Unreal Wiki makes use of categories to group pages about similar topics. See Help:Categories for technical information about using and creating them.
Contents
When to use categories
Categories, along with cross-references and info boxes, help users find information, even if they don't know that it exists or what it's called.
Almost every article in the main and engine-specific namespaces should belong in at least one category. The categories to be included, which serve as clasification, should be the significant (useful) topics to which the article belongs as a member, and where users are most likely to look if they can't remember the name of the thing they are trying to look for.
An example:
- Article: UE2:ONSPowerCoreBlue (UT2004)
- Useful category: Category:Onslaught mapping
- Not as useful: Category:Classes starting with the letter O
Questions to ask to determine whether it is appropriate to add an article to a category:
- If the category does not already exist, is it possible to write a few paragraphs or more on the subject of the category, explaining it?
- If you go to the article from the category, will it be obvious why the article was put in the category? Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article?
- Does the category fit into the overall category system? Categories that don't fit are often deleted.
If the answer to any of these questions is no, then the category is probably inappropriate. Note that it is always appropriate to add articles to categories that fit into well established taxonomies. For example, every article about specific parts of the concept of Replication is tagged with [[Category:Replication]]. Tutorials, guidelines, and actor descriptions related to CTF maps would be tagged with [[Category:CTF mapping for Game]].
Note that some info box templates automatically add articles to one or more categories.
Guidelines
Some general guidelines
- Categories are mainly used to browse through similar articles. Make decisions about the structure of categories and subcategories that make it easy for users to browse through similar articles.
- Usually, articles should not be in both a category and its subcategory.
- Check to see where siblings of the article reside. If there are few if any articles in a category, the article probably belongs in one of the subcategories.
- Articles should be placed in categories with the same name. However, the article and the category do not have to be categorized the same way. The article can also be placed in categories populated with similar articles. The category can be put into categories populated with similar subcategories.
- Generally, the relationship between an article and its categories should be definable as "(Article) is (category)": TeamCannon is a UT class, Add an actor is a basic procedure, etc. Do not apply categories whose relationship to the topic is definable only as "(Article) is a subject related to (category)", such as filing a navigation point class directly into Category:Mapping articles. Similarly, categorize articles by characteristics of the topic, not characteristics of the article: a tutorial article about mapping for a specific gametype, for example, does not belong in Category:Tutorials.
- Bend the rules above when it makes sense, especially when it is the best solution that can be found under the circumstances.
Categories vs. info boxes
Categories are not the only way to organize articles. Another commonly used feature are info boxes. These are added to articles via templates and often automatically add the article to a certain category.
Categories do not form a tree
Each article can appear in more than one category and each category can in turn appear in more than one parent category. There are multiple categorization schemes that can be applied simultaneously. In other words, categories do not form a strict hierarchy, but a more general structure called a directed acyclic graph, or at least close to that. (see below)
Still, some parts of the category system will be very tree-like with multiple categories belonging to only one parent category. The best way to think about it is in the form of multiple overlapping tree structures. When applying the guidelines described above, consider every overlapping tree independently.
Cycles should usually be avoided
The MediaWiki software powering Unreal Wiki does not prevent cycles (loops) and can handle them, they should still be avoided most of the time. We don't plan on going as far with the category system as, for example, Wikipedia does, so this shouldn't really be a problem here.
Category structure
All categories on the Unreal Wiki are conveniently grouped in categories themselves. If you have JavaScript enabled in your web browser, you can browse the subtree of any category by clicking on the little [+] in front of their names in the subcategory list. This is especially useful when browsing the class categories.
Articles by type
- Category:Tutorials
- Contains all kinds of tutorials and basic procedures, mostly related to mapping, programming and modeling.
- Category:Classes
- Contains subcategories for UnrealScript classes and interfaces. Class categories do not simply form a tree, but allow browsing class and interface pages by game, by containing package (not for custom classes), by containing class or by implemented interface.
This category system largely depends on the templates {{Infobox class}} and {{Infobox interface}} being used on class and interface pages respectively. To help you set up the more specific category pages in this system, there are a number of class category templates with some standard text you can put on the otherwise empty category pages. See the individual templates' documentation on how to use them. - Category:Applications
- Contains articles about all kinds of programs that can be used for Unreal modding. This includes not only third-party tools, but also the Unreal Editor itself.
Articles by topic
- Category:Mapping articles
- Contains categories and articles about mapping.
- Category:Programming articles
- Contains categories and articles about programming, including class descriptions.
- Category:Modeling articles
- Contains categories and articles about modeling.
Meta categories
- Category:Article categories
- Contains all article categories.
- Category:Media categories
- Contains all image (and other media) categories.
- Category:Policies and guidelines
- Contains articles about the Unreal Wiki itself.
- Category:Help
- Contains help pages.
- Category:Template categories
- Contains categories for templates.
All meta categories are grouped in Category:Categories.