Template talk:Subcat

Deprecation

tl;dr: Subcat is finally dead. I'm not going to be using it anymore. It's easier if others don't too. I consider my tests to be confirmation that the underlying bug is indeed fixed. This is a minor win for editor convenience without breaking anything.

The purported benefit of the subcat template is to page subcategories correctly when categories contain over 200 items:

Category:Business is large, so the list of articles pages, as it should - there are 200 articles on a page. The first page is all up to F.

However, the subcategories are also paged and only go up to F, even though there are only 17 on the first page. This is not optimal for usability - I was actually going to the page to check which subcat was right for an article, but have to page unnecessarily.

Expected result: That subcats would not be paged, or would also page at 200.

Actual result: Subcats page alphabetically in step with articles, though this reduces the usability of the subcat listing.

— Description of MediaWiki bug T3211 opened in December 2004

A timeline:

• 29 April 2005: Algorithm creates the template while working with categories.
• 2006: Forum:Categories and Subcategories: subcat is mentioned in passing and Lenoxus questions its purpose, the forum thread closing without an answer.
• 2007: Forum:Re-phrasing of subcat question: Lenoxus asks again. Alksub points to https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1211, which now redirects to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T3211
• 2 June 2011: Lyrithya's bot Haydrahlienne undoes every instance with summary "Removing Template:subcat in favour of direct category links; no longer needed".
• 2 June 2011: Forum:Category categories: Lyrithya asserts the template is superfluous; Mnbvcxz challenges this claim. A long thread ensues.
• 20 June 2011: Lyrithya reverses the actions of her bot with summary "Restoring {{subcat}} per Forum:Category categories".

In Forum:Category categories, MediaWiki was mentioned to be at version 1.16; bug T3211 is marked resolved in MediaWiki 1.17; MediaWiki is at version 1.35.5 at time of writing. I've done comparative tests in categories larger than 200 items and found no difference other than subcategories sorting alphabetically by default:

• 

  On a category with over 3000 files

• 

  On a category with almost 10000 pages

Using the template prevents HotCat from doing its job; it means every category has to be edited by source, and HotCat won't suggest valid categories, requiring edit previews to check for typos. It's not the most pressing issue on Uncyclopedia. It makes a difference for me, because I've made thousands of category-related edits, and these small things add up over time. The template has served its purpose, and can be phased out. Dark Web, White Hat (talk) 08:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I changed {{Subcat|name}} to [[Category:name]] on a small scale with my bot, for categories e.g. Category:UnNews and Category:Articles. Looks good. I'm going to wait a couple days and implement it on a wider scale. Dark Web, White Hat (talk) 06:06, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Done. It's phased out. Every single instance has been converted to the new syntax, though Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Subcat shows two "ghost" instances that will linger indefinitely. Try to avoid using {{Subcat|name}} from now on.

For every category page on this wiki now:

• subcategories are sorted alphabetically, or by explicit sortkey
• HotCat works with all category pages

The edit summary I used (Subcat is deprecated per Template talk:Subcat#Deprecation) isn't meant to imply consensus – I didn't gather any, under the expectation that posing a question would be counterproductive – but points the curious back here. I see the template deprecation as a clear-cut technical change toward simplicity and efficiency, not a policy change worth deciding on by vote.

So...yeah. It looks pretty much the same, as it should. If I broke anything, let me know. Dark Web, White Hat (talk) 06:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)