Template:MetaCat

This meta category should only contain other categories. Files should either be in the relevant subcategory or in the parent category.

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This documentation is transcluded from Template:MetaCat/doc.

Use this tag for Meta categories only, that should only contain other categories that are grouped by a specified criterion.

The template automatically sets the following categories:

• Meta categories; depending on the parameters, it may autocategorize into one or more categories. Currently, only specific input makes it autocategorize as this is a work in progress but soon to be generalized.
• Categories by ... (flat list) (in one of those)

Usage

{{MetaCat |1= }}

Or use the shorthand

{{metacat|… parameters as described …}}

Important: The parameters are case-sensitive because they are used to form category names. Always use lower case unless it's a proper noun.

Template parameters

Parameter	Description		Default	Status
1	criterion it's sorted by (#1)	The first parameter is what the member categories sort by, e.g. Books by genre would be genre. Buildings in Canada by year of completion would be {{MetaCat|year of completion}}, not simply {{MetaCat|year}}. The template may autocategorize multiple "by xxx" into the same flat category, like "by year of completion" categories are currently treated the same as the "by year" ones, however, including the full criteria will enable us to easily separate them in the future if desired. The only exception is when there are two criteria, separated by "and" or "or". For example, on Buildings in Moscow by period and style, you would use {{MetaCat|period|style}}. This places it in both Categories by period (flat list) and Categories by style (flat list). In addition, this allows for later combining them (by modifying the template) to create a new flat category if we want.	empty	required
2	criterion it's sorted by (#2)	see above	empty	optional
topic	deprecated  (but still in use (with no functionality) in many categories, should be updated to topic-cat in most cases)		empty	deprecated
topic2	deprecated  (but still in use (with no functionality) in many categories)		empty	deprecated
topic3	deprecated  (but still in use (with no functionality) in many categories)		empty	deprecated
flat	flat list	Add yes if it's a "flat list" (contains also the pages in subcategories). Add no to avoid mentioning parent categories.	empty	optional
topic-cat	category	Will add page to given category with sorting key "{{{1}}}". For example {{MetaCat|industry|topic-cat=Companies of Algeria}} could be used in Category:Companies of Algeria by industry	empty	optional
type	type	type of items, if not "file" (e.g. module, template, ...)	empty	optional

Additional information

The template is intended to be used in the following namespaces: the Category namespace

The template is intended to be used by the following user groups: all users

Placement: At the top of the page

See also

• Commons:List of meta category criteria – a list of the "by xxx" currently in use.
• Commons:Categories requiring diffusion – tabular listing

More general templates with similar purpose:

• {{Categorise}} – Use this just for tagging main categories requiring permanent control; that is use on (non-meta) main categories that also shouldn't contain files directly (or very little).
  (Tagged categories are automatically inserted into Category:Categories requiring permanent diffusion.)
• {{CatDiffuse}} – temporary tag when a category needs files sorted into subcategories because it's overcrowded.
• {{CatCat}} – Used when a main category should contain no files but only other categories, but is not part of a Meta-categorization schema of 'XXX by YYY' form.
• {{ValiCat}} – Used when a main category should contain no files but only subcategories like "Valid SVG created with" or "Invalid SVG created with"
• {{FlatCat}}
• {{Template category}}

in general…

For categories to get sorted once use {{CatDiffuse}}, for metacategories ("by country", "by name" etc.) use {{MetaCat}} or its more specialized variants.

Localization

العربية ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ বাংলা ∙ català ∙ čeština ∙ dansk ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ Esperanto ∙ español ∙ فارسی ∙ suomi ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ hrvatski ∙ magyar ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ Lëtzebuergesch ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ Nederlands ∙ norsk nynorsk ∙ polski ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ română ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenčina ∙ slovenščina ∙ svenska ∙ Türkçe ∙ українська ∙ 中文 ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體）

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