Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects

Most redirects should be placed in one of the maintenance categories specifically for redirects. In general, redirects should not be placed in article categories, but there are some exceptions.

There are a series of categories that are used only for redirects. Redirects are placed in categories by templates. These categories explain why the redirect exists, for example {{}} means it was created by a merge or {{}} means that the redirect is an alternative name for the main title.

For tables of redirect category templates, grouped both alphanumerically and by function, see . For the categorical list of such templates, see Category:Redirect templates. All the redirect categories are subcategories of , which is not meant to contain any redirects directly and is purposely kept empty except for subcategories.

There are some situations where placing a redirect in an article category is acceptable and can be helpful to users browsing through categories. The following are examples of some of these situations:

Note that placing such a category on the target article, with the alternative title in pipetext, does not accomplish the desired purpose, as pipetext in a category link only affects how a title is ordered alphabetically, not how it actually appears.

The primary function of the category system is to allow readers to browse through articles. The category system is often used like an alphabetical index. It is sometimes helpful for redirects from common alternative names to appear in the index list. Editors should consider whether alternative names should be mixed in with other names, or not. Sometimes an entirely new category is more appropriate (see Categorization of multiple taxonomies below).

Some subtopics of articles have well-known names and, over time, may expand to become separate articles. Many articles cover several topics that have been combined. This can happen following a merge of several related articles. Often there are redirects pointing to these subtopics. These redirects can be categorized. In some cases, the categories for the redirects that point to the subtopics will be different than the categories for the entire article.

Some articles can be organized by more than one taxonomy. An example of this is the organization of animal and plant articles by common names and binomial name taxonomy. This is possible by categorizing the article one way and categorizing the redirect a different way. In this case, the alternative categorization of the redirect will not appear in the article unless it is manually added.

Some well-organized lists have redirects pointing at their subsections. In such cases, categorization of the redirects can be an alternative way of browsing entries in a long list. It can also provide an alphabetical listing for lists that are not organised alphabetically, for example, lists organised in a chronological order. Redirects to sections of minor character lists should generally only be categorized within that fictional setting, and not in the wider fictional categories.

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