User:Stevertigo/test

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<a name="To_the_new_reader:" id="To_the_new_reader:"></a>

[edit] To the new reader:

If you are new to Wikipedia, and you have just selected the <a href="/wiki/Category:Science" title="Category:Science">category:science</a> for reading, for example, you may have been surprised to have seen two lists:

1. Subcategories of <a href="/wiki/Category:Science" title="Category:Science">category:science</a>, such as <a href="/wiki/Category:Astronomy" title="Category:Astronomy">category:astronomy</a>, and
2. Article lists, such as the Wikipedia article on <a href="/wiki/Astronomy" title="Astronomy">astronomy</a>.

• When you are interested in an individual science, look in the second list (#2 above) for more information on that science.
• The first list contains <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization" title="Wikipedia:Categorization">categories, but not topic content</a>. If you already understand what the topic <a href="/wiki/Astronomy" title="Astronomy">astronomy</a> is all about, but you want to learn more, then you can use <a href="/wiki/Category:Astronomy" title="Category:Astronomy">category:astronomy</a> to find more articles, either more specialized, or more general. A category is a <a href="/wiki/List" title="List">list</a> which serves to <a href="/wiki/Classification" title="Classification">classify</a> topics; for example, the <a href="/wiki/Category:Astronomy" title="Category:Astronomy">category:astronomy</a> is meant to hold the individual topics, such as the <a href="/wiki/Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram" title="Hertzsprung-Russell diagram">Hertzsprung-Russell diagram</a>.

To find a more general category, look at the bottom of that page. Both the article pages and the category pages can have Categories:links at the bottom of the page. But to find a sub-category of a category, look at list #1 above.

If you are still confused, just stick with individual articles until you need to learn about the categories. You can think of the categories as lists which were machine generated, to be studied later.

In all of this, it helps to keep a specific question in mind, such as how can we understand the evolution of stars?, for which a specific article, such as the <a href="/wiki/Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram" title="Hertzsprung-Russell diagram">Hertzsprung-Russell diagram</a> is useful, because the category system is meant to help you find topics.

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How to add category links to an article page, and how to assign subcategory links to a category page

The next subsections demonstrate the use of the category links using the <a href="/wiki/Category:Physics" title="Category:Physics">physics category</a>.

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[edit] How to navigate the category lists

To navigate the category lists, you can use the Category TOC links on the <a href="/wiki/Category:Physics" title="Category:Physics">category:physics</a> page. Just click on the letter corresponding to the first letter of the article or subcategory which you seek. Alternatively, click on the next 200 or previous 200 links on the category page.

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[edit] How to add categories to the physics articles

You can add relevant categories to help populate the subcategory lists. To do this, at the foot of a Physics article (see section below for Physics subcategory), add the text
       [[:Category:Add physics subcategory here]]

Before saving your edit, to test out the view, you can hit the Preview button to check whether your chosen subcategory is working. A colon (":") before the "category tag", e.g., Category:Add physics subcategory here, will allow you to include the link to a physics subcategory in an article, without placing the article in that physics subcategory. By convention, the category tags are placed before the interwiki links, which are usually the very last tags on the article.

By saving your edit, you will produce a link to the physics subcategory.

See the source text (click Edit this page above) for an example of the pipe trick, which forces an alphabetization in the category sequence for an item.

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How to assign physics subcategories to the physics category

To add subcategories to the <a href="/wiki/Category:Physics" title="Category:Physics">physics category</a>, first view that physics subcategory page via a link from some pertinent physics article in the subcategory. When viewing that physics subcategory page, click Edit this page, and place the text
       category:physics
at the foot of the physics subcategory page, above the interwiki links.

(The category software currently allocates 200 links per category page, whether they are subcategory or article links.)

<a name="About_lists_and_categories" id="About_lists_and_categories"></a>

[edit] About lists and categories

Wikipedia includes a number of <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:List" title="Wikipedia:List">lists</a>, but it is difficult to keep these lists complete and up-to-date, and to maintain connections between elements of a list and articles about those elements. Additionally, scaling aspects of the encyclopedia such as browsing, watchlists, and Recent Changes can be improved by identifying the articles with categories.

A category system has been developed for the <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:MediaWiki" title="Wikipedia:MediaWiki">MediaWiki</a> software that could automatically generate some of these lists and provide such categorization. The flat list of all categories can be found at <a href="/wiki/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Special:Categories</a>, although <a href="/wiki/Category:Fundamental" title="Category:Fundamental">Category:Fundamental</a> may be more suited for browsing.

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[edit] Alternative systems

Alternative systems include <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_series" title="Wikipedia:Article series">Wikipedia:Article series</a>, <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Incumbent_series" title="Wikipedia:Incumbent series">Wikipedia:Incumbent series</a>, and <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Topics" title="Wikipedia:Topics">Wikipedia:Topics</a>. See <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories%2C_lists%2C_and_series_boxes" title="Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes">Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes</a>.

For a discussion of how to use categories and which categories should exist, see <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization" title="Wikipedia:Categorization">Wikipedia:Categorization</a>.

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[edit] See also

• <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Browse" title="Wikipedia:Browse">Wikipedia:Browse</a> - A navigation page that includes links to high-level categories
• <a href="/wiki/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Special:Categories</a> - an alphabetical list of all categories with subcategories or categorized articles
• <a href="/wiki/Help:Category" title="Help:Category">Help:Category</a>
• <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Categorization" class="extiw">m:Categorization</a>.
• <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:List" title="Wikipedia:List">Wikipedia:List</a>, can have more structure and more information within a single page than a category; see also <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Categorization/Archive_1#Lists_v._categories" title="Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 1">Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 1#Lists v. categories</a> and <a href="/wiki/Category:Lists_that_should_be_categories" title="Category:Lists that should be categories">Category:Lists that should be categories</a>
• <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Navigational_templates" title="Wikipedia:Navigational templates">Wikipedia:Navigational templates</a>, often a small list for use in several related articles, without the usual disadvantages of duplication; e.g. a county article as well as articles on towns in that county can have the same list of towns; unlike a category, it can also show towns for which there is not yet an article, with a link to conveniently create one; groups of articles can thus be created <a href="/wiki/Top-down" title="Top-down">top-down</a>.
• <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:What_links_here" title="Wikipedia:What links here">Wikipedia:What links here</a> - if e.g. a county article does not list the towns in it, this link can help find existing town articles because they are likely to have a link to the county article.