Forum:Should all images be categorized?

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Should all images on a wiki be categorized, like pages? I've looked around, and only a few wikis have all images categorized, so I wanted to ask. Aassdddai talk 09:04, July 7, 2012 (UTC)

That's up to individual wikis. Even wikis that do categorise images as standard tend to do so in different ways or for different reasons. -- Supermorff (talk) 09:07, July 7, 2012 (UTC)

I recommend categorizing all files and content pages on your wiki. Doing so vastly improves the ease of navigation. Categorizing files makes it easier for other people to find an image they need by navigating the category tree, and it also makes it easier for the admins to keep track of duplicated/redundant files (since similar files would always be placed in the same category, and therefore you could simply check the category to see which files are duplicates). --Gardimuer ^{ ʈalk } 04:45, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

I mostly edit a wiki about a video game, and don't see any purpose of image categories, as finding an image should usually be as simple as going to the page, and looking in the gallery to see all related images.

I can see that some wikis may not be as subject-centric, and there may be a reason to categorise images, so it really depends on the focus of your wiki.

In the past, I asked if there was a way to have this done automatically, and a staff member ran a bot once to automatically add categories for "Image" and "Audio", but it was a one time thing, so all files uploaded since do not have categories. It just seems pointless to me to make 1000 extra edits to add categories which will never be used. I just wish there was a way to have uploads automatically categorised based on filetype. --452 02:19, July 21, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, all images should be categorized. It makes good housekeeping sense, allows people to see similar images, without reviewing every single image. And since galleries don't generally include every single image, categorizing all images would be better. -- ForestMonthZero (talk) 08:35, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

It depends on the wiki. If you don't intend to expand your wiki too much, you don't need to categorize images. More complex wikis can really benefit from categorizing them (after a few years of editing a wiki, you will not remember where everything is, so it'll be easier to find what has been uploaded and what's missing). --IK ^Talk 01:53, July 23, 2012 (UTC)