Wikipedia:Bad category names

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Sometimes articles link to non-existent or malformed categories. If this can be taken care of just by fixing links in the articles (the link displays red) then the categories below can just be fixed and de-listed. If it requires actually deleting a category (the link shows blue) then it needs to be fixed and then listed on WP:CFD.

Suggestions[edit]

  • It would be nice if Categories showed in Previews, so that one could fix malformed categories without committing to the edit (doing a Save Page) first. -- Mwanner 21:13, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
    They do; just scroll down to the very bottom of the page, past the edit box. -- Beland 7 July 2005 03:22 (UTC)

How to use these lists[edit]

Categories are "detected" in the below lists if they have weird, non-alphanumeric characters in the name. This may be an indication that either a syntax error was made on an article page (not unlikely if you only see one article for that category), or that the category should be renamed because it contains weird characters. If a category is listed here but does not have either of those problems, please add it to "Categories that appear to be ok". This will prevent it from being listed here in the future.

Categories should have two things: 1.) A description page, and 2.) Member articles and subcategories. A category might:

  • Have no description page but have member articles or subcategories. (Red, but linked to from other pages.) If the category is being kept, a description page should be added which specifies an appropriate parent category (like this: [[Category:NAME OF PARENT CATEGORY HERE]]). If the category is not being kept, the articles linking there should be moved to other categories, or at least removed from this one.
  • Have a description page and member articles or subcategories. (Blue, and linked from other pages.) This is the normal state of affairs. If a category like this needs to be renamed, please list it on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion (which also handles renaming).

Some category names appear black on the below lists. The script which produces automated lists does this because some category names that contain weird characters such that they cannot be linked to directly. You should still be able to reach these categories by visiting articles that link to them.

Character conventions[edit]

  • Namespace prefixes like "Wikipedia:" don't belong in category names. Use an alternative. For example, you can use "Wikipedia" as an adjective, without the colon.
  • Non-ASCII characters should be represented by their native UTF-8 (a Unicode representation) entity in category names. Neither HTML entities like & nor URL-encoded entities, like %2E should appear in category names as you see them in the wikitext when you edit a member article. You will see URL-encoded entities in URLs. (This, of course, is why it's easy to get confused and link to the wrong thing.)
  • Use "and" instead of "&" unless it is an integral part of a proper noun (e.g. "Law & Order").
  • To avoid the appearance of subpages, slashes should not appear in category names unless they are an integral part of a proper noun. (e.g. "OS/2") or unless there is another very good reason for having them. Try to rephrase or use hyphens instead (e.g. "Dallas-Fort Worth", "Minneapolis-St. Paul").

Categories that appear to be ok[edit]

Add false positives here. You can remove the list of member articles.

Links from outside the article namespace[edit]

From the user namespace[edit]

From talk pages[edit]

  • All fixed as of 12 June 2006.

Categories with specific problems[edit]

Extra spaces in link pages[edit]

These just need to be fixed on the article page. MediaWiki masks these errors so readers don't notice them.

  • All fixed as of 16 August 2005.

Categories using & in the name[edit]

  • All fixed as of 12 June 2006.

Categories with other dubious characters[edit]

These should be renamed, or merged with the correct (UTF-8 encoded) category.

  • All done for now

Categories with slashes in the name[edit]

Slashes should be avoided in article and category names - see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Forward_slashes_and_dots.

  • All fixed as of 12 June 2006.

TV stations[edit]

See also: Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 September 9#Television stations with slashes

  • All fixed as of 19 December 2010.

Wikipedia: categories[edit]

See also: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_September_9 and Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 May 13#Categories starting Wikipedia:

For a full list, see here.

Wikipedians by alma mater: categories[edit]

Categories that should be deleted[edit]

See Wikipedia:Categories for deletion for instructions.

  • None at the moment

Categories that should be renamed[edit]

See Wikipedia:Categories for deletion for instructions.

  • None at the moment

Detected 29 Oct 2005 (unsorted)[edit]

For red links, you may need to visit the category and see if there are any articles in it. These are probably typos in one or two articles.

Related pages[edit]

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