Last modified: 2009-10-22 06:29:25 UTC
When one looks at a category, say "category:X" usually it lists a variety of sub-categories, and also a variety of assorted articles which belong to category X. Would it be possible next to each subcategory to give a count of the number of unique pages within that sub-category? The idea would be, to see at a glance which sub-categories had many articles. I understand that there is a risk of circularity in the counting, I don't know if that makes it technically impossible. Thoughts?
This would probably be unnecessarily expensive.
What about just one level down? i.e. listing the number of immediate sub-categories and the number of immediate pages that below to this category. This prevents circularity, and also the running cost could be amortized as follows: Each category keeps the two counts as part of its database entry. When a page/category list this category as its immediate parent, the corresponding count is incremented. When a page/category delist this category as its immediate parent, the corresponding count is decremented. When this category is listed as a subcategory of its parent, the two counts are furnished for display. All the above operations take constant time.
I would also like to express my support for such a feature. Just brackets after the sub category name, which contains the number of objects within that category, wich I suppose should hold both pages and further subcategories.
append (X/Y) where X = direct member articles and Y = direct member subcategories?
This bug seems to be much easier now that bug 6943 has been fixed.
If I understand this bug report correctly, this already works on Wikipedia (probably through the CategoryTree extension). If not, please reopen the bug with a description what is still missing.