Commons:Categories for discussion/2018/12/Category:Flat categories

Category:Flat categories

A definiton is missing. Sanandros (talk) 12:28, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

+1 --GT1976 (talk) 06:39, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I've been using it, a flat category:

contains no images, only subcategories (like others tagged with {{Catcat}}
contains all subcategories that meet the definition of the category, but these are themselves not grouped into subcatgories by other traits.

Thus Category:Categories by date (flat list) contains categories that end in "by date" (e.g. Category:People by date) but does not contain "Category:Categories by year" (even though Category:People by year is a sub-category of Category:People by date). Similarly, Category:People by name contains all people sub-categories (e.g. Category:Lech Wałęsa) but is not subdivided into Category:People of Poland by name or Category:Men by name (even though Category:People of Poland and Category:Men are descendents of Category:People).

It signifies a break with standard commons sub-categorization to create a single categories that contains all relevant sub-categories. - Themightyquill (talk) 15:01, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your bullet items are as I understand it, too, with one exception: the categories have "by date" (using your example) in the name, but may not end with that. For example, Category:Disestablishments by date by country is in Category:Categories by date (flat list). Maybe it shouldn't be, but there is inconsistency in this area for categories that have more than one sorting criterion specified. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:50, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ok if there exits rules, can we codify it somewhere?--Sanandros (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If we're going to discuss rules, we should include the corresponding non-flat categories, such as Category:Categories by date. In practice, it's mostly metacategories that are in the flat categories (because the metacat template puts them there), but I think the flat categories are sometimes added manually as well. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:47, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Now that you mention it: Should the metacat template automatically place a category in the flat list category? I'm not sure all metacategories are flat. Category:Animals by country is undoubtedly a metacategory, but if it was flat, it would only include Category:Animals in X but not Category:Animals in circus by country or Category:Birds by country‎ etc. - Themightyquill (talk) 09:18, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it should. Maybe I misunderstood your description above of what a flat category is. It's not the subcats of those, namely metacategories, that need to be flat. My understanding is that a flat category would/could contain any/all categories that match. For example, "Category:Categories by foo" would/could contain any category that specified "by foo" in its name, even if that resulted in a category and its subcategory both being there. In fact, I think the flat categories should usually be added only by the metacat template. The exception to that would be for criteria that aren't always metacats (those include by name, by registration, by serial number, and probably others). --Auntof6 (talk) 11:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I see. I was thinking of those exeptions as the standard format. For instance, since I wouldn't want Category:People of the United States by name as a sub-category of a flat Category:People by name, I wouldn't expect to see Category:Buildings in the United States by date as a sub-category of a flat Category:Buildings by date (flat list). - Themightyquill (talk) 10:54, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Themightyquill: Could you please explain me what the difference between Category:Categories by alphabet and Category:Categories by alphabet (flat list) is then? 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 16:22, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would say very little. They're largely if not wholly redundant, depending on how we use them. From a brief glance, it's clear that Category:Categories by alphabet (flat list) should contain Category:Letters by letter by alphabet. It's somewhat unclear to me if it should go in Category:Letters by letter by alphabet, since it's already in Category:Letters by alphabet. See also Category:Categories by name and Category:Categories by name (flat list). It's clear that "(flat list)" should include every category that ends with "by name" but maybe Category:Categories by name is hierarchical? - Themightyquill (talk) 08:42, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @GT1976, Auntof6, Sanandros, Themightyquill, and 1234qwer1234qwer4: just an proposal, transcluded from your discussion above:

A Flat category explained with the example of Category:Categories by date (flat list):

“Flat” means, that there is no hierarchy in the subcategories, so: e.g. Category:People by date AND Category:People of Bolivia by date are directly included in the same category.
“Flat” means, that the subcategories are not grouped into sub-subcatgories by other traits, so: e.g. Category:People by year is NOT included (even it is a subcategory of Category:People by date)
It contains no images or other media, only categories (like others tagged with {{Catcat}} or {{Metacat}})
It contains all categories having e.g. "by date" in their name, whether at the end (e.g. Category:People by date) or in the middle of the name (e.g. Category:People by date by country).
It is categorized into Category:Categories by date.
Flat categories are hidden with {{Hiddencat}}.

Are you agree: Feel free to change it (English is not my mother tongue). Regards --W like wiki ^{good to know} 04:25, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ohh, just found that : {{FlatCat}}:

This category gathers all sub-categories related to its parent category in a non-hierarchical "flat list",
including those that would normally only be found via intermediate sub-categories.

What do you think?

AND: With this template (or my propasal above) {{HiddenCat}} could be included directly!? --W like wiki ^{good to know} 04:44, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yea this flatcat should be hidden cat.--Sanandros (talk) 04:56, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I am not sure anymore if flat categories like Category:Bridges in Czechia (flat list) should be hidden!? --W like wiki ^{good to know} 00:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think they should be, because they are administrative and not part of the normal hierarchical category tree. -- Auntof6 (talk) 11:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Found out that there round 180 flat categories, not only 66 like in Flat categories. And some like Books by subject (flat list) are "hidden" in Categories by subject (flat list) without sortkey. Is that right!? --W like wiki ^{good to know} 05:12, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS2: Do flatlist with this little definition still really make sense if we have an advanced search function, look here this table and click on any criterion: Commons:List of meta category criteria. --W like wiki ^{good to know} 05:14, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]