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Template talk:Science and technology studies

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Science and technology studies template.

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I think it would make sense for any page that includes this template to automatically add to Category:Science and technology studies. I saw that To editor DASonnenfeld: reverted my edit to this effect because of its roughness. What would we like to see instead? Is it enough for a user to simply use Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Science and technology studies and Category:Science and technology studies in tandem with one another to see all STS-related articles? That seems even rougher. Is there a "smart" way to add a categorization tag to the template, so that it doesn't cause "strange categorical loops"? - - mathmitch7 ^{(talk/contribs)} 18:02, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

HiMathmitch7, Thanks for your query. I'd suggest starting with a close look at the categories that *already* exist and see how they're organized. See:

I'd also suggest reviewing standard use with other templates & checking with folks at WikiProject Categories. Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 02:17, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:Categorization, emphasis added:

<snip> Many templates include category declarations in their transcludable text, for the purpose of placing the pages containing those templates into specific categories... However, it is recommended that articles not be placed in ordinary content categories using templates in this way. There are many reasons for this: editors cannot see the category in the wikitext; removing or restructuring the category is made more difficult (partly because automated processes will not work); inappropriate articles and non-article pages may get added to the category; sort keys may be unavailable to be customised per category; ordering of categories on the page is less controllable; and the "incategory" search term will not find such pages. </snip>

Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:15, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's a super useful section! I must have missed it when I was going on that page to learn about the process. Does this mean it would make more sense to create a hidden Category:Tracking_categories, like Category:Articles with the science and technology studies navbox? Could such a category be a sub-category of Category:Science and technology studies? I guess at that point it might just make more sense to use the "What links here" feature... Hm. Thanks for the tips, curious to hear your thoughts. - - mathmitch7 ^{(talk/contribs)} 15:07, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Always room for further development/ refinement of categorization for a family of articles, but starting with a logical category hierarchy structure, and implementing it with finesse, article by article, results in a more well-organized -- and useful! -- set of categories. By contrast, transcluding categories via a NavBox would result in all articles automatically being placed in the root/ main category, which is less helpful, not to mention the various 'endless loops'. The "what links here" feature works just fine... Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 16:52, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you are right. Well, I'm glad we've come to closure on this topic. Thanks for all your help! - - mathmitch7 ^{(talk/contribs)} 17:04, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just realized that topics from {{Emerging technologies}} is similar to Science and technology studies from {{Science and technology studies}}. --Geysirhead (talk) 09:17, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]