politics of the Iraq War → 2004 United States presidential election → The Political Machine

—⁠andrybak (talk) 02:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And similar route for Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination:

• ... → Politics of the Iraq War → 2008 United States presidential election → People associated with the 2008 United States presidential election → Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election → Barack Obama → Presidency of Barack Obama → Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination

—⁠andrybak (talk) 02:18, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Star Garnet, as for related potential maintenance issues – parts of the category chains above show up at User:SDZeroBot/Category cycles/4 and User:SDZeroBot/Category cycles/5 (search for 2004 United States presidential election). —⁠andrybak (talk) 02:27, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]