Help talk:Categories


 * See also
 * User blog:Kirkburn/How images are picked to represent articles


 * Moving advanced information to talk page for now:

Can I move a page into or out of a category article?
Ideally, no. The software won't allow you to use Special:Movepage to move a page into or out of a category, due to the way they are designed, but there is a way around that in a simple 4 step process.


 * 1) Goto Special:Export. Enter the name of the article or category you want to move in the bigger box. Uncheck the Include only the current revision, not the full history box in order to retain the full editing history. Click Export and save the file somewhere convenient, like your desktop.
 * 2) Open the file, preferably with Notepad++, which can read XML files. Otherwise, opening the file with Notepad will be messier, but still workable. Locate &lt;title> and change the contents within to the destination location. Save the file.
 * 3) IMPORTANT: Make sure the destination page does not exist, delete it first if so. Then navigate to Special:Import and upload the file.
 * 4) Move the talk page to the new location and delete the appropriate redirects, where applicable.

Is there a way to suppress a page from appearance on a category page?
For example sandbox pages which are testing category templates. Madned (talk) 19:35, August 15, 2012 (UTC)

redirecting categories
"Can I redirect a category to another category?" "No"

This is a very large confusing lie. Yes, you can. You can redirect a category the exact same way as redirecting any other page, or any place you can edit text, even Image: pages can be redirects too.

What it does not do is redirect the category entries into a different category, and does not at all stop people from adding pages to the category with redirect.

--Uberfuzzy 10:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it doesn't do what users expect, and they shouldn't do it. Yes, technically it can be done. No, they shouldn't do it. Kirkburn (talk) 14:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * So we should encourage people to use Template:Category redirect, which gives a link to the right place and makes it less likely that others will blithely and ignorantly go on putting pages in the deprecated category. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean by that template? If it's one that tells people category articles should move, I think that's something that should be wiki-specific and shouldn't be part of any default set. I wouldn't want to encourage any needless extra categories - I believe it's better to have wrong red link categories than wrong blue linked ones because at least they're more readily identifiable on an article. Kirkburn (talk) 15:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Category_redirect is an example adapted from the Wikipedia standard. Could easily be generalised, removing the sentence about bots so that anyone putting a page in a wrong category will see that it's wrong as soon as they look at it and will see what's right. If they are the sort of people who don't bother to look at categories, the fact that it is red on their article may not be enough to inspire them to look. Eventually someone interested in the article and in categories will follow the link; if it is red, they may (as I said above) blithely waste time creating a fresh wrong category page. The backup, if nobody looks at the wrong category, is that "maintenance" people can check the tracking category to find non-empty category redirects (which is surely more efficient than looking at every single page to see if it has a red cat link?). — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Fair, but still not something I would suggest for the starter wiki - templates.wikia perhaps? Kirkburn (talk) 15:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

CategorySelect
I think the page Help:CategorySelect should either be added to the "See also" section, or it should get a small section on its own, like the Category Tree extension. --Justme2 13:19, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Added as a quick link, thanks. Yep, the page needs an update as CS is now live sitewide. Kirkburn (talk) 14:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Supplemental information
I have updated the Phineas and Ferb Wiki's help page to include some information that I have learned about using categories. I would like to submit it for inclusion on this main help page. The "Category layout" section is specific to our wiki, but the other sections should apply to all wikis.

Also, in the automated text "This text is stored on Wikia Help. Suggest changes here.", the Suggest changes here link goes to Help talk:Categories and needs to be updated to go to Help talk:Category. - RRabbit42 ( leave a message ) 16:03, July 10, 2010 (UTC)

Unable to delete a Category
I am the admin of my site, and it seems when I add a category to a article it becomes permanent, and there is no option to delete it.

How can this be solved?
 * Hello, I still wonder how you remove/delete categories. I would very much appreciate the help.--ExcelCore 18:30, June 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * Please help me with the removal of unwanted categories from the Smurfs Wikia. (VicGeorge2K9 20:45, July 7, 2011 (UTC))


 * Hello I have the same issue here with my wiki (Backyard Sports Wiki) as well. I been trying to delete catergories but nothing has helped. Is anyway that this issue would be revolved? --DarkQueen110 23:02, July 7, 2011 (UTC)DarkQueen110


 * I too am trying to figure out a way to remove a category from a wiki page. I have a wiki that will have over a hundred pages when it's complete, and I'd like to be able to have a "draft" category for the pages that are incomplete. I haven't actually created the category yet since I can't figure out how to remove the pages from that category once they are complete. Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Capi3101 17:57, August 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * Never mind. I figured it out.

For the sake of everyone who's asked about this, there's a set of instructions at http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Remove_categories_from_articles. Basically, it boils down to hitting the little "x" button on the category you wish to remove when you've got the page open for editing (with the CategorySelect tool; the link I've got has instructions for those who don't use that tool). What happened in my case (and what I suspect happened to y'all, though I have no way of verifying this) is that I created the category, then expected to be able to fully use it right away. It took a day or so for wikia to register the category's existence, at which time I got full functionality out of it. So, only advice I can give here is be patient... Capi3101 18:56, August 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't exactly delete a category on the main page on my wiki. They crammed everything at the top and i cant delete a spam category tag from the main page!

Not working
Can someone help me, it's not working on this page

[Link was here]

It turns out the gallery end tag hadn't been added.

Omni314 17:20, March 7, 2012 (UTC)

Controlling scroll-index for categories?
Checking my category list it says: Here is the code line when I edit it:
 * Popular pages
 * Characters
 * Male Characters
 * Female Character


 * visited#|TopContent
 * category1#
 * category2#
 * category3#
 * portal-url|Community
 * blogs-recent-url|blogs-recent-url-text
 * forum-url|Forum

adding a #catergory[number]# gives me another category in the menu, now here are my questions:

1. If I want to add say Category2 and Category3 so they show up as choices in the scroll menu of category1, what is the code for this?

2. How do I edit/change what pages are displayed in the scroll menue categories?ExcelCore 20:22, June 9, 2012 (UTC)

Linking to Category Pages
Attempting to do Category:X in double brackets, with or without the 'pipe trick' only adds the page to the category. I could link to a page that has the same content, but it would be nicer to redirect that page (still requiring the knowledge of how to link) to the category. Arlo James Barnes 20:31, September 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * Never mind, a little additional Googling yielded the answer, showing official pages telling you how to do and ones from individual wikis like http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/RuneScape:Categories#How_to_link_to_a_category. Simply put a colon before the word 'Category'.

Arlo James Barnes 20:37, September 29, 2012 (UTC)

ToU Breach?
I don't think using CSS to hide category galleries is against the ToU as Wikia are perfectly happy for them to be disabled. It's just quicker to use CSS. http://images.wikia.com/central/images/a/ac/Lachlan5963.png  13:26, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Templates and Categories
Are Templates automatically included in the category:templates? Because I created an badges edit track for pages in that category (do badge edit tracks track pages in sub-catergories of said catergory?). If not I want to add a template I made into Category:Templates but I can't there's no box at the bottom of the page to add it to and when I edit it I can't add it to a category either.

Category Troubleshooting
I tried to add catergoies to the Shooting Star Page  on the Team Umizoomi Wiki, but every time I do, the categories dissapear again and the page remains uncategorized. What's the problem and what do I do?

Little Miss Cute (talk) 18:37, May 30, 2013 (UTC)
 * You had an unclosed  tag. Looks like you've gotten it fixed. =)
 * Questions like this might be better on the forums. Elecbullet (talk) 18:56, May 30, 2013 (UTC)

Deleted Pages
Whenever I delete a page, it still shows up on the category page.

--Dr.Mark 17:11, July 27, 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying a point
Under the "How to Delete Categories" section, the following would help clarify how to "delete" a category whose page doesn't exist yet.


 * A category page that has not been created will display "This page needs content. You can help by adding a sentence or a photo!". In this case, the category can be deleted by removing the category tag from all pages it was on. This will remove the category from the list of categories (Special:Categories).

Any objections to adding it? —RRabbit42 ( leave a message ) 17:27, August 25, 2013 (UTC)
 * This adds nothing but more text.--PedroM 18:32, August 27, 2013 (UTC)


 * Not necessarily. I have seen cases where someone will go to an un-created category and then create its page just to put the Delete template on it because they don't understand that they can get rid of the category at the article level. Once they do that, it takes an administrator to fully remove the category, and in the meantime, it's an active category for the wiki to auto-suggest when someone is adding categories to a page. —RRabbit42 ( leave a message ) 01:15, August 28, 2013 (UTC)


 * As it happens, this exact situation happened today on Simpsons Wiki. A user removed several unneeded categories from pages, but not before going to that category page to create it and just put the Delete template on it. So now I will need to delete those category pages and explain why he didn't have to do that.


 * Unless someone can provide a more compelling reason not to, I will add it to the help page at the end of this week. —RRabbit42 ( leave a message ) 17:37, September 2, 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't show new Categories?
I added to my Wikia a new Category, and tries to use this system to add a page into that category. While it basically works, it fails to list the category on the autocomplete. For some reason, it seem to only list several default categories, and that's it. Any solution? --ShanyTopper (talk) 13:54, October 20, 2013 (UTC)

Images used for Category Galleries
In the People category in the Wipeout Central wiki, the images used are not the images of the characters, which are the first images on the pages. According to the help page, these images should've been used. Is there any way to fix this?

Gilke001 (talk) 01:44, October 29, 2013 (UTC)

Category List View
In this Site maintenance page, the list view with summaries of how many pages are in each sub-cateogry is very useful.

I noticed that on another wiki with Category Exhibition enabled, the Site Maintenance page doesn't display this way even with list view selected. How can I make it like the one above? Is there a flag to use the list view by default, the way you can for the other Category Displays?

--Statueofmike (talk) 21:48, February 22, 2014 (UTC)

Help removing Category..
I have an issue with a category showing up in the main body of a page:

Source] 

http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Autumn_Conway

The Source] portion just happened to show up when I searched for her on Google.

Above is the link to the article and in bold is the item that shows. I've tried everything I can but I simply cannot locate where this category is originating from, although I have discovered it might be linked to the Template, this does not occur everytime a new page is created with the same template.

Can anyone assist?

GhostITSX (talk) 20:06, March 27, 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, for future reference, it's best to direct these kinds of questions to the Special:Forum. From a quick check it looks like the template code includes some category code towards the end. I suspect it may be because the "classification" input is empty, so the category code is being put on the page without an actual category.  20:21, March 27, 2014 (UTC)

Oh, sorry about that!

So what is the best way to fix it in the Template itself? GhostITSX (talk) 20:24, March 27, 2014 (UTC)


 * It really depends on how the template is being used, to be honest. Probably easiest is simply to give the character a classification, similar to how Loki is marked as a God, via editing the Autumn Conway page. 20:30, March 27, 2014 (UTC)

Pages Automatically Categorized
On The Blacklist Wiki, MediaWiki signatures, and any pages with those signatures (userpages, talk pages, etc.), are automatically being sorted into the category User Signatures and we do not how this happened or how to undo it. This situation has only happened for me on this wiki.


 * It looks like this was dealt with here :) 13:57, March 28, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yea, I found a solution by asking around on Wikipedia. I think it was a signature from one of the older editors, as my signature never did that on any other wiki.

Category Exhibition
It is possible to categorize an article under a different name e.g. I want the first episode of a series to be categorized under the name "01" or a character by surname first. It works fine in the plain system but not with the Category Exhibition feature, it still arranges pages by their actual name not the name they should be categorized under, could the developers make a note of this? --FortressMaximus &#35;2014YearofMecha (Talk) 15:53, April 11, 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, this is a known issue with Category Exhibition - but it's on the list of things we would like to improve. 16:02, April 11, 2014 (UTC)

Alright, getting rid of categories is ridiculous
My wiki has a lot of noobs that add unessecary categories to pages. Each time someone does that, I have to delete the category, go to a page that has the category, go to the editor (I wish I could remove categories on articles just like I can add categories at the bottom), remove the category, go to the other pages (I usually have to go through multiple pages of articles), etc.. It's tedious, time-consuming, and I have multiple instances of this. My staff and I are really getting tired of going through a hundred pages just because some people don't follow rules. Can there please be a convenient way to remove a category completely, from every single article? -- IStoleThePies  | Message Wall  |  Contributions  20:47, October 8, 2014 (UTC)


 * Can't you just undo the anon's edits? Or even rollback them? -- Tupka 217 21:05, October 8, 2014 (UTC)
 * It's difficult because multiple people make these edits, and I still don't know how to revert multiple edits from a single person via rollback.


 * Thanks for the feedback - I will bring this up with the rest of the team. For future reference, it's often best to send in feedback and requests to Special:Contact. 14:50, October 9, 2014 (UTC)

I can't delete a category from a page
I have a category named 'comics' on my wikia, but decided to delete it as the category 'manga' is technically the same. However, on one page, the category doesn't appear in the list when I edit it, and thus I can't remove it from the artice.

Yume-Chan (talk) 14:28, January 18, 2015 (UTC)


 * It sounds like the category might be coming from a template. If you send in a Special:Contact/general request with more details (and links), the support team should be able to look into this for you. 20:41, January 19, 2015 (UTC)

Category removal
After I edited a page in wikia, somehow the categories are removed or put in weird places even though I didn't do anything to the categories, just adding some information in page's profile and such. How did this happened? What should I do so it won't happen again? Frost190 (talk) 03:26, February 1, 2015 (UTC)


 * If you haven't already, can you send in a message to Special:Contact/bug with the details of your edit? The community team can help diagnose the issue (and file a bug ticket, if needed). 15:28, February 2, 2015 (UTC)

Categorization on articles
I tried to add the category Sets with less than 100 pieces to the page 30228 Police ATV, but when I did that, something came up saying "Category:Sets with less than 100 pieces already exists". -- What up, doods? 16:10, October 3, 2015 (UTC)

Comments on Categories
Is there a way to add comments to category pages? I know I can use a talk page, but I would much rather use comments. Crabycowman123 (talk) 00:55, January 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * No, article comments are only available on mainspace pages. All other namespaces (including categories) will still have talk pages. --

Adding categories
I can't ad a category

To where? On what wiki? What editor are you using?--

(New person) I have the same problem, i am trying to add a "Swimming" Catogry on the sonic wiki using the add catogry button below the article, for some reason it only shows one page at a time and it deletes page links that have not just been made Help! Todatscakeisdountscorpse (talk) 13:28, September 27, 2017 (UTC)VERDEN BEST IN WORLDTodatscakeisdountscorpse (talk) 13:28, September 27, 2017 (UTC)

Deleting categories
How do I delete categories?????????

http://the-animal-chronicles.wikia.com/wiki/Mt.Jynx

I want to delete all categories from the page above, but I don't know how...

PLZ HELP


 * See the screenshots? Open the editor, hit the dropdown, select “Categories,” select the category you want to remove, & then hit the trash can button. Hit “Apply changes,” save the page, & then you’re done. CatRemove.pngCatRemove2.png

How Do I Delete a Category Right From an Article's Category Section?
Because, it doesn't seem that you have that ability. Do you? Wikipedia is easier! You can go to the action=edit line under the editing look where you do  instead of pressing the "add link" bottom, and delete the category from the article on Wikipedia! You can. It's so good, except I'm blocked for being a sockpuppet, but that's besides the point.
 * Append  at the end of the page URL and go to the bottom of the page. If there are no categories there, look at the right sidebar. If there's a "Categories" module you would be able to remove the categories. From which page are you trying to remove categories? --  Cube - shaped   garbage can  12:26, August 23, 2017 (UTC)

Why I can't add a category?
I can't add a category here - http://simpleplanesjundroo.wikia.com/wiki/Bush_Plane ?Michail2003 (talk) 08:25, August 28, 2017 (UTC)
 * This should fix it.  should have been   because otherwise it causes an issue with unclosed gallery tag that breaks the rest of the page. --  Cube - shaped   garbage can  08:30, August 28, 2017 (UTC)

Left dropdown menu
I can't replace a category name.

'''So, on the left dropdown menu, there is the Most Visited Article, and there's #category1# and #category2#. How do I replace them?'''

PiggyMcCool2 (talk) 09:21, October 22, 2017 (UTC)


 * The left dropdown menu for me (with ?useskin=oasis) is about news. What are you looking at? If it has nothing to do with the Help:Category page you find more experts in one of the forums. – Dunnoob &#x1F4A9;  17:18, October 23, 2017 (UTC)

Categorizing non-main space pages
In the long long ago on Wikipedia, when a non-main space page was put into a category, the full page name was used for display and sorting the category. For example, Template:Babel would be listed as. This meant that a sort key had to be added like  or.

I have noticed that this might not be the case these days. Has the software for categories evolved to where we do not need to do that anymore? LA (T) @ 09:40, January 17, 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's not more necessary in these cases, guessing, for at least seven years. The "dummy" sort key "*" for an intro page in a category is also not more state of the art, an ordinary space will do. – Dunnoob &#x1F4A9;  06:52, January 18, 2018 (UTC)
 * So all my meticulous additions of  have been unnecessary. EEK! LA (T) @ 10:32, January 18, 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, regrettably. And it's not only categories - help pages and some others also strip the namespace prefix for sorting. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:17, January 18, 2018 (UTC)


 * If you want to group the more important pages in a category before the important but less so, you can still use an asterisk for the less important group. Possible disadvantage of using just a space is that some well-meaning but ignorant person may think it is an error and delete it; I sometimes minimise that risk by adding a comment after the space. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:17, January 18, 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello Robin. I know a lot of the tricks for sorting things in categories, however, I did not know that I did not need to add  when categorizing non-main space pages. Now that I know, I will relax in that regard.
 * I never did like the asterisk trick. LA (T) @ 17:49, January 18, 2018 (UTC)

Cannot categorize images
I am livid. For the past two days on every wiki, no matter what picture I open it does not save my categories when I click the save button via the “add a category” option when viewing the page (and it happens right when i get to the page)! And the only way my categories are saved is with the regular editior! Is anyone else experiencing this? --Ready to rock! (talk) 22:29, March 12, 2019 (UTC)
 * Its a known issue - see Thread:1631424. Also if you have bugs, please report them to Special:Contact/bug, so staff will be able to fix them. --Sharkie 22:33, March 12, 2019 (UTC)