Forum:HIDDENCAT - new category feature

According to the MediaWiki 1.13/Change log, there's a new feature coming up for categories, allowing us to hide specific category links from articles. Note: As this new feature depends on a new parser version, this is not yet active. Anyway:

This feature will be implemented by using a new "Magic Word", __HIDDENCAT__. When adding this to the text of a category page, a link to this category page will no longer appear in the "Category:" section of articles in that category.


 * How to implement
 * As the use of this new functionality will most likely lead to discussions, at least during the first weeks, I urge everyone to not go around and add this magic word to category pages directly. Wikipedia uses a template (Wikipedia:Template:Hiddencat) for this, and I think we should adopt this idea and only allow the use of HIDDENCAT through such template.


 * Where might this be useful?
 * I can see some use for this feature. For example, we still have the dubious multi-categorization of "Performers", "Movie Performers", "SER Performers". By making every category but "Performers" a HIDDENCAT, we would keep the feature of having actors listed by series in their specific categories, while at the same time decluttering the actor articles. The subcategories would still be accessible through the remaining "Performers" link, no harm done.
 * Other uses might be our "Maintenance categories" - through PNA and related templates, articles get added to categories such as Category:Memory Alpha pages needing citation. This is necessary for some listing functionality to work, but it is not really necessary that these categories are accessible/visible from the article itself.

Any comments, ideas?-- Cid Highwind 10:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good for maintenance categories. Stubs, PNAs, etc. --Alan 20:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)