Last modified: 2011-09-11 01:32:28 UTC
When a category is large enough that they entries are split across several pages, the beginning of the next page does not indicate that if the first new letter's entries were continued over from the previous page. For example, the end of a page might have: T * Terre Thaemlitz but the start of the next category page might look like this T * The Mitgang Audio * Blackwatch * Tom Stephan * Tonearm (musician) instead of like this T cont. * The Mitgang Audio * Blackwatch * Tom Stephan * Tonearm (musician)
Figured I've give an actual working URL (as of right now) showing this bug in action: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_rock_drummers splits the J entries across two pages. Clicking "next" at the bottom produces a page that starts with J but doesn't indicate they are being continued.
Couple more thing to add... a full solution to this problem would include some sort of "see next page" type link at the bottom of the very right-most column that gets continued over to the next page. Sub-categories also requires some discussion. The subcategories listings suffer from the same bug (continued listings without a "cont" indicator) as the entries do. I saw an example of this on Wikipedia although I can't find it at the moment. Another question arises: if the regular entry listings are broken over some letter... say M... should the subcategories for M be displayed on all pages that display M listings? At the moment, it only displays the M subcategories at the page that ''first'' starting listing M entries. Here's another category that is much bigger and better for thinking about these questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_television_actors
Created attachment 6819 [details] Screenshot showing the problem highlighted in red Screenshot showing an example where a category "spills" over to the next page yet the index does not indicate this. This problem plagues both the categories and subcategories.
Noted this still occurs
Created attachment 8160 [details] This screenshot shows the problem for subcategories and also illustrates that some sort of "cont on next page" message is needed. My comment about how this bug applies to subcategories is confusing at best. I have uploaded a second screenshot that shows how the problem affects subcategory listings to make it easier. The category "Category:People by ethnicity" was used to generate the bug. Also shown on this screenshot is some text saying "cont. next page" to explicitly indicate that there are more items than those shown. Not 100% sure this needed but it might be a good idea. It's purpose would be to give some indication that the index entries continue on the next page. While "cont. next page" is debatable, the "cont." is definitely needed.