When should a category be created?

If it can be expected to become popular in near future, and cant be constructed from existing categories

A category should be created if all of these criteria are met:

• It can be expected that, in the near future, some people will want to have this moot as a favourite category (including as part of 'combo-category', e.g. feedback+yoomoot)
• It can be expected that, in the near future, there will be a lot of moots added to this category
• It can't be constructed from existing categories. E.g. 'british politics' is a bad category, because you can have uk+politics instead.
  

Categories shouldn't be treated like keywords or tags (whereby you just create categories for as many subjects as you can think of related to the moot). This would just create an unnecessarily high number of categories, leading to mess.

• By Nicolas Holzapfel
• Oct. 1, 2009

If it can't be constructed from existing categories

A category should be created if all of these criteria are met:

1. It can't be constructed from existing categories. E.g. 'british politics' is a bad category, because you can have uk+politics instead. 

It doesn't matter if there might not be many moots in that category in the future. The more categories the merrier! If a very specialised category exists with only one or two moots in it, it's still a good thing because it encourages a niche group to form around that category.

• By Nicolas Holzapfel
• Oct. 1, 2009