Wikipedia:Creating a dated maintenance category

Dated maintenance categories, listed at Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month, are used to coordinate cleanup of various issues in articles on Wikipedia. The process of creating a new dated maintenance category is not difficult, but requires editing several pages.

Before you begin

You will have to decide three things:

• The name of the page describing the issue. You'll also have to create it.
• The name of your maintenance category. Try to follow the naming style of other maintenance categories.
• The name(s) of your issue template(s). You might create a message box template, an inline template, or both.

The examples below will use the maintenance category "Articles in BIG TROUBLE", and templates {{BIG TROUBLE}} and {{BIG TROUBLE inline}}.

Categories

There are several categories and support templates that must be created.

Base category

The base category holds the dated subcategories, as well as articles that have not been dated yet. The category page should contain wikitext something like this:

{{Parent monthly clean-up category}}
Wikipedia articles that are in [[Wikipedia:BIG TROUBLE|BIG TROUBLE]] belong in this category.

Adding {{tl|BIG TROUBLE}} to an article or {{tl|BIG TROUBLE inline}} after a troublesome statement will add the article to this category.

"All" category

The "all" category contains all articles with the issue, to make it easier to get a count or listing of all pages with the issue and to test whether a page has an issue. The name should be derived from the base category by adding the word "All" to the front, e.g. "Category:All articles in BIG TROUBLE". The category page should contain wikitext something like this:

{{Wikipedia category|hidden=yes}}
{{Tracking category}}
This is a category to help keep count of the total number of articles with the {{tl|BIG TROUBLE}} or {{tl|BIG TROUBLE inline}} templates. They should all be in one of the dated categories. See also [[:Category:Articles in BIG TROUBLE]].

[[Category:Articles in BIG TROUBLE| ]]
[[Category:Monthly clean-up category (Articles in BIG TROUBLE) counter]]

Counter category

The counter category is used by {{Progress box}} to count the number of dated categories. The name must be of the form "Monthly clean-up category (base category name) counter", e.g. "Category:Monthly clean-up category (Articles in BIG TROUBLE) counter". The category page should contain wikitext something like this:

{{Counter category}}

Current month's dated category

If you plan to test the issue templates, you may want to create this category page manually instead of allowing the bot to do it. The name is formed by appending "from Month Year" to the base category name, e.g. "Category:Articles in BIG TROUBLE from November 2024". The wikitext should be:

{{Monthly clean-up category}}

Progress box template

The progress box template is used on the base and dated monthly categories to display a correct invocation of {{Progress box}}. The name must match the base category name, e.g. "Template:Articles in BIG TROUBLE progress". The wikitext of the template should be:

{{Progress box|Articles in BIG TROUBLE}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Wikipedia progress templates]]</noinclude>

Note that the base category name must be filled in the appropriate location in the wikitext.

Monthly instruction template

The monthly instruction template is used to display category-specific instructions on the dated subcategories. The name is constructed by creating a subtemplate under Template:Monthly clean-up category/Messages/ with the base category name, e.g. "Template:Monthly clean-up category/Messages/Articles in BIG TROUBLE". The template will probably use {{Monthly clean-up category/to add}}, something like this:

{{Monthly clean-up category/to add|BIG TROUBLE|BIG TROUBLE inline|month name={{{month name}}}|year={{{year}}}}}

Issue templates

The issue templates are used on articles to indicate the issue to other editors, and to invite readers to become editors by showing them something they could fix.

After creating an issue template, be sure to add it to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates so that bots will know to start dating it.

Message box

Message box templates are displayed at the top of an article or section when the issue is endemic in the article. The general format of a message box template is:

{{ambox
| type  = content
| class = ambox-BIG-TROUBLE
| issue = This {{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{{1}}}|article}} is in BIG TROUBLE.
| fix   = Please [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} help improve it] by removing the trouble.
| date  = {{{date|}}}
| cat   = Articles in BIG TROUBLE
| all   = All articles in BIG TROUBLE
| name  = BIG TROUBLE
}}<noinclude>
<!-- Add categories and interwikis to the /doc subpage, not here! -->
{{documentation}}
</noinclude>

Note that the name of the template itself as well as the base and "all" categories are inserted in appropriate places. Keep in mind that |issue= is the bit of text that shows up in {{multiple issues}}, so don't make it too long. Don't forget to also create a documentation subpage for the template.

See the documentation for Template:Ambox for more details.

Inline

Inline templates are used to mark a specific passage in the article as having an issue. The general format of an inline template is:

{{fix
|name=BIG TROUBLE inline
|link=Wikipedia:BIG TROUBLE
|text=trouble
|class=Template-BIG-TROUBLE-inline
|title=This statement is BIG TROUBLE
|date={{{date|}}}
|cat=[[Category:All articles in BIG TROUBLE]]
|cat-date=Category:Articles in BIG TROUBLE
}}<noinclude>
<!-- Add categories and interwikis to the /doc subpage, not here! -->
{{documentation}}
</noinclude>

Note that the name of the template and the names of the base and "all" categories are inserted in appropriate places. Don't forget to also create a documentation subpage for the template.

See the documentation for Template:Fix for more details.

Testing

You may want to try the following in a sandbox:

• View all the category pages and make sure the display is correct.
• Make sure the base category is showing up in Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month.
• Add the issue template and see that it applies the "all" and base categories.
• Add the issue template including a correct |date= and see that it applies the "all" and monthly categories, but not the base category. Note that this requires that the monthly category already exists.
• If you have a message box template, use it inside {{multiple issues}} and make sure it displays the appropriate text.
• Double-check that all the issue templates are listed at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates so that bots will know to start dating them.