Forgotten Realms Wiki:Categorization

This proposal aims to standardize the way that articles are categorized.

Considerations
There are considerations from the reader's point of view to ensure that any reader is able to easily find an article using categories. The categorization policy will inevitably vary from that in use at Wikipedia, because readers here are much more specialized.

Multiple subcategories
Usually, on Wikipedia, an article will only appear in the most specific subcategory. For example, the "London" article might appear in the England category, which might itself be in the Europe category, etc. There are different considerations for finding articles in this wiki. Consider a situation where a DM is looking for a 7th level paladin. The category "Paladins" contains a "7th level paladins" category which will help this DM find what she needs. However, if the DM just wanted to find a paladin, and the 7th level paladins were not also listed in their parent category, the DM would need to search through all the levels of paladin. If the 7th level paladin is listed in the "7th level paladins" category and the "Paladins" category, the DM can find the right paladin in both situations.

In short, an article should appear in the most general category that is appropriate, and also in its subcategories as required.

Sorting techniques
For each broad category, several subcategories should exist describing more specifically each aspect by which articles can further be categorized. For example, deities can be arranged by homeplane, by power level or by pantheon. The deities category should have subcategories entitled "Deities by homeplane," "Deities by power level" and "Deities by pantheon." In some situations the chain of categories will become more complicated, for example "Inhabitants," "Inhabitants by level," "7th level inhabitants."

Category tree
The "Categories" category should be the master category. It should be possible to get to the master category from any other category by navigating up the category "tree." This means that every category, except for the master "Categories" category, should have a parent category.