How to categorize people on Wikimedia Commons

Hi, I'm Vera and I've been helping Susan and the rest of the group out in getting around on Wikimedia Commons, the media database the Wikipedia projects relies upon. I've written here before about how to transfer files from Flickr, and how the OTRS system works, today I'm going to tackle categories. I thought this was a good idea since Susan requested everyone to send in portraits last week.

Creating categories

[[Category:Stroopwafels|Wikimedia meetups]]
[[Category:Food at Wikimedia meetups]]

[[it:Independent Investigations Group]]
[[en:Independent Investigations Group]]
[[en:Independent Investigations Group]]

 On Wikipedia you can link back to the category by Commonscat template at the bottom of the page:

 {{Commonscat|Categoryname}}

Will result in something like this:

If you've made a spelling error

You can always go back and edit a category in order to change its parent categories,  I added Obama to the category left-handed people only last year for instance. You can't change its name through a simple edit though. If you've made a spelling error in its name, create the correct one following the above steps and replace the content of the wrong category with:

 {{bad name|Category:New category name}}

 Don't forget to move all the files in the bad category to the new category.

Creating a category for one individual

{{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Firstname}}

[[Category:People by name]]
[[Category:1961 births]]
[[Category:Reed College alumni]]
[[category:Skeptics from the United States]]
[[category:Atheists from the United States]]
[[category:Bloggers from the United States]]
[[Category:People from San Francisco, California]]
[[Category:LGBT activists from the United States]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christina, Greta}}

[[en:Greta Christina]]

Extra tools

There are some extra tools, gadgets they're called, I like to use when categorizing files. In order to activate them, go to Preferences > Gadgets

•  Cat-a-lot: A tool that helps with moving multiple files between categories or adding categories to search results.   [documentation] 
• HotCat: Easily add / remove / change a category on a page, with name suggestions.   [documentation / example] 

• Place categories above content, but below image on file description pages.