Categories and Lists

If you can't quite remember the name of a former mayor of Erie, you can try looking in Wikipedia for a list of mayors or check for a mayors category. A list of anything is typically more complete than a category, which will only contain items about which separate articles have been written. In the case of mayors of Erie, only a few of them are the subject of their own articles.

Categories allow you to follow the topic through more and more generic layers of the concept. In the mayors case, you can go back to mayors of places in Pennsylvania, places in the US, and by country. Or you can trace back by mayors of US cities, which is a subcategory of mayors of cities. The latter gives you mayors of cities from other countries.

You will find the more generic concepts in the category section at the bottom of the page of a category page. As the above example shows, categories can take you along separate trails.

Category pages will offer you lists of actual articles as well as lists of subcategories. They also offer you See Also links.

When you simply cannot remember that old car model's name or former airline, next time try perusing lists or categories instead of a blind search.