WikiQueer:Categorization/Naming

When naming a category, one should be particularly careful and choose its name accurately. Moving non-conventionally categorized pages to another category name (see Category redirect) imposes an additional overhead – an edit for each article and subcategory.

General conventions

 * Standard article naming conventions apply; in particular, do not capitalize regular nouns except when they come at the beginning of the title.
 * Names of topic categories should be singular, normally corresponding to the name of a WikiQueer article. Examples: "Law", "Civilization", "George W. Bush".
 * Names of set categories should be plural. Examples: "Writers", "Villages in Poland".
 * Avoid abbreviations. Example: "Category:Military equipment of World War II", not "Category:Military equipment of WW2". However, abbreviations that have become the official or generally used name (such as NATO) should be used where there are no other conflicts.
 * Don't write the category structure in names. Example: "Monarchs", not "People - Monarchs".
 * Choose category names that are able to stand alone, independent of the way a category is connected to other categories. Example: "Geography terminology stubs", not "Terminology" (a subcategory of "Geography stubs").
 * As with lists, avoid descriptive adjectives such as famous, important, or notable in category titles.
 * Particularly for technical subjects, use words and phrases which exist in reliable sources, so that those sources may be used to support inclusion of articles.

Special conventions

 * Note that in many instances a topic category and list category have similar names, the topic category being singular and the list category plural. For example, Opera is a topic category (containing all articles relating to the topic), while Operas is a list category (containing articles about specific operas). Be careful to choose the right one when categorizing articles.
 * If there are a lot of lists in a particular subject area, it may be useful to have a category to hold them, called something like "Category:Lists of countries". These categories should only contain list pages (for example "List of Soviet Republics", "List of countries by population"). When placing pages in such a category, use a sort key that excludes the phrase "List of" (otherwise all lists would appear under "L"). See also Category:Lists.
 * All WikiProject categories should have "WikiProject" (or "WikiProjects") as part of the name. Note that this does not apply to the names of categories that projects might create for the use of assessments. In these cases, the advice given in Project Categories, which conforms to Category:WikiQueer 1.0 assessments is advised, though not mandatory.
 * Categories used for WikiQueer administration are prefixed with the word "WikiQueer" (no colon) if this is needed to prevent confusion with content categories. For example, Category:Inactive project pages (where no confusion is likely), but Category:WikiQueer tools (as distinct from the content category Tools).
 * Naming guidelines for sub-categories of Category:Stub categories are listed at WikiQueer:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines.
 * For categorization in userspace, see WikiQueer:Categorization and WikiQueer:User categories.
 * For geographical photo requests, the category name should be 'WikiQueer requested photographs in xxx' as in . Wikiprojects desiring to keep track of articles needing photos should use 'xxxx articles needing photos' as in and  (for photos, maps, drawings, etc.)