Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Categorization (section)

=== Eponymous categories <span class="anchor" id="EPON"></span><span class="anchor" id="OCEPON"></span><span class="anchor" id="EPONYMOUS"></span><span class="anchor" id="Eponymous category"></span> ===
{{Shortcut|WP:EPON|WP:OCEPON|WP:EPONYMOUS}}{{see also|Category:Eponymous categories|Category:Wikipedia categories named after people}}
{{for|the overuse of the word "eponymous" on Wikipedia|WP:TITULAR}}
A category that covers exactly the same topic as an article is known as the '''eponymous category''' for that article (e.g. [[New York City]] and [[:Category:New York City]]; [[Mekong]] and [[:Category:Mekong River]]; [[Abraham Lincoln]] and [[:Category:Abraham Lincoln]]).

Eponymous categories should not be created unless enough directly related articles or subcategories exist. However, this should not be done simply to reduce the number of categories displayed in an article. 

An eponymous category should have only the categories of its article that are relevant to the category's content. For example:
*Both [[New York City]] and [[:Category:New York City]] fit well in [[:Category:Cities in New York (state)]].
*The article [[New York City]] is in [[:Category:Populated places established in 1624]], but this category is not necessarily relevant to the content of [[:Category:New York City]], so it should not be used on the eponymous category.

==== Articles with eponymous categories <span class="anchor" id="CATMAIN"></span><span class="anchor" id="MAIN"></span> ====
{{Shortcut|WP:CATMAIN}}{{Redirect|WP:CATMAIN|the template|Template:Category main article}}
*The article itself should be a member of the eponymous category. It should be sorted with a space, so that it appears at the start of the category listing (see [[#Sort keys|§&nbsp;Sort keys]] below).
*The article should be listed as the main article of the category using the {{tl|Category main article}} template.
*Articles with an eponymous category may be categorized in the broader categories that would be present if there were no eponymous category (e.g. the article [[France]] appears in both [[:Category:France]] and [[:Category:Countries in Europe]], even though the latter category is the parent of the former category). Editors should decide by consensus which solution makes most sense for a category tree. There are three options:
# Keep both the eponymous category and the main article in the parent category. This is used in [[:Category:Countries in Europe]] to allow that region's country articles to be navigated together.
# Keep just the child article. This is used in [[:Category:British Islands]], to prevent a loop.
# Keep just the eponymous category. This is used for [[:Category:Farmers]] in [[:Category:People by occupation]]. Such "''X'' by ''Y''" categories sometimes cover a limited navigational set, not a topic (see [[#Category tree organization|§&nbsp;Category tree organization]] below), thus there is no logical article content.

If eponymous categories are categorized separately from their articles, it will be helpful to make links between the category page containing the articles and the category page containing the eponymous categories. The template {{Tl|Related category}} can be used for this. An example of this set-up is the linked categories [[:Category:American politicians]] and [[:Category:Wikipedia categories named after American politicians]].