Wikipedia talk:Categorization

See also: Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories

Category:Current qualifications

Hello. I would like to add the following article — 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification (UEFA) (and a few similar ones) — into some kind of "current" category. I don't think the Category:Current sports events is suitable for this purpose. Maybe we should create a new category; above, in the section title, I suggested one name. Of course, it could be adjusted a bit. What do you think about this? Thanks, Maiō T. (talk) 09:50, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

"Criticism of"/"Criticisms" articles

I apologize in advance if this is the wrong place for this, but there's something I noticed regarding these kinds of articles, specifically ones about criticism towards companies. These articles contain typically much more than just plain criticism. They will cover things like lawsuits, controversies, scandals, and even involvement in wars, not all of which were necessarily criticized by notable sources, nor were said "criticisms" of those things presented in the article. I believe maybe "Controversies and criticisms of" or "Controversies involving" would be a better titling style. GreatWhiteEditor (talk) 23:06, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Mass deletion of category entries

I have noticed in the last few days that people have been deleting hundreds of category entries, with no explanation. Vitorperrut555 did this on sept 1 and provided no explanation despite being asked by two people. Now Jevansen is doing the same thing. Paul Matthews (talk) 17:36, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

See User talk:Jevansen#What are you people doing deleting category entries?. In future, please give someone an opportunity to respond before resorting to a noticeboard, as both a courtesy and to save everyone's time. Jevansen (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

You keep creating more and more specialized and non-notable category intersections like Category:21st-century English women non-fiction writers. What is the notability of the intersection of being 21st-century, English, female, and specializing in non-fiction? This keeps you busy and inflates your edit count but is it useful? It is incredibly difficult to keep track of which intersections exist and which do not when creating a new article, especially in combination with non-diffusion. (Example: today I created an article on a modern Norwegian woman geomicrobiologist. Quick, off the top of your head without groveling through our category system, among the 84 potential intersections of {20th century,21st century}, Norwegian, woman, and scientist→{biologist,geologist}→{microbiologist,geobiologist}→geomicrobiologist, which ones currently exist, and which other categories would the non-diffusing ones have to be copied into? Which will exist tomorrow or next month? What is wrong with having large non-intersection categories that do not require articles to be subcategorized in this baroque way? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:37, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I did do that. I and someone else put a question on Vitorperrut555's talk page. They failed to answer the question, giving only incoherent responses. Also, you were aware of the issue as you were mentioned on that page and you wrote something, but also did not answer the question. That is why I wrote something here. Paul Matthews (talk) 11:57, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Alphabetizing categories?

I've started seeing gnoming-style edits which alphabetize the order of categories in articles. My understanding (see MOS:CATORDER) is that this is silly. Is there some new process out there which is encouraging editors to start doing this? My first thought was some sort of newcomer task, but the one I saw today was by somebody with 250,000 edits. RoySmith (talk) 12:14, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

My own preference for biographical categories is to have birth-death-place categories first, then timeless categories (like combinations of nationality and profession, alphabetically), and then categories that reflect specific dated events in chronological order (like degrees and employers). I don't expect everyone else to have the same preference but it would mildly annoy me to have these all indiscriminately mixed together in alphabetical order. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:18, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

There is no consensus for alpha sorting, see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 114#Create a BOT to alphabetize and organize categories automatically. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:11, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Glad I saw this. I've seen enough articles with edits where the categories were sorted alphabetically that I rather assumed it was the standard. DonIago (talk) 17:23, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Due to the way that British university alumni categories are phrased differently to every other, someone can be in the categories "Alumni of the London School of Economics" and "University of Paris alumni", which despite being related categories, are thrown to complete opposite ends when alphabetised. While MOS:CATORDER is unequivocal that there is no one way to order categories, I wouldn't mind there being an addition like on MOS:BCE to reiterate that changes without consensus and good reason are disruptive. Unknown Temptation (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

With all else being equal, I alpha order cats, with birth and deaths dates on top. Although only a minor consideration, I do think it could help users navigate multiple articles if the cats are in positioned in the same general location. Semper Fi FieldMarine (talk) 00:11, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

Sort names with particles

Confusing guidance regarding capitalisation

Wikipedia:Categorization/Sorting names states:

Generally, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish names do not include lowercase particles in sorting, but do include uppercase particles. For example, Otto von Bismarck is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Bismarck, Otto von}}, Jean de La Fontaine is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:La Fontaine, Jean de}}, and Alberto Di Chiara is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Di Chiara, Alberto}}.

This is confusing, since the capitalisation isn't fixed. My understanding is that in lists of authors for journals (which are generally in sort order) or when beginning a sentence with a surname with begins with a de/von/etc. the particle is capitalised. If the capitalisation is variable, distinguishing "lowercase particles" from "uppercase particles" makes no sense as the former becomes the latter when the name is in sort order.

I notice that this guideline provides no references for this, but does provide references to English-language style guides when discussing "American, Australian, Canadian, and English names" in a later paragraph. Is the guideline for Dutch, French, German, etc. names also based on relevant native style guides? Or is this lowercase/uppercase thing just a Wikipedia convention intended to keep sort names used for categorisation as similar to their article titles as possible? – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 21:15, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

@Scyrme: It really doesn't matter. Category sorting has been case-insensitive for about fifteen years now. So {{DEFAULTSORT:La Fontaine, Jean de}} is exactly equivalient to {{DEFAULTSORT:la Fontaine, Jean de}} and also to {{DEFAULTSORT:La Fontaine, Jean De}} or even {{DEFAULTSORT:la Fontaine, Jean De}}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:22, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I suspect that the concern is not whether the letters are capitalized so much as whether, e.g., Bismark should be sorted as "von Bismark, Otto" rather than "Bismark, Otto von", or whether "La Fontaine, Jean de" should actually be "de La Fontaine, Jean" or "Fontaine, Jean de La", and so on. BD2412 T 21:49, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes. The case sensitivity isn't the issue. The issue is whether the de/del/di/da/von/etc. goes before or after the comma. Given the capitalisation of a particle is often context-dependent, the quoted guideline's recommendation to place it before or after the comma depending on how it's capitalised is unintuitive and dubious. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 22:15, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

If the intended meaning of the guideline is that we should follow only the capitalisation used in an article's title and ignore all other contexts, this should be explicitly stated.

Even then, if that it what the guidelines means, I question if that's what the guideline should be. If the sorting is case insensitive, why does it matter how it's capitalised in the article title? And does this practice produce sort names which are consistent with common practice? Or is it likely to encourage sort names which are contrary to those used in sources or in the article itself? – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 23:06, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Unclear guidance regarding when native sort orders apply

The guideline suggests that Charles de Gaulle should have the sort name "Gaulle, Charles de", but this would seem to be contrary to the article itself which names him "De/de Gaulle" throughout, keeping his surname intact. (The article also presently does not follow the recommendation of the quoted guideline and instead uses the sort name "De Gaulle, Charles". This seems more intuitive than what the guideline recommends.) – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 23:06, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

In a discussion elsewhere, I was informed that the Spanish-language APA guidelines do broadly concur with Generally, ... names do not include ... particles in sorting, though the particle is included before the comma with the surname in Spanish-language wherever the name appears. Curiously, this does not extend to non-Spanish names that include similar particles; though they likewise keep the surname intact (including the particle) the particle is not ignored when sorting names alphabetically.

It also does not mention capitalisation as a relevant factor, but that may just be because this isn't relevant to Spanish names. Obviously Wikipedia does not need to follow APA norms; the point is that, contrary to what I asummed earlier, some conventions do encourage sorting names in an order contrary to how they would actually be written in text, and that the current Wikipedia guideline is apparently written to encourage following native-language sort orders.

Should, then, the sort name for Charles de Gaulle (currently "De Gaulle, Charles") be changed? Or are exceptions made for people who have strong name recognition among English speakers, since English-speaking readers would expect these names to be be sorted under English-language sorting conventions? If exceptions are made on that basis, this should be explicitly stated.

(I've made this a sseparate subsection as it's not directly relevant to the capitalisation issue I raised earlier.) – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 01:21, 28 September 2026 (UTC)