GeezerVison

The World Wide Web, restored to 800 pixels of glory.

GeezerVison is showing www.mediawiki.org — Help:Tracking categories - MediaWiki

Note: When you edit this page, you agree to release your contribution under the CC0. See Public Domain Help Pages for more info.

Tracking categories are a feature of MediaWiki which allows pages with certain characteristics to be tracked. They work by adding any such page to a category automatically.

Since MediaWiki 1.23 , tracking categories are listed in the $wgTrackingCategories configuration variable, and can be viewed on Special:TrackingCategories. Since MediaWiki 1.25, tracking category message names are hard-coded in the MediaWiki source code that adds them to pages; $wgTrackingCategories is kept for backwards compatibility.

What category to use is determined by the tracking category's system message, that is, the text on its page in the MediaWiki namespace. If the message is a single hyphen-minus (-), then the tracking category is disabled. Often wiki admins mark such categories as hidden (using the __HIDDENCAT__ magic word), because they are meant for maintenance and not general consumption. Since MediaWiki 1.19, wiki admins can use parser functions in the system message to put pages in different categories depending on the page's namespace ; for an example of this, see this site's system message for broken-file-category.

Some wikis add custom tracking categories via some hacks, for instance this category, which tracks pages with #expr errors, added through the relevant errors shown on such pages.

If a page is created before a tracking category is defined, but the tracking category should apply to that page, the page will not show up in the category until the page has been manually reparsed. This is not done automatically because it's expensive (Compare Project:Village Pump/Flow/2022/05#h-Tracking_Category_-_Help_missing,_Explanations_needed,_Phabricator?-2022-05-03T07:56:00.000Z).

Core

The following tracking categories are added by MediaWiki itself, or have been in the past.

Default category	Message	What triggers the category's inclusion	Version
Pages with too many expensive parser function calls	expensive-parserfunction-category	The page uses too many expensive parser functions (like `#ifexist`). See Manual:$wgExpensiveParserFunctionLimit. This tracking category replaced pfunc_max_ifexist_category, which was added by Extension:ParserFunctions .	1.13
Pages containing omitted template arguments	post-expand-template-argument-category	The page is bigger than `$wgMaxArticleSize` after expanding a template argument (something in triple braces, like `{{{Foo}}}`).	1.13
Pages where template include size is exceeded	post-expand-template-inclusion-category	The page size is bigger than `$wgMaxArticleSize` after expanding all the templates, so some templates were not expanded.	1.13
Noindexed pages	noindex-category	The page is not indexed by robots because it has the magic word `__NOINDEX__` on it and is in a namespace where that flag is allowed.	1.15
Indexed pages	index-category	The page has a `__INDEX__` on it (and is in a namespace where that flag is allowed), and hence is indexed by robots where it normally wouldn't be.	1.15
Hidden categories	hidden-category-category	The category contains `__HIDDENCAT__` in its page content, which prevents it from showing up in the category links box on pages by default.	1.13
Pages with broken file links	broken-file-category	The page contains a broken file link (a link to embed a file when the file does not exist). This does not include links to files on the bad image list, files that cannot be displayed inline (due to lack of handler support), links directly to a file page (by preceding with a colon, e.g. `[[:File:Example.png]]`). The category, if enabled, is linked from Special:Wantedfiles since 1.19.	1.18
Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls	duplicate-args-category	The page contains template calls that use duplicates of arguments, such as `{{foo\|bar=1\|bar=2}}` or `{{foo\|bar\|1=baz}}`.	1.25
Pages where node count is exceeded	node-count-exceeded-category	The page exceeds the maximum node count.	1.24
Pages where expansion depth is exceeded	expansion-depth-exceeded-category	The page exceeds the maximum expansion depth.	1.24
Pages with ignored display titles	restricted-displaytitle-ignored	The page has an ignored `{{DISPLAYTITLE}}` because it is not equivalent to the page's actual title.	1.28
Pages using invalid self-closed HTML tags	deprecated-self-close-category	The page contains invalid self-closed HTML tags, such as `‎<b />` or `‎<span />`. The behavior of these will change soon to be consistent with the HTML5 specification, so their use in wikitext is deprecated.	1.28 (removed in 1.36)
Pages with template loops	template-loop-category	The page contains a template loop, ie. a template which calls itself recursively.	1.29
Pages using ISBN magic links	magiclink-tracking-isbn	This page uses ISBN magic links. See mediawiki.org on how to migrate. This tracking category is only added if $wgEnableMagicLinks is true.	1.28
Pages using RFC magic links	magiclink-tracking-rfc	This page uses RFC magic links. See mediawiki.org on how to migrate. This tracking category is only added if $wgEnableMagicLinks is true.	1.28
Pages using PMID magic links	magiclink-tracking-pmid	This page uses PMID magic links. See mediawiki.org on how to migrate. This tracking category is only added if $wgEnableMagicLinks is true.	1.28
Pages which use = as a template	template-equals-category	The page contains `{{=}}` but on this wiki that does not expand to `=`. This usage is deprecated; a future MediaWiki version will implement `{{=}}` as a parser function.	1.36
Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments	nonnumeric-formatnum	The page contains a non-numeric argument to the formatnum parser function.	1.36

Extensions

The following tracking categories are added by extensions, or have been in the past. Extensions can add new tracking categories using the extension registration system . Prior to 1.25, this was instead done via Parser::addTrackingCategory, with the tracking category name added to $wgTrackingCategories .

Default category	Message	What triggers the category's inclusion	Added by extension	Version
Pages with too many ifexist calls [1]	pfunc_max_ifexist_category	Warning: This page contains too many #ifexist calls. It should have less than $2, there are now $1. This tracking category was replaced with expensive-parserfunction-category, which is added by core. The messages for the tracking category and its description were removed in rev:32965.	ParserFunctions	(removed in 1.13)
Pages with syntax highlighting errors	syntaxhighlight-error-category	There was an error when attempting to highlight code included on the page.	SyntaxHighlight	1.26
Pages using the EasyTimeline extension	timeline-tracking-category	No description available.	EasyTimeline	1.32
Pages with reference errors	cite-tracking-category-cite-error	Pages in this category have errors in the usage of references tags.	Cite	1.27
Pages using the Score extension	score-use-category	These pages use the Score extension.	Score
Pages with score rendering errors	score-error-category	There was an error while rendering the score.	Score	1.22
Pages using deprecated score attributes	score-deprecated-category	These pages use options provided by the Score extension which are deprecated. These are: "override_audio", "override_ogg", and "override_midi".	Score
TemplateStyles stylesheets with errors	templatestyles-stylesheet-error-category	The TemplateStyles stylesheet has an error.	TemplateStyles	1.32
Pages with TemplateStyles errors	templatestyles-page-error-category	There was an error when processing a `<templatestyles/>` tag on the page.	TemplateStyles	1.32
MassMessage delivery lists	massmessage-list-category	The page is a delivery list for the MassMessage extension.	MassMessage	1.24
Files with no machine-readable license	commonsmetadata-trackingcategory-no-license	The file does not have any machine-readable license template.	CommonsMetadata	1.25
Files with no machine-readable description	commonsmetadata-trackingcategory-no-description	The file does not have a machine-readable information template, or its description field is not filled out.	CommonsMetadata	1.25
Files with no machine-readable author	commonsmetadata-trackingcategory-no-author	The file does not have a machine-readable information template, or its author field is not filled out.	CommonsMetadata	1.25
Files with no machine-readable source	commonsmetadata-trackingcategory-no-source	The file does not have a machine-readable information template, or its source field is not filled out.	CommonsMetadata	1.25
Files with no machine-readable patent	commonsmetadata-trackingcategory-no-patent	The file does not have a machine-readable patent template.	CommonsMetadata	1.31
Pages with math errors	math-tracking-category-error	Pages in this category have errors in the usage of math tags.	Math	1.28
Pages with math render errors	math-tracking-category-render-error	Pages in this category have rendering errors in the math tags.	Math	1.30
Pages with malformed coordinate tags	geodata-broken-tags-category	The page has a malformed `{{#coordinates:}}` tag.	GeoData	1.19
Pages with unknown globe value	geodata-unknown-globe-category	The page uses an unknown value of the `globe` parameter for coordinates.	GeoData	1.19
Pages with invalid region value	geodata-unknown-region-category	The page uses an invalid value of the `region` parameter for coordinates.	GeoData	1.19
Pages with unknown type of coordinates	geodata-unknown-type-category	The page uses an unknown value of the `type` parameter for coordinates.	GeoData	1.19
Pages with script errors	scribunto-common-error-category	There was an error when processing the modules included on the page.	Scribunto	1.19
Scribunto modules with errors	scribunto-module-with-errors-category	The module has an error in it.	Scribunto	1.23
Pages with unreviewed translations	cx-unreviewed-translation-category	Pages translated with the Content Translation tool that contain a high amount of unreviewed content	ContentTranslation	1.33
Pages using the Kartographer extension	kartographer-tracking-category	The page includes a map	Kartographer	1.27
Pages with broken maps	kartographer-broken-category	The page includes an invalid map usage	Kartographer	1.27
Pages with unresolved properties	unresolved-property-category	This category lists pages that reference Wikidata properties that cannot be found neither by their property ID nor label.	Wikibase Client	1.29
Redirects connected to a Wikidata item	connected-redirect-category	This category lists redirect pages that are connected to a Wikidata item.	Wikibase Client	1.31
Pages using the JsonConfig extension	jsonconfig-use-category	These pages use the `mw.ext.data.get` method provided by the JsonConfig extension. The `mw.ext.data.get` method is considered expensive.	JsonConfig	1.43 (removed in 1.44)
Pages with reference errors that trigger visual diffs	cite-tracking-category-cite-diffing-error	Pages in this category have errors in the usage of references tags, and these errors are not rendered in the same way in the legacy parser and in Parsoid.	Cite	1.44 (removed in 1.46)

GeezerVison

Core

Extensions

See also