Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Categorization (section)

===Redirecting categories ===
{{redirect|WP:CAT-R|the guideline on categorizing page redirects|Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects}}{{shortcut|WP:CATRED}}
{{for|an essay on this topic|Wikipedia:Category redirects that should be kept}}
{{see also|Category:Wikipedia soft redirected categories}} 

<section begin=CATREDIRECT />Do {{em|not}} create inter-[[Help:Category|category]] redirects by adding <code><nowiki>#REDIRECT [[target]]</nowiki></code> to a category page. Unlike when [[Help:How to move a page|renaming articles]], categories cannot be [[Help:Redirect|redirected]] using "hard" redirects. Articles added to a "redirected" category will not show up in the target category. And since redirected categories do not become "[[Wikipedia:Red link|red links]]", editors won't be aware even when they add an article to a redirected category.<ref>For an attempt to fix this issue in [[MediaWiki]], {{crossref|pw=y|see {{Phab|T5311}}}}.</ref>

Instead, a form of "'''[[Wikipedia:Soft redirect|soft redirect]]'''" may be used in limited circumstances. You can create a [[Wikipedia:Category redirects|category redirect]] by adding {{tlx|Category redirect|target}} to the category page. [[Wikipedia:Bots|Bots]] patrol these categories and move articles to the "target" of the redirect.

If you need to add an [[WP:RCAT|rcat]] to a {{t|Category redirect}}, use the template's second parameter. For example, <syntaxhighlight inline lang="wikitext">{{Category redirect | Years of the 19th century in Ceylon | {{R from category navigation}} {{R from template-generated category}} }}</syntaxhighlight>

Category redirects are [[WP:COSTLY|costly]]. While placing a page in a category redirect is not a ''big'' problem, it <em>is</em> a problem. There are [[Wikipedia:Category redirects that should be kept#Category redirects that might be useful|plenty of helpful uses of category redirects]], but category redirects are not as [[WP:CHEAP|cheap as regular redirects]]. Links to article redirects are [[WP:NOTBROKEN|not broken]]: i.e. click on the link and you are automatically redirected to its target. However, links to category redirects <em>are</em> broken and need to be fixed, except when resolved by a template (i.e. the template generates categories using a pattern, and some of the resulting category names are intentionally resolved by the use of {{tl|resolve category redirect}} within the template, as in the Ceylon example above). Placing a page into a category redirect makes it show up in the category redirect — not its target — until a bot comes along and fixes the link.<section end=CATREDIRECT />

{{anchor|DISAMBIGCAT}}{{shortcut|WP:DISAMBIGCAT}}If the category was renamed because it is ambiguous, and categories exist for two or more meanings, then create a category [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation pages|disambiguation page]] at the old name, using {{tl|category disambiguation}}. See also [[:Category:Disambiguation categories]]

{{OOUI icon|information}} ''Note:'' usually only do this at an unused category name which is ambiguous, e.g. [[:Category:Lewis]]. If an ambiguous name is used for an active category because it is clearly the [[WP:PRIMARYTOPIC]], and there are only 1 or 2 others, then use a hatnote like the one at [[:Category:Lewes]]. For longer lists, we can also create pages such as [[:Category:Bedford (disambiguation)]].

{{anchor|HIDDENCAT}}