Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/How-to

How to use this page

Procedure

To list a category for deletion, merging or renaming, follow this process:

I.

Preliminary steps.

Determine whether the category needs deleting, merging, or renaming.

If it is a "red link" and has no articles or subcategories, then it is already deleted (more likely, it was never really created in the first place), and does not need to be listed here.
Read and understand Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) before using this page. Nominate categories here that violate policies, or are misspelled, mis-capitalized, redundant, need to be merged, not NPOV, small without potential for growth, or are generally bad ideas.
Please read the Wikipedia:Categorization of people policy when nominating or voting on a people-related category.
In the following three special cases:
1. If the category in question is a stub category, go to Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion.
2. If the category is only populated by a template, go to Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. For a template with the same name use {{catfd}}.
3. If the category is empty for more than four days, use {{db-catempty}} for a speedy deletion.

For further information, please consult Wikipedia:Category deletion policy, Wikipedia:Categorization, Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and Wikipedia:Naming conventions.

II.

Edit the category.

Add one of the following tags at the top of the category text of every category to be deleted or renamed.

If the category is a candidate for speedy renaming, use:

{{subst:cfr-speedy|ProposedName}}

and follow the instructions at Speedy renaming.

If a single category:

For deletion, {{subst:cfd}}
For a merger, {{subst:cfm|OtherCategory}}
For renaming, {{subst:cfr|ProposedName}}
For converting the category text into an article, {{subst:cfc|ProposedName}}

If a group of similar categories or a category and its subcategories, use an umbrella nomination (each category must be tagged, for nominations involving large numbers of categories tagging help can be requested at the talk page):

For deletion, {{subst:cfd|CfdSectionName}}
For a merger, {{subst:cfm|OtherCategory|CfdSectionName}}
For renaming, {{subst:cfr|ProposedName|CfdSectionName}}
For converting the category text into an article, {{subst:cfc|ProposedName|CfdSectionName}}

Please include "cfd", "cfm", "cfr", or "cfc" in the edit summary, and don't mark the edit as minor.
Preview before saving. The display will give more precise instructions about the next step.
See the talk pages at Cfd, Cfm, Cfr, and Cfc for more specific information.
Consider adding {{cfdnotice|Cfd section name|date=yyyy Month dd}} to the main article's talk page or to categories that are merge targets to notify users that the category has been nominated for deletion or renaming. Doing so would not only extend an additional courtesy, but possibly also bring in editors who know more about the subject at hand. See the talk page at cfdnotice for more information on how to use this template.

III.

Create the Cfd subsection.

Click on THIS LINK to edit the section of CFD for today's entries.

Follow the instructions in the comments (visible during edit), to copy and paste the template shown. All categories are specified without the Category: prefix.

For {{Cfd}}, use:

{{subst:cfd2|ObsoleteCategory|text='''Delete''', Your reason(s) for the proposed deletion. ~~~~}}

For {{Cfm}}, use:

{{subst:cfm2|FromCategory|ToCategory|text='''Merge''', Your reason(s) for the proposed merge. ~~~~}}

For {{Cfr}}, to a definite name use:

{{subst:cfr2|OldCategory|NewCategory|text='''Rename''', Your reason(s) for the proposed rename. ~~~~}}

For {{Cfr}}, to an indefinite name use:

{{subst:cfr2|OldCategory|to be determined by consensus|text='''Rename''', Your reason(s) for the proposed rename. ~~~~}}

For {{Cfc}}, use:

{{subst:cfr2|FromCategory|ToArticle|text= Your reason(s) for the proposed rename. ~~~~}}

For umbrella nominations, the standard templates should build the "Cfd section name" for the 1st nomination, although the 2nd and subsequent nominations must be added manually, like this:

==== Cfd section name ====

1st category
2nd category
'''Your vote''': Your reason for nominating the category ~~~~

Preview before saving to ensure all the fields have been properly listed.
Link both categories to delete and categories to merge into. Failure to do this will delay consideration of your suggestion.
Always add a colon (':') in the link to the category being listed, like [[:Category:Foo]]. This makes a category link that can be seen on the page (and avoids putting this page into the category you are nominating).

Notes for nominators

It is generally considered civil (but by no means mandatory) to notify the good-faith creator, any main contributors of the category and the relevant wikiprojects that you are nominating the category. To find the main contributors, look in the page history or talk page of the category. On the other hand, interested parties should watchlist categories. When notice is provided to creators, contributor or wikiprojects, it is suggested that the nominator indicate on the nomination that notice was provided and to whom.

Once you have previewed your entry, please make sure to add your signature after your proposal. If nominating a list of entries as a batch below your rationale, it is somewhat neater to place these after the signature (rather than leave the signature dangling at the end of the list, apparently unrelated to your reasons).

Once you have submitted a category here, no further action is necessary on your part. If the nomination is supported, helpful administrators and editors will log the result, and ensure that the change is populated to all affected pages.

Also, consider adding to your watchlist any categories you nominate. This will help ensure that your nomination tag is not removed by a vandal or mistake.

Users without accounts and users with new accounts

Users without accounts (anonymous users) may nominate and comment on proceedings, just as in Articles for Deletion (AfD). Votes from anonymous users or users who have made very few edits may be discounted. See Wikipedia:Sock puppetry and Wikipedia:Suffrage for details.

Redirecting categories

It is our general policy to delete categories that do not have articles in them. Unlike articles, categories are mostly for internal use only. If they don't have any articles, they shouldn't have any links from any articles or any other categories, because they are not useful for navigation and classification.

However, some categories frequently have articles assigned to them accidentally, or are otherwise re-created over and over again. In these cases, we use a form of "soft" redirection.

Categories cannot be redirected using "hard" redirects (#REDIRECT [[target]]) due to limitations in the MediaWiki software. Instead, use {{Category redirect|target}}. Helpful bots patrol these categories and move articles into the redirect targets.

You can see a list of redirected categories in Category:Wikipedia category redirects.