Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Categories

Categories

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An alternate to this scheme is currently drafted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Categories/Proposed update.
  1. Top-level categories, such as Category:Aviation and Category:Aircraft, should not be populated. (Their category pages can be marked with the {{catdiffuse}} template.) Specific subcategories should be used such as Category:United States airliners 1940–1949.
  2. Articles should not generally be in both a category and a subcategory of it. For example, do not put someone in both Category:Canadian airliners 1990–1999 and Category:Canadian aircraft 1990–1999, because the first is a subcategory of the latter. (For exceptions to this rule see SUBCAT.)

The category scheme originates in one root category—Category:Aviation—and can be thought of as a tree structure. A guide to the top-level sub-categories of this category is presented below; for brevity, a number of categories that are rarely used or lie outside the scope of this project have been omitted.

Category:Aviation
Root category for matters related to aviation. This category should be empty of articles,
Category:Aerobatics
Root category for all topics related to aerobatics.

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General principles

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Naming

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A number of naming conventions exist specifically for category names; most of these are used to ensure consistent naming among all the sub-categories of a particular category.

"X by country"
In most cases, sub-categories of a category named "X by country" take names of the form "X of [the] Y", where Y is the most common name of the country in question. For example:
"X by period"
In most cases, sub-categories of a category named "X by period" take names of the form "X Y", where Y is the name of the period of the subject in question. For example:
"X by type"
In most cases, sub-categories of a category named "X by type" take names of the form "Y X", where Y describes the type in question. For example:
Note that this form of category tree tends to exhibit more varied naming than the others. For example, Category:Aircraft by type also includes the non-standard Category:Airliners (since "Airliner aircraft" would be a cumbersome name).
Intersection categories
The names of intersection categories generally follow the same conventions as above, with the name components of their parent categories placed in normal grammatical order (usually with era given after country). This produces, for example, "Canadian aircraft 1960-1969" (country and era) and "Canadian military trainer aircraft 1930-1939" (country, type, and era).

Most specific categories

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In general, articles and categories should be placed in the most specific applicable categories, and should not be placed directly in a "parent" category if they are already present in one of its sub-categories. In other words, if an article is placed in Category:United States airliners 1940-1949, there is no need to place it in Category:United States civil aircraft 1940-1949 or Category:Aircraft manufactured by the United States as well.

Note, however, that this applies only to direct placement into a "parent" category; it is normal for a category to have multiple indirect paths up to some other category higher in the tree. For example, Category:United States military transport aircraft 1940-1949 is both a sub-category of Category:Military transport aircraft 1940-1949 (which is a sub-category of Category:Military aircraft 1940-1949) and a sub-category of Category:United States military aircraft 1940-1949 (which is also a sub-category Category:Military aircraft 1940-1949); thus, there are two distinct paths from Category:United States military transport aircraft 1940-1949 up to Category:Military aircraft 1940-1949. This is especially common when dealing with intersection categories.

Nested categories

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Intersection categories

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Aircraft

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Airlines

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Airports

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Airport articles should include the most specific category possible based on location. Each country has its own airport category, which can be found at Category: Airports by country (also available grouped by continent at Category: Airports by continent). For example, Copenhagen Airport in Denmark includes Category: Airports in Denmark.

Some larger countries have sub-categories for first level administrative divisions, such as state or province. These can be found under the country's airport category and should be used where available. For example, Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport in the Canadian province of Quebec includes Category: Airports in Quebec, a sub-category of Category: Airports in Canada (which is not added to the article).

Airport articles often include a location category for an administrative division below that of the airport category. For example, Nice Côte d'Azur Airport in Nice, France, includes both Category: Airports in France and Category: Nice.

Besides the location related categories, some airport articles may include other categories, such as those listed at Category: Airports by type. For example, Independence State Airport in the U.S. state of Oregon includes Category: Residential airparks in addition to Category: Airports in Oregon and Category: Polk County, Oregon.