Category talk:Earth

Initial thoughts
Please keep in mind that everything on this page is a suggestion. These aren't hard and fast policies, but they're proposals that are actively receiving edits... so they matter as far as describing and organizing the wiki, but they don't have 'real authority' other than the fact that at least one person is editing according to this scheme and no objections have been added to the proposal.

Avoiding vanity categories
Individual articles should probably be 'at the right generality if they're actually general', and and as local as they can get if they're not... so long as it doesn't lead to 'vanity categories' where they're the only thing in the category (a single entry category). Example: if you have a wiki about a specific neighborhood of New York City, then it doesn't deserve it's own "New York City Neighborhood Category" until the New York City category already has like maybe three places that obviously could be categorized with the more specific neighborhood cat.

The 'tree' structure to aim for
English Wikipedia's stub categories for are the model here because they've probably already face our situation and fixed it 'about right'. Here is the basic tree structure we should be slowly editing towards:

(Continent > sub-continent > countries > states within countries > cities)


 * Category:Africa
 * African countries as necessary — from Algeria to Zimbabwe alphabetically
 * Category:Antarctica
 * Category:Asia
 * Category:Central Asia
 * as necessary — from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan alphabetically
 * Category:East Asia
 * Category:China
 * Category:Japan
 * Category:Korea
 * Category:Taiwan
 * Category:Middle East
 * as necessary — from Bahrain to United Arab Emirates alphabetically
 * Category:South Asia
 * as necessary — from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka alphabetically
 * Category:South East Asia
 * as necessary — from Brunei to Thailand alphabetically
 * Category:Australasia and Oceania
 * Category:Australia
 * Australian states...
 * Category:New Zealand
 * others as necessary (including southern ocean island states)...
 * Category:Europe
 * as necessary — from Albania to United Kingdom alphabetically
 * Category:North and Central America
 * Category:Canada
 * as necessary — from Alberta to Yukon Territory alphabetically
 * Category:Caribbean
 * as necessary — from Barbados to Haiti alphabetically
 * Category:Greenland
 * Category:United States of America
 * as necessary — from Alaska to Wisconsin alphabetically
 * Category:Central America
 * as necessary — from Belize to Panama alphabetically
 * Category:Mexico
 * Category:South America
 * as necessary — from Argentina to Venezuela alphabetically