Help:Using Categories on Sunshine Review
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Similarly, articles about cities, counties and school districts are placed in categories. An article about Allen Parish, Louisiana appears in Category:Louisiana parishes as do the articles on Sunshine Review about every other Louisiana parish, such as Franklin Parish.
As another example, the article about the Pennsylvania Right to Know Act appears in Category:Open records law. A reader who scrolled down to the bottom of the Pennsylvania Right to Know article would be able to click on the link that says "Open records law" and immediately be taken to a page listing 64 similarly-themed articles on Sunshine Review.
Categories make it easier for readers to navigate and surf around Sunshine Review. When you assign a category tag to an article, you're performing an act similar to a librarian grouping all books about Spanish cooking, or murder mysteries, or self-help books on one shelf of the library--you're making it much easier for someone to browse and find articles they might not have known they were looking for.
If you're a regular contributor to Sunshine Review, you'll find that categories make your life as a contributor much, much easier. Instead of remembering the exact names of a collection of articles you're interested in adding information to, all you have to remember is the category--some people bookmark the URL of a category they particularly care about and use it as their starting page for a session of editing and improving the articles in that category.
Deciding what categories an article belongs in
If you think an article could usefully be grouped with other articles, don't hesitate to create a new category, or add a category tag at the bottom of the article you're looking at to an existing category. Just like anything else on a wiki, the category tags can later be altered or even eliminated if they no longer serve a purpose.
If you're writing an article and want to put it in a category, think about whether the article is on a subject that other articles will be written about.
Check to see if there is already a category your article fits in
The way you do that is by visiting Special:Categories.
How to put your article in categories
Once you have decided to put your article in categories, the steps to follow are:
- On the "edit" page for the article, place your cursor at the end of the article.
- Type two initial square brackets: [[
- Type the word "Category" followed by a colon, as in: Category:
- Type the name of the category, which can be a new category or a pre-existing category. For example: Ohio cities
- Type two concluding square brackets: ]]
- Preview your work and then click "save page".
- You're done.
Category names are case-sensitive. If you're trying to put an article in the category "Ohio cities" and you type "Ohio Cities", your article will go into a category called "Ohio Cities" which won't be good because all the other articles on Sunshine Review about Ohio cities are in the "Ohio cities" category. By default, all categories on Sunshine Review should be in lowercase. The only exception is for proper nouns or acronyms (such as "FOIA").
Seeing is believing
This 'shows' what was just instructed, above:
[[category:louisiana parishes]] [[category:state FOIA lawsuits]] [[category:transparency checklists]]
Yes, putting articles in categories is that easy.
How to remove category tags from an article
If you think an article has been mis-categorized, go to the "edit" screen of that article, scroll to the bottom of the edit screen where you'll find the category tags, and delete category tags you believe are obsolete or unhelpful.
If you do decide that an entire category is obsolete, visit that category's page and note the articles it includes so you can move all those articles to a new category. Otherwise, those other articles will end up orphaned in an obsolete category.
Sub-categories
The artful use of subcategories is extremely helpful. One category (for example, Category:Louisiana sunshine lawsuits, can be a subcategory of two different, larger categories, the Category:Louisiana category and the Category:State FOIA lawsuits category. Rather than categorize an article about a Louisiana open records lawsuit as belonging to the "Louisiana" or "State FOIA lawsuits" category, you'd add a category tag at the bottom of the article saying [[Category:Louisiana sunshine lawsuits]], which appears as Category:Louisiana sunshine lawsuits.
How to make one category a sub-category of a larger category
When you are on the page for the category which you wish to designate as a subcategory of some larger category, simply add a category tag on the page you want to designate as a subcategory to the larger category. For example, on the category page for Category:Louisiana sunshine lawsuits, type both [[Category:Louisiana]] and [[Category:State FOIA lawsuits]]
