FamilySearch Wiki talk:Categorization

Develop a policy on Categorization
Any suggestions regarding "best practices" for categorizing small localities go here.

Whatever the outcome, the consensus should be documented in the two pages which already aim to set out some categorization guidelines, Categorization and Advanced Categorization.

Section 5 of the advanced guidelines directs the reader to which discusses issue of breaking down categories with a large number of members into sub-categories. It also points to a number of category maintenance templates such as and  that could be created and used in FSWiki to flag where categories need review. We should aim to agree on principles and not try to create hard and fast rules, as a flexible system will be required to be adapted as needed for each locality/region. --Steve 22:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Again, my notes that I put in last week's agenda. I may not follow the issue extensively. I agree that all articles should have at least one category. Obviously, Georgia needs to be taken care of (separate issue). Also, a policy (best practice / guidelines) needs to be defined. For example, towns are in the county category and then counties in the state category -OR- into "Towns of " category. Probably not generally each community in the state level. As Steve brought up, categories do need to be living & breathing and may be different for each locality. Thomas Lerman 19:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I see categories as serving at least two purposes. 1. They bring like materials together as in probate records, or vital records. 2. They bring related locations together such as states, counties, provinces, and towns. Since pages can have multiple categories they can be 'sorted' in any of a number of ways. Towns in a state could be categorized into their counties, but also into a town category for instance.  Probate records for a county could have the county category but also one for probate records in that state (for example).  If we have some best practices guidelines then only the exceptions would be problematic. Laralee 15:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

In order for category pages to be most useful they need to contain a limited number of members. If the category grows too large, its usefulness decreases because people can't find the article they are looking for in amongst everything else. Sub-categories are created to make the discovery process easier and to sort pages into logical groupings. For this to be most effective, pages that reasonably belong in a sub-category should not be included in the main category as well. Rare exceptions may occur.

Wikipedia uses these guidelines with specific information regarding subcategories. I would propose that we follow a similar model - that if a page can reasonably be placed in a subcategory it will not also be in the parent category. Comments are welcome. Laralee 22:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Base categories
It seems like it would be helpful having the base (root, starting point, whatever you want to call it) listed as well in the body of the page. Comments? I know the "Browse by topic" is really the same thing for articles, but it may be helpful to have it in the body of the page.

Starting point for articles and templates. Thomas_Lerman 19:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with the principle of indicating what is the top or root category. Category:Contents already has a note to that effect and I think this should be the only uncategorized item (article, page, file, template) in the whole wiki. That being said it should also be thinned out so that it contains only high level sub-categories. (See for example ). --Steve 22:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I forgot sign my previous post, so I did. I think it might be helpful to have a link to both (article and template) root level categories in the page. I did not see that noted in the page. Did I miss it (other than "Browse by topic")? Thomas_Lerman 22:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The note I was referring to is found on the Category:Contents page itself. Go ahead and add the notes you would like to see in this article. --Steve 22:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)