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From SCIFIPEDIA
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How is SCIFIPEDIA organized?
Although it is in the nature of a wiki to be fairly free-form, SCIFIPEDIA is organized under a total of 14 top-line categories which are seen as representing all the more general areas of interest into which genre subjects are likely to fall.
What are categories?
Categories are general subjects covering areas of interest within the genres covered by SCIFIPEDIA.
What are primary categories?
Primary, or top-line, categories are the general subjects areas into which the SCIFIPEDIA is divided for organizational purposes.
SCIFIPEDIA prefers that all new articles be entered into at least one of the fourteen primary categories. If a new articles is NOT entered into one of the primary categories, it will be more difficult to find and, therefore, less useful to visitors to SCIFIPEDIA.
What are considered the primary categories?
The fourteen primary categories are:
Art, Anime, Audio, Comics, ETs and UFOs, Fandom, Games, Internet, Literature, Movies, Paranormal, Science, Toys, TV.
These Primary categories are a part of the navigation for every page and so are essential for everyone keeping SCIFIPEDIA organized. SCIFIPEDIA encourages discussion on the subject of this choice of topics and entertains the possibility that we will be persuaded to add further topics to this initial selection.
What are subcategories?
Subcategories are areas of interest that fall under one or more of the Primary Categories (see above).
In a Wiki, all categories are equal—there are no "sub-categories". SCIFIPEDIA calls all categories that are not one of the 14 Primary Categories (see above) sub-categories. There is nothing within the wiki software itself that makes this distinction. Categories and sub-categories are agreed upon terms within the community of SCIFIPEDIA for the purposes of overall organization.
You can and in fact should link categories together. Any category you create should always be linked to one of the Primary Categories in order to keep everything connected and organized. Additionally, you may wish to connect your new category to other existing categories.
Can I create categories or subcategories?
You can create subcategories freely. Primary categories (see above) should be your jumping off point for this. The Primary categories help all of us keep SCIFIPEDIA organized. If you create a new category of any sort, be sure to also list it in at least one of the Primary categories (see below).
Can I edit categories or subcategories?
Again, subcategories are available for editing in the same way that articles are. The primary categories should be left as they are except where you would add any new category you've made to one or more of them (see above).
How do I categorize an article?
With a Category tag. When starting or editing an article, it's standard procedure on SCIFIPEDIA to place your Category tag(s) below everything else. That way everyone knows where to look and find the tags quickly.
A Category tag is just like a link in SCIFIPEDIA, with the addition of the namespace Category. For example, to place your new article about Arthur C. Clarke in the primary category Literature, you would place the following at the bottom of your article:
[[Category:Literature]]
To add the article to more than one category, just add more links. As with the above example, you would also want to at least list Clarke with Authors. So you would also add the following to the bottom of the article:
[[Category:Authors]]
What if I want to add an article to a category that doesn't exist?
Then it's time to create a new category! If you're sure it's not already covered by what's in SCIFIPEDIA, create the category. Be sure it can fit in (relate to) at least one of the Primary Categories (see above) and also be sure you cross-link it to ALL its relations.
How do I create a category or subcategory?
Creating a category is as easy as making a link to another article when starting or editing an article. You simply add it to an existing article, preferably at the bottom after everything else.
How do I go about doing that?
At the very bottom of the article is where one lists at least one of the Primary Categories (see above) and any other related categories (sometimes called sub-categories). To "create" one, simply add it at the bottom in the same manner. For instance, to create the category Kumquats, you would place at the bottom of an article:
[[Category:Kumquat
How do I cross-link a category I've created or found orphaned or think should be related to another category?
The way to approach this is the same in each instance:
1. Determine which of the 14 Primary Categories (see above) it can fit into as a sub-category (it can fit into more than one).
2. Determine if it can be seen as a subcategory of any other categories in SCIFIPEDIA.
3. Open the Category Page for the one you're working on and edit it. You can do this one of two ways:
4. At the bottom of the Category Page, add all its related / parent / sub-categories, just like you would when categorizing an article. Make note of these.
5. Open each of the above categories (including the Primary Categories) you included and add to them your new / orphaned / expanded category listing, as above.
Now all the related categories will reference each other, enhancing both the organization and searchability of SCIFIPEDIA.
What is a Category Page?
A Category Page is like an article, only in the namespace Category: Because of this, it can be tracked by the MediaWiki software behind SCIFIPEDIA and show you some interesting things:
1. What are its subcategories (or rather, what other categories are related to it)?
2. What articles are filed under this category?
A Category Page should contain at least a brief description describing the category in question. Be sure to do this for each category you add before moving on to edit more articles. Also be sure each category page is itself categorized with its related categories (Primary or otherwise—see above).
2008, SCI FI. All rights reserved.
