Wiki:Categorisation

This page is an official policy of the Soulbound Wiki. It describes how pages are categorised. Follow it when creating or editing articles and templates. Propose changes on the talk page first.

Categorisation is how articles are grouped so readers can browse the wiki and editors can find work to do. The Soulbound Wiki uses a single, agreed category tree, and — this is the key rule — categories are applied by infoboxes automatically, not typed by hand. This policy expands on Manual of Style § Categories.

Doing categorisation by hand is what produced today's mess: 130 categories with only a fraction documented, singular-and-plural forks of the same category, two rival tier systems, dozens of one-member categories, and hundreds of pages stranded in a catch-all "missing data" bucket. Driving categories from infoboxes fixes this at the source.

Principles

Type then subtype. The browsing tree is a type → subtype/slot hierarchy (for example Items → Weapons). Stat-buckets and rarity are separate cross-cuts, not part of the main branch.
One spelling, plural nouns. Category names are plural nouns with a single agreed spelling. Never create both Cosmetics - Head and Cosmetic - Head, or Armour - Head and Armour - Head Piece.
Infoboxes categorise; editors do not. An article's categories come from the fields of its infobox. You should rarely need to type [[Category:...]] in an article at all.
Maintenance categories are hidden. They are work queues, not taxonomy, and never appear at the bottom of a reader's page.

How to categorise a page

Add the correct infobox for the content type ({{Infobox Item}}

, {{Infobox Weapon}} , {{Infobox NPC}} , {{Infobox Enemy}} , {{Infobox Location}} , and so on). The infobox reads its fields and places the page in the right type, subtype and rarity categories.

Fill in the infobox fields accurately. The slot, rarity and type fields are the categorisation — a wrong slot value files the item under the wrong category.
Do not hand-type the type/subtype/rarity categories the infobox already applies. Duplicating them by hand is how forks appear.
Only hand-add a category the infobox genuinely cannot know — for example a one-off editorial grouping — and only if it already exists in the tree below. If you think a new category is needed, raise it on the talk page first.

Categorising a category page

A category page (the page at Category:Something) should itself carry a one-line description and be placed in its parent category, so the tree is navigable:

Weapons usable in melee combat.
[[Category:Weapons]]

Infobox auto-categorisation

Every canonical infobox is built to categorise its own host page. Concretely, an infobox:

places the page in its primary type category (an {{Infobox Weapon}}

adds Category:Weapons);

places it in the subtype or slot category from the relevant field (a slot = Head field adds Category:Armour - Head);
places it in the rarity cross-cut category from the rarity field (rarity = Rare adds Category:Rare items);
stamps the hidden maintenance categories below when required data or the image is missing.

This is implemented with parser functions inside the template, for example:

{{#if:{{{image|}}}||[[Category:Pages needing an image]]}}
{{#switch:{{{slot|}}}
 | Head  = [[Category:Armour - Head]]
 | Chest = [[Category:Armour - Chest]]
 | #default = [[Category:Pages missing data]]
}}

Because the logic lives in the template, a fix to how a type is categorised propagates to every page that uses the template at once. Never reproduce this logic by hand in an article.

Maintenance categories

Maintenance categories are hidden — every one carries __HIDDENCAT__ on its category page, so it does not show to readers — and they are self-populating: the infobox (or a maintenance template such as {{Stub}} ) adds the page automatically. They are the wiki's shared to-do lists.

Category	Applied when	Replaces the old
Category:Stubs	the page is tagged `{{Stub}}` or is too short to be useful \|\| —
Category:Pages missing data	an infobox's required field is left blank	the 945-member Missing data
Category:Pages missing an infobox	the article has no infobox at all	Missing template
Category:Pages needing an image	the infobox image field is blank	Missing Sprites
Category:Pages needing review	content may be stale against the current game (set by the data-sync flag pass)	—
Category:Uncategorised pages	the page ends up in no content category at all	—

Do not add or remove these by hand: fix the underlying cause (fill the field, add the infobox, upload the image) and the page leaves the queue on its own.

The target category tree

This is the tree the wiki is being migrated to. Names are plural, one spelling, applied by infoboxes.

Content
├── Quests
│   ├── Main Quests
│   └── Side Quests            (by region: Arcadia, Eastern Reach, Everdune, Neo-Tilus, …)
├── Items
│   ├── Weapons                (→ by weapon type)
│   ├── Armour                 (→ by slot: Head, Chest, Legs, Feet, Hands, Back)
│   ├── Accessories            (→ Neck, Ring, Belt)
│   ├── Cosmetics              (→ by slot)
│   ├── Consumables            (→ Food, Flasks, Potions)
│   ├── Relics
│   ├── Mounts
│   ├── Followers
│   ├── Furniture
│   ├── Materials              (Ores, Fish, Seeds, Raw materials, Components)
│   └── Treasure
├── NPCs
├── Enemies                    (→ by region / by type)
├── Locations
│   ├── Cities
│   ├── Regions
│   ├── Dungeons
│   └── Raids
├── Abilities
├── Skills
└── Crafting stations

Cross-cuts

Two category sets cut across the type tree rather than sitting inside it:

Rarity — Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary. One set, applied by the infobox from the item's rarity field. The old S/A/B/C-Tier system is retired; do not use it.
Stat-buckets — optional hidden cross-cuts such as Max Health Items or Damage Items, generated from infobox stats for calculators. They are not part of primary browsing and should never be hand-added.

Migration notes

Until the migration is complete you will meet forked and stray categories. When you do:

Do not create new forks. Use the single spelling in the tree above.
Merge, do not duplicate. If you find Cosmetic - Head alongside Cosmetics - Head, move members to the plural form and raise the empty one for deletion — do not leave both.
Report a category that has no place in the tree on the talk page rather than inventing a home for it.