Wikipedia talk:HotCat/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Village Pump proposal for enabling this by default for most editors

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal:_enable_HotCat_for_all_editors_by_default. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion has been closed, with the most popular option being: enable HotCat for all registered accounts. The discussants also liked the idea (if feasible) to add a confirmation page and/or a help page, to be displayed for first time editors who remove a category, to reduce a chance of an accidental mistake. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Hooray! I missed the notice the first time around, but am glad to hear there is consensus for broadly enabling this excellent gadget. Thanks for reporting back, Piotr! -Pete (talk) 22:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't know how to get in touch with the developers; somebody suggested starting a bugzilla report, but I don't think it has been done. If anybody knows how to contact the developers, please do so, I linked all the community discussions (including fixing archive links) above. PS. I've asked about this at the MediaWiki_talk:Gadgets-definition, as suggested at VP.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Piotrus, HotCat is not part of the MediaWiki software, so opening a bugzilla bug won't help. I am its main developer and maintainer. It seems to me that the result of that discussion was "just turn it on for anybody who's logged in", without additional hassles like extra confirmation screens and so on. Right? If so, I think it's a simple configuration thing. Somebody just needs to add the default flag to it in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. I'll do it tomorrow morning (UTC) if nobody else has done so yet; I don't have the time right now, and I want to be present when that happens so that I can intervene if anything goes wrong. Lupo 18:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

On closer look, I see a number of people in that discussion who wanted an extra confirmation on category deletions. Hmmm... be prepared in this case to see the default enablement be undone if unmotivated category removals really turn out to be problem. Lupo 18:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

You are right that turn it on by default is the common vote, extra confirmation would be nice, but if it would delay the implementation of the turning it on by more than few days, I wouldn't worry about it too much. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 19:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I am in the camp of people who think that this one-click behavior, which is so convenient for experienced editors, is a trap for new editors. I will therefore enable it for all logged-in accounts, but I'll force non-autoconfirmed users to always go through the diff screen. That shows them the effect of what they do in HotCat, and it is saved only if they explicitly click the "save page" button. Strikes me as a simple way to teach the effects of various HotCat functions, and will help avoid the worst blunders. A new user becomes autoconfirmed if his account is older than four days and he has made at least 10 edits. After that, they'll have the one-click behavior. I do think that this is much better and avoids embarrassment for new editors, and it'll help avoid newbies getting bitten. Lupo 22:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Done now. Announcements left at WP:AN#HotCat gadget enabled by default, WP:VPT#HotCat gadget enabled by default, and at MediaWiki talk:Gadgets-definition#Where to ask somebody to turn HotCat on for more editors?. Lupo 09:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Quick question?

Is this feature enabled by default (or did I somehow add it to my preferences without realizing it)? Bwrs (talk) 06:16, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

See #Village Pump proposal for enabling this by default for most editors above. Lupo 09:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Can I use this on my own wiki?

I really like this feature and am wondering how it works, and if I can install it via MediaWiki:Monobook.js or is it an extension? Xtreme2000 (talk) 22:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not an extension, just javascript. If you want to install it for your whole wiki, there are instructions at commons:Help:Gadget-HotCat#Installing HotCat on another wiki. If you just want it for your own use, you should be able to just copy commons:MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js into your Special:MyPage/Common.js on your wiki. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:07, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Confirmation screens, please

If is per-user configurable whether the new UI elements edit the page immediately or display some sort of confirmation screen? If so, please let the default be to show a confimation screen, independently of seniority. I saw strange new bluelinks at the bottom of a page, poked at them in curiosity to find out what they did and before I knew what was going on I had edited the page! I happened to be observant enough to check my contributions and rollback the edit, but even a small non-observant fraction of the who-knows-how-many autoconfirmed users could do considerable accidental damage, I think.

The common UI convention on the web is that blue links are harmless retrieval operations, whereas transactions that actually do stuff involve clicking on a button widget. Deviations from this pattern really ought to be opt-in. –Henning Makholm (talk) 01:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Seconded: as someone who often browses on my slow touchscreen phone in an area with poor signal, I've just been delighted to discover how to hide the danger of one-click rollbacks from my watchlist. Confirmation screens seem an excellent way to avoid either fat-finger (/slow touchscreen) mistakes or ignorant confusion, with the option for confident users to disable them as a preference if they think fit. PamD 07:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, actually, I agree with you. I guess in particular the (-) link for category deletion is still a trap. The (+) link is not a problem, I think: it gives you an edit box, so it's rather clear that you will be changing something, and that edit box has a "cancel" button. I'll program something in so that the (-) link doesn't save on its own, but goes through an intermediary diff screen, where the user will have to explicitly click "save page".

It is actually user configurable. Put the following line into your common.js:

window.hotcat_no_autocommit = true;

That will make all HotCat changes go through a diff screen. But as I said, I'll change the behavior of that (-) link. Lupo 09:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Clicking on the (-) link will now not save directly, but show an edit page, with the changes. The user has to explicitly save the edit. Note that due to the way all this gadget stuff works, it is perhaps necessary to reload your browser's cache to get the fix right away.

Experienced users can override this behavior and get the old "one-click-deletion" back by adding the following line to their common.js:

window.hotcat_del_needs_diff = false;

HTH, Lupo 10:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Reasonable, but please add the tip for experienced user to the main HotCat how to page. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 18:43, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure this confirmation stuff is working quite right. I just inadvertantly added a category to someone's Talk page using the hotcat widget (my intent had been to add a new section). I don't think I got a confirmation, or if I did, it certainly wasn't clear enough! jhawkinson (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

So it wasn't just me - someone did change the configuration! Can a developer please update the documentation accordingly? (Just added that line of script to my .js page.) – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Question

How do I get it so that when I edit multiple categories at once using the multiedit button, I don't have to go through the confirmation screen? I see that there is a section above for the "-" link which I have done, but I also don't want to have to confirm when using the multiedit link. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:23, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

See #Multiple changes - auto save, above. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 06:49, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, that code doesn't appear to be working. It didn't change anything. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh. I know the base HotCat code and the base MediaWiki code have changed since then, so maybe the changes broke it. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 06:08, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Still works for me at User:GoingBatty/vector.js. GoingBatty (talk) 01:21, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I copied and pasted the code for your javascript page and now it works. Maybe I copied and pasted wrong the first time or something. Oh well, it's working now. StringTheory11 (t • c) 05:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Adding and removing categories

I just added the category "Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Alaska" to the new Beluga Point Site with HotCat. When I then tried to remove the redundant category "National Register of Historic Places in Alaska", HotCat doesn't remove the category. Instead, it takes me to the edit screen and requires I Save Page manually to remove it. Is this the way HotCat is supposed to operate now? — Maile (talk) 19:48, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. See #Confirmation screens, please above. Was introduced when the gadget was enabled by default. That section above also tells you how to get back the one-click-deletion behavior in case you wanted that. Lupo 16:45, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

unblock

Can we get Category:Unblock blacklisted? As far as I can tell, it's only ever used incorrectly. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 23:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Functionality disappeared

I'm not getting the Wikipedia:HOTCAT#Easy_categorizing_to_child_or_parent_categories function -- I'm not seeing the up and down arrows. I tried changing the line in my javascript page to the one shown, but it didn't help. Am I missing something? --Auntof6 (talk) 11:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You added that to your monobook.js, so I presume you were using monobook? And you did make your browser re-load the Javascript after the change? Lupo 10:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I use monobook. I cleared the cache, in fact this has persisted across multiple browser sessions. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

What browser are you using? Maybe this is something browser-related. Works for me in Safari 6.0.3, Chrome 25, and in Firefox 19.0.2. Didn't try any others now. Lupo 22:23, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, no, now I see it: the line "<!-- importScript('User:Lupin/popups.js'); -->" in your User:Auntof6/monobook.js is causing this. That line is not valid JavaScript, anything after it will not be executed. Delete that line, and use "window.hotcat_use_category_links" instead of "var", then reload your browser's cache, and it should work. Lupo 22:29, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I think I did what you said, but I'm still having the problem. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:09, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, I figured it out. Thanks for your help. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Page reload

Am I missing something or has the process changed? When adding a cat I thought it used to save without submitting a form and refreshing the page? Now it is going through a full page reload. I just tried it in chrome 12.0.742.112 and FF 5.0.1, both Windows 7 --CutOffTies (talk) 11:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It always did that. Lupo 22:13, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I would really appreciate if it didn't, and used AJAX instead. Gryllida^✎✍ 22:26, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:FOOTERS violation

See here. I don't think that HotCat should change the order of footers if the previous order satisfied WP:FOOTERS but the new order does not. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

HotCat does not do that. Talk to the user who made the edit. (Note that users can do whatever they like on the diff screen.) Lupo 20:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Non-existent cats

I don't think that HotCat should allow the addition of non-existent (redlink) cats, as it did here. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Why not? The extra 's' in that case probably was a typo by the user in the category editor. Lupo 20:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't HotCat validate the input then? I was under the impression that it did, given this thread above. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

To some extent it does. It even displays visual cues as to whether the category entered exists or not. But why should it forbid adding a non-existing category? Some people work like that; if they try to add a category and find it doesn't exist yet, they add it all the same, then click the red link to create the category page. Lupo 21:03, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Why can't HotCat handle categories with dashes in them?

When I want to add a category using HotCat, I often copy-paste in the title of the category rather than typing it. But when the category title has a dash in it (as in Category:Germany–United States relations), that doesn't work - it pastes as the nonexistent Category:Germany-United States relations. Is it possible to add such categories using HotCat, and if so, how should I do it? Robofish (talk) 22:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:Germany–United States relations has an N-dash as the "–". You apparently entered a normal minus sign "-". Unfortunately, the server's search engine does not treat these as equivalent, and last time I looked, there was no way to tell it to return results for both; so HotCat cannot display both in its suggestion list. (Unless HotCat treated this on its end and made several search queries to the server, one for "-" and one for "–", and if there are more than one dash, even more queries, one for every possible combination of dashes.)

HotCat also cannot handle this by simply replacing any minus sign by an n-dash before making the query, as that might also be wrong. Especially on other projects (remember, this script runs on many WMF wikis, not just here at the English Wikipedia) that use other typographic conventions.

If you enter an n-dash in the category editor of HotCat (or paste it, for instance by pasting "Germany–" (has an n-dash at the end) without the quotes), then HotCat will show the categories in its suggestion list, and will also enter the category with the n-dash.

The problem here is two-fold:

• The English Wikipedia has decided to embed a nit-picky typographic convention in article titles. Although there should be redirects using plain dashes (minus signs) to the "real" categories using n-dashes, it appears that this isn't always the case. If there are such redirects, then the categories could be found by humans and by HotCat irrespective of whether the user types a dash or an n-dash; and HotCat would even resolve the redirect and enter the category with the n-dash, as desired. For Category:Germany-Japan relations, there is such a redirect, so if you enter "Germany-Japan relations" (with a dash) in HotCat, it will actually add the category Category:Germany–Japan relations (with n-dash).
• The server's search engine doesn't treat the various dashes as equivalent. Maybe someone should open a bugzilla request to ask for this.

As for your particular pasting problem, I have no idea where that comes from. HotCat certainly doesn't replace n-dashes by dashes or anything like that. In fact, I just pasted the category name Category:Germany–United States relations from (a) this wiki page, selecting part of the link, (b) going to that category page and selecting the category name from (b1) the browser's address bar, (b2) the page title on the category page. In all cases, the n-dash was correctly pasted, and HotCat would also insert the category with the n-dash. I also double checked that the redirect case (Germany-Japan with simple dash) does indeed work: it does.

Lupo 12:39, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

BTW, the normal search box you see on every Wikipedia page also has problems with dashes vs. n-dashes. Entering "Category:Germany-" (simple dash) doesn't show me any category containing a dash; all results start with "Germany ". Entering "Category:Germany–" (with n-dash) does show the true categories starting with that prefix. Lupo 13:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

See also the section on en-dashes above. Lupo 13:28, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT

Is there any way to set HotCat so that DEFAULTSORTs can be added?Naraht (talk) 16:07, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

HotCat contains no code dealing with DEFAULTSORTs. The only way to make it offer support for editing/adding DEFAULTSORTs (or its localized variants) would be to write such code, which I don't have the time for. Lupo 10:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Navbox problem with HotCat?

Apologies if this has been queried before, I couldn't see it on a quick scan through earlier discussions... I note that HotCat doesn't seem to work with my browser when there is more than one navigation box template at the bottom of an article (and sometimes not when there is just one). Is this a known bug? I realise my browser is not the newest (Safari 5.1.7) but I would expect it's new enough that others will be facing the same problem. Thanks in advance... Grutness...wha? 01:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Never heard of that. Got an example page? And what does "Doesn't seem to work" mean exactly? Lupo 06:00, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

file with navboxes. Hotcat not present

file with no navboxes. Hotcat present

Le Mouv' is a perfect example. By "doesn't work", I mean the categories alone are listed at the bottom - no [-], [+], and [±] buttons, so if I want to add categories I have to physically edit the last section of the article. Please compare the attached images. Grutness...wha? 12:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Works for me (Safari 5.1.7 on MacOS 10.6). Note that the first four categories in Le Mouv' are transcluded anyway. But your screenshot shows that the "(+⁺) is also missing, so it's clear that HotCat didn't load for you. However, I cannot reproduce this. Is there anything in Safari's error log relating to JavaScript? (I do get two errors about 404 responses on monobook/bullet.gif and chick/main.css, but these are unrelated.) What other gadgets do have enabled? Lupo 13:17, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

BTW, the two navboxes are shown collapsed for me, not expanded. Collapsing is done, AFAIK, also via JavaScript, so it seems the Navbox-JavaSCript also doesn't load for you. Or did you expand them manually?

I would start with blanking User:Grutness/monobook.js I don't trust ANY of those contents at this moment. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:17, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Ha! Blanking monobook.js seems to have done the trick. The main thing in there hasn't worked for a while anyway, so it's no loss. Thanks! Grutness...wha? 01:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Catdiffuse

Can categories which are supposedly to be diffused be removed by default from appearing? –HTD 18:59, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

HotCat currently has only a blacklist to exclude some categories from its suggestion list by name. (The blacklist is a single regular expression.) Doing category exclusion based on the content of a category page (such as it containing special templates) is currently not implemented and is be possible only at the cost of additional calls to the server, which will slow things down. Lupo 19:34, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Well I guess that's fair enough. –HTD 17:17, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

RFC

See WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 107#WP:HOTCAT on as a default. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:48, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

HotCat and templates?

I read the discussion above, and turned HotCat back on in my preferences, but it still doesn't appear in template pages. Whoever fiddled with HotCat to turn it off by default did a dismal job, there have been all sorts of problems with this gadget lately.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 13:52, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

HotCat is never and was never active in the template namespace. Lupo 09:00, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Feature request: change the order of categories

Would it we possible to add two extra controls (←) and (→) that would allow one to change the order of categories? —Ruud 09:27, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

HotCat problem?

Since this morning, I don't see the +/-/etc links to add/delete/change cats with HotCat. Is there a problem somewhere? I didn't change anything to my browser (Firefox for Windows), far as I can see. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 12:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• Same here. xOttawahitech (talk) 13:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

As per the thread above, this has been turned off by default - it was causing endless problems with new users attempting to communicate via categories. See WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 107#WP:HOTCAT on as a default. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:19, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

You can turn it on at in the gadgets tab of your preferences. GB fan 13:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Right, even if you had already checked the gadgets box in your preferences before it was (temporarily) made the default, now you need to go back and check it again. – Wbm1058 (talk) 13:06, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

It's still not working. I have tried turning it off and on again and it still doesn't show up on pages. What else can I do?--Sanya3 (talk) 19:51, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Maybe a WP:BYPASS to make sure your browser has the latest version. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:58, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Toggling "Compatability View" fixed it for me (IE8)! Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 11:18, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Problem!

Hey, I love your tool, especially when it provides a drop down (or roll up?) menu of possible Category names.

But I'm running into one problem: I often remove Categories that are supposed to be applied to Wikipedia Pages but, for some reason, are applied to User Pages (for example, Category:Wikipedia_templates). But when I tried to remove the Category from a User Page (User talk:Huangcjz for example), it is not possible to remove it, there is only the possibility to add new Categories. I went into Edit for the page and when I scrolled to the bottom of the page, no Categories appear at all, so I couldn't delete it that way either. I'm mystified but this has happened to me on other Pages, too, the inability to remove Categories while there is the ability to add new ones.

FWIW, when I've remove a misapplied Category, I leave a note to the Editor. It's just confusing, if you are looking at the Category page, to find User Pages mixed in with Template pages. Thanks for any help you can provide! ;-) Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:57, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

HotCat is only enabled in certain namespaces - it would be great if someone could list them on Wikipedia:HotCat. GoingBatty (talk) 01:03, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

• You can't use HotCat to fix this problem. The fix is more complicated. Most of these user pages are in Category:Wikipedia templates because they transclude a template or other page that is in that category. For example, the page you gave as an example User talk:Huangcjz, transcludes Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/The Metropolitan/Issue 16. That Wikipedia namespace page in turn transcludes Portal:London Transport/Selected pictures, a page in Portal namespace. That, in turn, transcludes Portal:London Transport/box-header-plain. That, in turn transcludes Template:Box-header-plain (Portal:Box-header-plain redirects there). Aha! Now the culprit has been tracked down: the first line in Template:Box-header-plain was Category:Wikipedia templates. Moving the category to the bottom, as I did with this edit, did the trick, because that put the category inside the <noinclude> . . . </noinclude> tags. Now, there's one more thing to clear specific pages like User talk:Huangcjz from the category right away: make a null edit to the page, to purge the page's server cache. The last step is optional, as the system will automatically purge its cache eventually. Thanks for pointing out the problem. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 14:24, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Keyboard shortcuts

Is there a way to click the (+) symbol with a keyboard shortcut instead of having to click on it with the mouse? It would be really great if there was. Ithinkicahn (talk) 19:20, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Not initialising for pages without a category

When I load a page without a category, HotCat doesnt initialise. e.g. User:Kmccark. Special:NewPages is another source of pages like this. e.g. Rahman Mostafiz right now. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

HotCat initializes for me on User:Kmccark and Rahman Mostafiz using Win7/IE8. What system are you using? GoingBatty (talk) 13:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Reload your browser's cache; it's related to [1]. We pushed a fix for this on 2013-11-04; maybe your browser has still an older version of HotCat cached. Lupo 16:26, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Odd issue

Am I the only one noticing that HotCat won't allow for the automatic addition of one category, instead treating the addition as though it is two categories and needs automatic confirmation to add one category? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Template documentation

Please can HotCat be modified, so that it will work on templates, whose categories are held in their paired documentation pages? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Hotcat not working

I think this has something to do with Visual Editor. After I disabled it, a lot of my gadgets went missing. Hotcat was found to be disabled, but after enabling, refreshing/bypassing my cache, logging out and logging in again, it refuses to load on Firefox 23 and Chrome 28. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 11:52, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

No idea. It was disabled for me, too, this morning. No idea why. After I re-enabled the gadget, it appeared as expected. But then, I'm still using FF 22. Lupo 07:49, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm on Internet Explorer, and it's been disabled for me for much of the morning. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 15:41, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Still not working for me! HotCat tools have been missing for me for more than a week now SPat ^talk 22:49, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Same here on old version IE7, HotCat hasn't been available for nearly two weeks now. I've changed skins (MonoBook/Vector), reapplied settings, but doesn't seem to matter. Deadstar (talk) 08:24, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

HotCat has stopped working for me, too. I'm using Firefox on a MacBook Air. Any help would be appreciated. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:46, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Windows 7, FF 23.0.1 HC stopped working several days ago. Meclee (talk) 17:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not working for me either, on Macintosh (OS X 10.6.8) FF 24.0 or Safari 5.1.10. I have sent an email to Lupo (talk · contribs) who is its main author; but as his user page says he is very busy outside Wikipedia, we may have to live without this (excellent) tool for a while longer. – Fayenatic London 22:27, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Been disabled for me for a couple of days now. I'm on IE 8. 069952497a (U-T-C-E) 20:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, something very weird is going on. HotCat works for me on normal articles, but whenever I access a new article from Page Curation, it doesn't work. 069952497a (U-T-C-E) 18:08, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't work for me either but works on Commons. (OSX 10.9 FF 25) Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 23:59, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Till date, hotcat refuses to work for me on enwp on both Firefox, as well as Chrome on both Windows XP as well as 7. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 21:29, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I just got HotCat back! The old code for WP:POPUPS in my user javascript file was apparently interfering with it. ([2]) See Wikipedia:User scripts for more info. Enter your user name in Special:PrefixIndex/User: to see whether you have a user javascript page, ending in .js , which may be causing incompatibility in your case. – Fayenatic London 09:32, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't use popups. my Vector.js is flooded with a lot of scripts, so I think I should try removing s few. This is on Chrome 32 and Fx 26. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:14, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Improve categories

When adding categories, please could HotCat detect and offer to remove {{Improve categories}}? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:59, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Problem with FF29 when HotCat and WikEd both enabled

There is a problem being reported at User talk:Cacycle/wikEd#wikEd bug report:clicking on section links which might be HotCat related. Thincat (talk) 22:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Known problem; is being worked on. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 126#Section_links_not_working_properly. Might take a little while; we'll have to figure out how to best avoid the conflict, and where to fix it: in wikEd or in HotCat? Lupo 22:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Solved now with the latest version of wikEd (0.9.126c). Thanks, Cacycle! Lupo 21:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Hotcat not working (again)

Hi, I was trying to use HotCat recently but discovered that the categories at the bottom of every page I look at don't have the pluses and minuses next to them like usual, making it impossible to use HotCat. Also, I have it turned on in my preferences, so I know that's not it. Does anyone know why this is happening or if it has also happened to them? Jinkinson talk to me 18:45, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Nvm, it's working again. Jinkinson talk to me 19:24, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

See WP:VPT#Skin and gadget issues 16 May 2014. BTW, it's not just here, I also briefly lost all gadgets at the Commons. Lupo 19:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Check/X icons for existence when adding a cat not distinct

The / icon next to the input box is an important indicator. When working quickly, it's easy not to notice that it's an X (and therefore to add a redlink due to typos or autocomplete not having caught up) rather than the checkmark. One quick improvement would be to make these more visually different from each other: maybe red vs blue background instead of both purplish? A functional improvement would be a confirmation dialog if one is adding a cat that doesn't exist, and to offer to open it in the wikipedia editor so one can create it. DMacks (talk) 15:31, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

For example, / are more obviously different. I think red/green are not accessible as a difference, so / would meet that UI guideline. These icons are the only indication of a status, so it's important to keep them as accessible as possible. The current ones are also a problem for low-visibility users) and also don't use alt-text to indicate what they mean. DMacks (talk) 16:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

That can be configured. Just set in Mediawiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local_defaults HotCat.existsNo = '//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/P_no_red.svg/20px-P_no_red.svg.png';, and then HotCat should use the red icon. Lupo 18:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Done. DMacks (talk) 19:19, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Layout in relation to stub tags

Would there be a practical way to make HotCat place categories before stub tags rather than after, as prescribed at WP:STUB? This may only be a problem for uncategorized pages. I came across it when placing a category on an uncategorized stub, and I had to manually put the category tag in the right place. Perhaps this wouldn't be practical, however, such as if HC couldn't distinguish between a stub tag and a navbox. --BDD (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Not practical. First, I don't have the time to do larger code modifications, and second, it would need to be configurable because HotCat is used on many wikis, and they all may have different guidelines. Lupo 20:57, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Prevent adding certain categories?

Is there any way to tell HotCat that particular maintenance categories should not be added to pages directly, because it is preferred to use a template that includes the category link? For example, if you read the description page for Category:Disambiguation pages, one of the first things you see is a big bold notice asking you not to add it manually to any pages, but to use {{Disambiguation}} instead. However, HotCat users generally don't look at the category description pages and don't see this notice. So, is there any way within HotCat to prevent users from adding this category and similar maintenance categories? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:37, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, HotCat has a blacklist. See the help page. It could be configured here at the English Wikipedia to exclude such categories. Currently, only stub categories are excluded. Lupo 15:42, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I take it the relevant line is HotCat.blacklist = /\b[Ss]tubs?$|^[Ss]tubs?\b/;. Would there be any objection to changing it to HotCat.blacklist = /\b[Ss]tubs?$|^[Ss]tubs?\b|\b[Dd]isambiguation pages$/;? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Not from me. That's fine. Lupo 18:48, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

BTW: what about Category:Airport disambiguation? Maybe you have to include that, too. But make sure you don't blacklist Category:Disambiguation categories: that one is already handeld by HotCat. Lupo 18:57, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I think I'll just start with "... disambiguation pages" for now and see. I haven't seen the airport category causing any problems (yet). --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

That's fine. Actually, I think Category:Disambiguation categories could be blocked, too. HotCat uses that one differently, but we don't want users to add it explicitly. But that'd be low-priority; it's just one category. Lupo 20:55, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Since there are several disambiguation categories, how about excluding any category with "disambiguation" in it? GoingBatty (talk) 13:13, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

For that matter, every category in Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month and Category:Wikipedia categories sorted by month (and most of the direct subcategories of those categories) shouldn't be added by HotCat. Anomie⚔ 11:29, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Not easily doable, especially since those are whole category trees. Lupo 15:37, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Unicode control characters

Hi, sometimes, a category is added with an extra invisible Unicode Control character (like Left-to-Right mark) at the end of the category name. Would it be possible to automatically remove it in HotCat ? Example: Joseph Brodsky (fix). --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 12:41, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

That might be difficult to do correctly, and might need to be configurable per wiki. While page titles (and thus link targets) as stored in the database cannot contain BiDi overrides and strange Unicode spaces, links as written in the wikitext may contain such characters. Consider the following examples:

‫ لغة C++ هي لغة برمجة تستخدم...

‫ لغة C++‎ هي لغة برمجة تستخدم...

(Examples taken from Left-to-right mark and modified to use links.) Both links go tho the article C++, but the second does contain an LRM at the end. So, in general I think it would not be a good idea if HotCat tried to remove any of these invisible characters in the wikitext. It already does handle those characters when looking for categories in the wikitext, but for insertion, I fear that removing such things might lead to unexpected display issues. Lupo 12:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi. I forgot to add this page to my watchlist, so I didn't see your answer earlier. I understand your explanation, I wonder if it applies to categories or not. Apparently (according to this discussion), it often happens that unnecessary LRM are added when copy/pasting category names with HotCats. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 15:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Not working in Firefox

A few days ago HotCat stopped working for me in Firefox; it still does so in Chrome so it's not account-specific. I am still using F28, and I haven't upgraded my plugins, through some like NoScript do autoupdate a lot. Any idea what may be responsible? Should I start testing plugins one by one? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:35, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Works for me with Windows 7 and Firefox 30. GoingBatty (talk) 17:36, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Not working for me now: Win 7, FF32.--ukexpat (talk) 03:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

What does "not working" mean? Maybe try with your /common.js and /vector.js blanked... If it then works, you know that the problem is somewhere in that code. Any error message in the error console of FF? It works for me on FF32, OS X 10.7.5, monobook. Lupo 12:33, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

There seems to be a compatibility issue with delsort.js (or maybe the importScript() functionality). That's the only thing I have in my common.js, and as long as that's the case, HotCat will behave as if it just wasn't there (FF 43.0 on XP). --Latebird (talk) 14:54, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Your User:Latebird/common.js is broken. importScript() is asynchronous, so the call to defineLink() in the second line runs before the script is loaded and that function exists. If there are errors in your /common.js, gadgets may not work. Lupo 17:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

In that case the instructions on User:Fox Wilson/delsort#Customization would be incorrect. Does MediaWiki really stop loading gadgets after anything went wrong in common.js? --Latebird (talk) 12:26, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, those instructions are wrong. That won't work reliably.

It's not that the gadget wasn't loaded, but it's not started. Gadgets that want to support configuration in the user module (that is, in a user's common.js or skin.js; like HotCat) start only once the user module is loaded. Unfortunately, if the user module has errors and raises an exception (in your case, I'd expect an entry in the error log about "defineLink not defined" or some such), the resource loader never considers the module loaded and thus the gadget never starts. Lupo 12:17, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Disable HotCat in Draft namespace?

Since article categories do not belong on pages in the Draft namespace (see Wikipedia:Drafts#Preparing drafts & WP:DRAFTNOCAT), should HotCat be disabled in the Draft namespace? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

That could be configured in /local_defaults. Just return true for namespaceNumber 118 (and 119, if Draft talk shall also be excluded) in the HotCat.disable function override. Lupo 20:38, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@Lupo: I went from Wikipedia:HotCat to the documentation page on Wikimedia Commons to several other places before ending up at MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local_defaults, but I still don't see how to make the change you are suggesting. Could you please be more specific? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:47, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Replace

  // Disable for non-logged-in users
  HotCat.disable = (function (default_disable) {
    return function () {
      if (!mw.config.get('wgUserName')) return true;
      return default_disable();
    };
  })(HotCat.disable);

by

  // Disable for non-logged-in users and in Draft namespace
  HotCat.disable = (function (default_disable) {
    return function () {
      if (!mw.config.get('wgUserName')) return true;
      var nsNum = mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber');
      // 118 is the Draft namespace; 119 its talk namespace
      return nsNum === 118 || nsNum === 119 || default_disable();
    };
  })(HotCat.disable);

in MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local_defaults. (Warning: above code untested.) That should do it. Lupo 06:46, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks - edit request made at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-HotCat.js/local defaults. GoingBatty (talk) 15:42, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose this request as it makes it harder for established editors to remove improperly placed categories on those pages. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:05, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Why's that? I never use HotCat - when removing a cat from most pages, I just edit the last section, mark the cat links, and press Delete. No problem. In the case of drafts, I might insert a colon instead of deleting the cat, just as I would on a miscategorised user page, but in either case, it's not a task that requires the use of HotCat. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:19, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

• You don't, but I find it easier to use hotcat to remove categories. I can tap-tap and done... I don't have to wait for the edit page to load on my mobile browser. Just a couple taps instead of edit, scroll down, find the categories I want to remove, remove them and hope I didn't mess up anything else in that tiny 1"x2" edit window I get on my mobile, click save. I'd be happy to help make it opt-in for use of hotcat in those namespaces if requested. I'm all for making it work better for everyone. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:18, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I made this request after seeing an edit using HotCat to change the categories on a draft page. After reading Technical 13's first comment, I looked at the pages in Category:AfC submissions with categories before letting BattyBot change them to category links, and noticed that none of the pages had the categories added by HotCat. I agree with Redrose64 that changing them to category links is more beneficial for the editor than removing them completely. GoingBatty (talk) 17:37, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd be willing to make the adjustments so that hotcat can add the prefixing : to make them links (I still prefer to remove them, and that is my personal preference as I've found often enough they shouldn't be in those categories to begin with), but I still oppose taking this tool away from editors and draft reviewers. I do agree the first step should be a modification that takes hotcat away from editors in those namespaces that aren't at least autoconfirmed. I don't care if this is done in the script itself or in the gadget definition, but will need to know how the community would like to handle it before I suggest possible code to do it that way. I'll also note that the above code does not prevent IPs from using it. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 18:04, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

wgUserName is null for non-logged-in editors, so yes, the above code prevents non-logged-in users from using HotCat in normal operation. Lupo 22:53, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

BEANS, it can be overridden without much work at all. Anyways, which way does everyone want to go to permit established users to still be able to use this to remove or change existing categories on these pages? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 23:17, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Re: beans... which is why I wrote "in normal operation". You can't prevent everything. But it's a bit of a moot point, since the gadget is not default-enabled. Lupo 23:56, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that removal of cats should be restricted. Is it possible to code HotCat in such a way that adding or amending a cat is namespace-restricted, but simple removal may be done in all namespaces? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:39, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Removing categories?

Useful tool. The instructions seem to say it will remove categories with one click on the minus sign, but when I try to remove a category, it opens the edit page. Is there something I am doing wrong, or is this how it works? I am trying to change about a 1000 or more articles to be correctly placed in a single subcategory to replace two categories, and it would be much faster to not open the edit window. Windows 7 and Chrome or Firefox, and iPad with Safari. Thank you for the help. MicroPaLeo (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Can specific suggestions on specific pages be excluded?

It appears that every couple of years, someone will add Category:Ethnic German people to Category:Swiss-German people because of a HotCat suggestion. However, this specific HotCat suggestion on this specific page is wrong (see e.g. Germans and sources quoted there such as Ethinc groups of Europe – though of course the burden of proof is really the other way round). In fact, many Swiss-Germans would very strongly oppose such a categorization. To us, it might feel as inadequate as a categorization of all English-speaking U.S. citizens as ethnic English just because they speak English.

Of course, this is only a minor annoyance. I can easily undo it by hand. But seeing as this issue seems to recur, I wonder whether it can be prevented. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:19, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions not (always) working

For me, when I try to add a category using HotCat, as often as not when I type stuff in, it doesn't display any suggestions (just a blank pop-up window), even though I know there are categories that it should be suggesting (i.e. categories that exist). Has anyone else been having this problem? Everymorning (talk) 01:33, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

HotCat is not working at all for me

Not in article space, at least. I've tried clearing the cache and everything. In non-article spaces it seems OK. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 18:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: see this talk for Twinkle, I hope swiching off Content Translation may work for you.--Satyam Mishra ^--talk-- 09:56, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

It has done so - thank you kindly! --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 10:09, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

HotCat stopped working for me today. Windows XP Professional, Vector skin, Google Chrome Version 46.0.2490.71 m browser, Beta gadget Language translation unselected. Sample page: [[Monica Geller]]. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}}{Talk} 00:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

cult of personality blp?

Maybe there's some logical reason for this, but it seems very odd to me that when categorizing a blp by typing in "living people" HotCat suggests "Living Colour albums" instead, every single time. Given that there are what.. hundreds of thousands of blp articles and less than a dozen Living Colour albums this just seems very weird to me, but I also know absolutely nothing about the underlying code used to generate suggestions. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:42, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Beeblebrox, HotCat always produces what is first alphabetically or numerically when you start entering something. For example that's why 1961 essays and 1961 disasters come up as I start typing 1961 establishments and 1961 disestablishments....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 23:21, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Question

I don't know if there's a bug in HotCat or if something's malfunctioning at the server level, but I'm finding HotCat to be inconsistently reliable lately — it seems sometimes to fail to actually register an edit. Just as an example, I just tried to add the article The State of Marriage to Category:American LGBT-related films, and had to repeat the edit three times before the article actually got added to the category. Bearcat (talk) 20:21, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

This is happening again. It's quite bad now - frequently I have to try four or five times to add a category to an article before it happens. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 17:51, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: This may be Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Category membership issues. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:14, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Intermittent failure for added category to show up on category page

Since a few days ago, every now and then, adding a new category with HotCat ends up with the article not showing up on the category page. Only a null edit of the article fixes it. This has happened to me and to WilliamJE. Examples: here and here. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 21:12, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

@Stevietheman: This is Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Category membership issues. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:14, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. It looks like these category updates are now added to a job queue, but there was a bug with the queue getting backlogged. That bug has apparently been fixed. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 12:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Ascend and descend buttons (↓)(↑) is an eyesore

Moved to c:MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-HotCat.js.--Golopotw (talk) 21:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Golopotw: - See comment there.Naraht (talk) 22:16, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Bug: can't remove sort-keys

Not sure if this is the right place for bug reports (couldn't find a link for a feedback/bug-reports-page). Anyways: for some reason I can't remove sort-keys (or at least some of them). Try deleting the sort key for "Geolocation" at Easyswap.

--Fixuture (talk) 19:47, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Request change in behavior...

Not sure if this can be done, but I'd like to see a change in behavior. I'm going through and changing a large number of pages from "Organizations established in 1972" to "Student organizations established in 1972" (and for other dates) So I need to change the 'O' at the beginning to 'Student o'. So the logical way to do that is to put my cursor after the O, hit backspace and start typing. The *problem* is that when I delete the O at the beginning of the string, it immediately capitalizes the 'R' and moves the cursor to the end of the string. What I have to do instead it move to the start of the String, start Typing "Student o" and then hit delete. Can we change the behavior so we don't have the instant capitalization and jump to the end?Naraht (talk) 15:00, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Requested improvement: catimprove

When an editor adds a category to an article tagged as {{uncategorised}}, that tag gets removed. Please can Hotcat replace it by {{catimprove}}, in cases where the added categories are only any of the types:

1. Category:Living people
2. Cagegory:nnnn births or deaths
3. Category:Alumni of xyz college.

None of these categories provide adequate categorisation for a person, alive or dead, and anyone who has a Wikipedia article should always come within some category associated with their occupation or other source of supposed notability. Hotcat is helping editors to edit unhelpfully here, by removing the "uncategorised" but not, at present, adding "catimprove", so that the article will no longer come to the attention of editors eager to add categories which are lacking. Can it please be improved? @Johnpacklambert: as an editor with whom I've recently discussed this. PamD 17:58, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

HotCat enabled by default

I increasingly feel HotCat should be enabled by default on new accounts to encourage discovery. Having autocomplete makes it by far the most intuitive way to add categories, something that most new accounts have no clue about - certainly I didn't when I joined. It would be nice if there was something like it for WikiProjects, too. Blythwood (talk) 13:02, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

@Blythwood: I too think that HotCat should be enabled by default...for all Wikipedia users. Do you have an idea who to contact to get this done? Otherwise I'll request this at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). I hope you're okay with me moving your unrelated comment into a new section.

Also there is something like it for WikiProjects as well: User:Kephir/gadgets/rater. Actually most of my work on Wikipedia wouldn't be possible (or at least a hell lot slower) without these 2 tools. My hope is that both get built into Wikipedia as preferences that are enabled by default.

--Fixuture (talk) 17:46, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

It's be nice if someone would make it so people couldn't erroneously add dated maintenance categories with HotCat first. Or maybe just exclude all hidden categories. Anomie⚔ 23:59, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Fixuture, absolutely if you want to. I think encouraging people to add categories is probably worth it. Blythwood (talk) 02:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Bug: Removing capital letter at beginning of cat name causes cursor to jump to end of text box

This is unexpected behavior that may result in saving pages with wacky non-existent categories. —swpb^T 14:35, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Exactly the behavior that I was complaining about above. Naraht (talk) 15:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

It just opens the editor

Why when I use this does it just open the editor and do nothing else? Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} | talk | contribs) 22:41, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to work with the Visual Editor. WaggersTALK 09:54, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

edit count

Everything is fine, only thing that is weird, HotCat edits are not counted on the X!'s Tools page. Am i the only one? Wikirictor (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Bug: Won't let me add this category

Why won't it let me add Category:Wikipedia essays about stubs to Wikipedia:Permastub? I was able to do it manually, but not with hotCat. --— Mr. Guye (talk) (My aftermath) 15:24, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Bug: Does not work with the 2017 wikitext editor

@Magnus Manske: HotCat does not work with the mw:2017 wikitext editor. When pressing the save button, it opens the editor without showing the added categories. Daylen (talk) 18:29, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Bug: recently often fails to load

For the past month or so, most of the time I open a new Wikipedia page in Chrome, this tool fails to load. Sometimes it sill does (20% time)? I can't detect a pattern. Refreshing the same page several times may trigger the tool loading at some point. Tested on two computers. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:03, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

It's likely because your user scripts in vector.js or monobook.js are causing errors, which will cause other stuff to fail as well. Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_155#script_hickups.3F —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:59, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I've made these changes: monobook.js and vector.js. It's probably going to be better that way. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:10, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Adding a category to multiple pages

Is it possible to use HotCat to add a category to a all the pages in a list? For example I got these files:

• commons:File:Wrist clasp (FindID 54343).jpg
• commons:File:Wrist clasp (FindID 50783).jpg
• commons:File:Wrist clasp (FindID 63185).jpg
• commons:File:Wrist clasp (FindID 50265).jpg
• commons:File:Wrist clasp (FindID 406172).jpg

And I want to add the category commons:Category:Wrist clasps in the Portable Antiquities Scheme to all of them. Is it possible to do that with HotCat (without manually adding it to each item, of course) or I have to use AWB with a robot account? Fructibus (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Subcategories

Is it possible to have HotCat warn when the category being added is a parent category of a category already assigned to the article? For example, the article is already part of Category:Japanese people stubs and the user wishes to add Category:Japanese people. Will HotCat suggest "Japanese people" in that context? --Big_iron (talk) 19:41, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

While it's usually wrong to add a parent category, in this example it's right, as the article will be removed from the stub category when it ceases to be a stub. PamD 23:15, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Well I also saw someone use HotCat to add category Category:Canadian people when the person was already part of Category:People from Ottawa which is a sub-sub-sub-sub-Category of Canadian people. --Big_iron (talk) 19:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Firefox 57

Well, the bad news is this is one of the tools that seems to not be working on Firefox 57 for Linux Mint. Seraphim System ^(talk) 18:12, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Edit summary

Any idea why Wikipedia now prompts you to add an edit summary when HotCat has already auto-populated it? SFB 17:48, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I've been getting this same message for about a month now also. Senator2029 “Talk” 06:15, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Accoridng to MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js, the script is maintained on Commons, so that's where the troubleshooting needs to take place. Senator2029 “Talk” 06:33, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

I’m having the same issue. It happens when removing categories or doing multiple things at once but not when simply adding categories. Interqwark ^{talk contribs} 3:13 am, Today (UTC+2)

• related discussion czar 13:34, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Categorization and stub templates

As per WP:SECTIONORDER, categories are supposed to go above stub templates, but HotCat automatically adds categories below stub templates. Is there a way the program can be rewritten to automatically place categories above stub templates, either when adding a single category or multiple cats at a time? IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 03:29, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Timeless

Has anybody found a way to get HotCat working with the Timeless skin? WaggersTALK 09:38, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Here's the relevant Phabricator task: phabricator:T181344 –Simon04 (talk) 19:45, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Edit summary when removing sort key

If you remove a sort key, for example |Sort from [[Category:Foo|Sort]], it gives the following edit summary: new key for Category:Foo: "" using HotCat. But wouldn't a summary like removed sort key for Category:Foo using HotCat or something similar be much better? 88.113.105.159 (talk) 18:54, 19 March 2019 (UTC)