Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Categorization (section)

==Sort keys==
{{shortcut|WP:SORTKEY}}{{redirect|WP:Sorting|sorting of tables|Help:Sortable tables}}
'''Sort keys''' are sometimes needed to produce a correct ordering of member pages and subcategories on the category page. For the mechanics, see {{section link|Help:Category#Sorting category pages}}. 

Categories of people are usually sorted by last name rather than first name, so "last name, first name" sort keys are used (as in "Washington, George"). There are many other rules for sorting people's names; for more information, see [[WP:NAMESORT]].

Other sort key considerations (in no particular order):
* In English Wikipedia, sort order merges (ignores) case and diacritics. For example, "Baé", "Båf", "BaG" would be sorted in that order.<ref>In 2016, English Wikipedia's category collation was changed to "uca-default", which is based on the [[Unicode collation algorithm]] (UCA). The most noticeable difference is that UCA groups characters with diacritics with their non-diacritic versions. See {{Section link|Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 16#OK to switch English Wikipedia's category collation to uca-default?}} and {{Section link|Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 149#Sorting in categories unreliable for a few days}}.</ref>
* The main article/s of a category, if existent, should get sorted with a space as key so that it/they appear(s) at the very top of the category. Example: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Example| ]]</nowiki></code> Those articles are typically homonymous or at least synonymous to their category.<!--generally shouldn't exceed 3 articles; most of the time it should be a single one--> Furthermore, other general articles that are highly relevant to the category should be sorted with an asterisk as key so that they also appear at the top of a category but beneath the main article/s. Example: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Example|*]]</nowiki></code> Those articles are typically called "History of example", "Types of example", "List of example" or similar.<!--generally shouldn't exceed 5 articles; most of the time it should be a single one-->
* [[Article (part of speech)|Leading articles]]&mdash;a, an, and the&mdash;are among the most common reasons for using sort keys, which are used to transfer the leading article to the end of the key, as in <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT:Lady, The}}</nowiki>. Please also apply these sort keys to deliberate misspellings of these words, ''e.g.'' "da" or "tha" for "the", as well as foreign language leading articles, such as "el" or "der" (but beware of non-article words that have the same spelling, e.g. that translate as "at" or "one"). However, leading articles in foreign-language-derived names which are no longer translated in English are not subject to this rule; e.g. the sort key for [[El Paso]] should be left as the default value (i.e. no <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT}}</nowiki> required).
* Spell out abbreviations and characters used in place of words so that they can be found easily in categories. For example, the sort key for [[Mr. Bean]] should be <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Bean}}</nowiki> and [[Dungeons & Dragons]] should be sorted <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT:Dungeons and Dragons}}</nowiki>. An exception is the times sign (×) as in "Men's 4 × 100 metre" relay; use the letter x in this case.
* Landforms (and similar) that have noun prefixes such as [[Isle of Mull]] should have the noun sorted after as <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT:Mull, Isle of}}</nowiki>. However, this isn't usually done for settlements and administrative divisions; for example, while [[Isle of Wight]] uses <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT:Wight, Isle of}}</nowiki>, the categories for the county/district are sorted "Isle of Wight". Also for settlements such as [[Isle of Wight, Virginia]] the prefix isn't moved.
* Hyphens, apostrophes and periods/full stops are the only punctuation marks that should be kept in sort values. The only exception is the apostrophe in names beginning with ''O{{'}}'', which should be removed. For example, [[Eugene O'Neill]] is sorted <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Eugene}}</nowiki>. All other punctuation marks should be removed. (Commas can be added when re-ordering words, as in the previous example.)
* Entries containing numbers sometimes need special sort keys to ensure proper numerical ordering. For example, IX comes before V in alphabetical order, so [[Pope John IX]] might have a sort key "John 9". To get the correct sort order zero padding may be required, thus the ''actual'' sort key in this case is "John 09" this ensures that [[Pope John IX]] sorts before [[Pope John X]] – if we ever get to the hundredth Pope John, we would need to use three digits "John 009". Also note that numbers which include separators (such as commas or periods) will only have the part of the number before the first separator considered by the sorting algorithm. So [[10,000 Maniacs]] might have a sort key "10000 Maniacs". It is important to stick to the same system for all similar entries in a given category.
* Systematic sort keys are also used in other categories where the logical sort order is not alphabetical (for example, individual month articles in year categories such as [[:Category:2004]] use sort keys like "*2004-04" for April). Again, such systems must be used consistently within a category.
* In some categories, sort keys are used to exclude prefixes that are common to all or many of the entries, or are considered unimportant (such as "List of" or "The"). For example, in [[:Category:2004]] the page [[2004 in film]] would have the sort key "Film", and in [[:Category:2004 in Canada]] the page [[2004 Canadian federal budget]] would have the sort key "Federal Budget".
* Use other sort keys beginning with a space (or an asterisk or a plus sign) for any "List of ..." and other pages that should appear ''after'' the key article and ''before'' the main alphabetical listings, including "Outline of" and "Index of" pages. The same technique is sometimes used to bring particular subcategories to the start of the list.
:Sort order of characters ''before'' numbers and Latin alphabet (0&ndash;9, A&ndash;Z) is (partial list):
:'''<code>! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 9 : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` A Z a z { | } ~ É é &mdash;</code>'''
:''See also:'' [[:Meta:Help:Sorting#Sort modes]] for more information.
* Sort keys may be prefixed with [[Greek letters]] to place entries ''after'' the main alphabetical list. The following letters have special meaning by convention:
** "[[Σ]]" (capital sigma) is used to place [[Wikipedia:Stub|stub]] categories at the end of subcategory lists. ("µ" ([[Mu (letter)|mu]]) was previously used, but the capital version "Μ" was confusing.)
** "[[β]]" (beta, displays as capital, "Β") is for [[WP:*|barnstars]].
** "[[Δ]]" (delta) is for [[Wikipedia:Documentation|documentation]], where sorting by Latin D is undesirable.
** "[[ι]]" (iota, displays as "Ι") is for [[Wikipedia:Images|Wikipedia images]].
** "[[ρ]]" (rho, displays as "Ρ") is for [[Wikipedia:Portal|portals]].
** {{anchor|Tau}}"[[τ]]" (tau, displays as "Τ") is for [[Help:Template|templates]]. Keep in mind, template categories should not be added to content categories per [[WP:CAT#T]].
** "[[υ]]" (upsilon, displays as "Υ") for [[WP:Userbox|user templates]].
** "[[ω]]" (omega, displays as "Ω") is for [[WikiProject]]s.
*:Similar to the handling of Latin letters, if the sort key is or begins with a lower case Greek letter, then the capital Greek letter will be displayed in headings on category pages. Items whose sort keys begin with lowercase letters will appear beneath corresponding capital letters. Several of these resemble Latin letters B, I, P etc., but they will sort after [[Z]].
*:{{OOUI icon|information}} ''Note:'' Not all of these types are suitable for inclusion in ''content categories''. For one-type categories, such as ''template categories'', Greek letter grouping is not useful.
* If a page is to be given the same sort key in all or several of its categories, the <code><nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT}}</nowiki></code> [[Help:Magic words|magic word]] should be used. Per [[MOS:ORDER]], this is placed just before the list of category declarations. Default sort keys are sometimes defined even where they do not seem necessary—when they are the same as the page name, for example—in order to prevent other editors or automated tools from trying to infer a different default.

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