Category guidelines

WIP draft, up for debate on Discord

Categories are great to organise stuff and make it easy to find something o that shares a common thing. They are sometimes also super fun to browse through.

On the other hand not well thought through or too many categories may just add noise making it difficult to find meaningful ones.

As such, It is encouraged to include categories in your articles whenever possible, but do check what these categories mean first.

Regarding creating new categories, it is beneficial to keep in mind whether this is just

Good examples of categories:

• [[Category:Orientation]] – shooter games by (some) definition scroll, so the orientation of the scrolling makes sense to have as a category
  • [[Category:Horizontal_orientation]] – use for horizontally scrolling games (e.g. R-Type)
  • [[Category:Vertical_orientation]] – use for vertically scrolling games (e.g. Dragon_Blaze)
• [[Category:Game_mechanics]] – many games use different game mechanics to set them apart from others. Some of these mechanics have become so well known that they have their own names, so players immediately know what awaits them
  • [[Category:Grazing_mechanic]] – some games like Danmaku Unlimited 3 apply this mechanic, so it makes sense to tag them as such
  • [[Category:Hyper_system_mechanic]] – some games like Crimzon Clover apply this mechanic, so it makes sense to tag them as such
  • (and others)
• [[Category:CAVE]] – a major developer who put out many (notable) games may be a good category (discuss whether we can organise these better)
• [[Category:Bullet_Hell]] – there are different sub-genres and categorising games by them might be beneficial (discuss regarding lower-casing the second word and about introducing other sub-genres, as well as a [[Category:Sub-genres]] to cover them all)

What is not a good use of categories:

• a game is not its own category, but a series might be (discuss whether we can organise these better)

Naming convention:

• always start the the name of the category with a capital letter (unless it is a name or an established term, then just follow the general convention)
• the first letters of any further words should be in lower case, to make it easy to read (again, unless it is a name or an established term, then just follow the general convention)
• a category, if at all possible, should be in singular (e.g. grazing mechanic and it belongs to game mechanics)
• a category of categories, if at all possible should be in plural (e.g. game mechanics)