MarioWiki:Categories: Difference between revisions

==Category trees==

<!-- Below is an example of some trees, followed by in-depth explanations about the three types, their levels and the examples. The primary games tree is in blue, and is only a partial example. The secondary tree is red, and is represented by a single branch plus the other possible paths branching off at each level. Both use ''[[Super Paper Mario]]'' as their example. A tertiary game-based category using [[Minigame]]s as its example is included, showing the variability about which levels are visited, even between different branches within one tree. This tree is complete except for some game-specific categories, which are merely alluded to using "..." and yellow, rather than green, connecting lines. Yellow is also used to connect all the trees to the one category they have in common (which will be explained in the following section), since the lv. 2 Subjects are the true roots of the trees, rather than the lv. 1 category. A non-game tertiary category is also included in purple, illustrating how the series and game-based levels are not applicable, and the steps that are used are solely based on how many levels of subcategories are needed for a given subject.

The primary games tree is the most extensive of all the trees, using all the possible levels and providing a basis for the stratified organization of all categories. The levels and their explanations are as follows:

#'''Subject''' - the real root of the category trees. In this case, the subject is [[:Category:Games]].

#'''Major series''' - dividing the games into the "big 4" series: ''[[Mario (franchise)|Mario]]'', ''[[Yoshi (franchise)|Yoshi]]'', ''[[Donkey Kong (franchise)|Donkey Kong]]'' and ''[[Wario (franchise)|Wario]]''. In this case, the tree would use [[:Category:Mario games]], and the like.

Everything that's not a primary or secondary tree is a tertiary tree, including all non-game categories. Tertiary trees can be complex and multi-stepped, or they can be a simple line going from game-specific categories back to their root category. Unlike the primary and secondary trees, these roots can be at Level 2 or Level 3, depending on whether or not the tree can fit into another tree. Subcategories' subject trees' roots are always at lv. 3, and are then subcategories of the same parent trees that led to the game-specific categories that spawned the subcategories. For example, [[:Category:Super Paper Mario items]] is a sub-category of [[:Category:Super Paper Mario objects]], and its root, the tertiary [[:Category:Items]], is a subcategory of the secondary [[:Category:Objects]], but is also part of [[:Category:Main]]. This is illustrated in the charts in [[#Category webs|the following category webs section]]. Trees can also have lv. 3 subcategories that are still part of the overall tree, like the [[:Category:Microgames]] branch of [[:Category:Minigames]] in the above chart. Because of subcategories like this and the separated subcategory trees, Level 3 is known as '''Major Series / Other Subjects''', rather than just plain "major series", as it was initially labelled in the primary trees section (for simplicity). Indeed, tertiary trees ''only'' use lv. 3 for subcategories, and never involve the "big 4" series, as they are not major enough to warrant an elaborate network of categories.

The above minigames tree has examples of both skipped steps and shortened branches, and it also shows how, unlike secondary subjects, tertiary subjects are often not applicable to all games (although some, like levels or items, ''are'' fairly universal, and are tertiary because intermediate series steps would be of limited value). Like the secondary subject categories, tertiary trees skip right down to the Game level for sub-series-less titles, like [[:Category:Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars minigames]], but they can also skip the sub-series level if only one game of a series is applicable. If multiple games in a series have entries, but only one or two games have enough for unique game-specific categories, those games get their categories while the rest go straight into the series category. The above example of this is [[:Category:Super Mario 64 DS minigames]] vs. the general [[:Category:Super Mario series minigames]], which would be used for the ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]'' and ''[[New Super Mario Bros.]]'' minigames. If no games in a sub-series have enough entries for specific categories, the branch simply cuts off there and that category is used for all the games. While this isn't found in the above example, it is shown in the category webs charts in the next section, which also has examples of step-skipping.