Do profiles have to be listed on a Category page alphabetically or can a custom index be used?

Question

I created a subcategory of a One Name Study for the profiles of people who are included in a book. Rather than an alphabetical list of profiles, I want to have it indexed by the page on which the person is found. For example:

There are six or seven men named Etienne Toups that are referenced in the book. Not all of them have WikiTree profiles yet but they will soon enough. Let’s say one is on page 52 and another on page 98. When I add the category to their profile - [[Category:Toups Clan]] - I would like to be able to add [[Category:Toups Clan | 52]] to the one found on page 52 and [[Category:Toups Clan | 98]] to the one found on page 98. Then when I go to the category page, I would see something like this under the heading “There are x Profiles in this category:”

Page 52

• Etienne Toups

Page 98

• Etienne Toups

Is this something that can be done and if so, will using the pipe delimiter work for indexing? 

Answer 1

You can only sort lists on data that has been stored. Since the page number  data cannot be stored in WikiTree's tables, the only alternative would be to create a free space page with a sortable table. 

Comments

Well, boo. That’s what I suspected but it was worth a shot to ask. Thanks for the quick response!

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You could also use subcategories for the page numbers, but maybe that would be to elaborate

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The table could also be done on the category page. It would show at the top and could include links to the pages. The alpha order would still be below, but your organization scheme would be seen first.

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Greg, definitely a practice not encouraged by WikiTree. In fact I got a very curt reprimand for something similar.

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I think I will add information to the category page explaining it’s purpose and keep it simple. By having a dedicated category with links to the profiles of those included in the book, others can benefit from the information it contains even though it’s no longer available.

Answer 2

The sorting will work that way if you use pipes, but the headers for the pages won't appear in the Toups Clan category, so the list in the category would end up looking kind of weird to people, unless you explain what's going on on that category page.

Personally, what I'd recommend is leaving the category sorted normally (that is, alphabetically), since that's going to be a useful sort for everybody, not just people who have their hands on the book. (And you do include the page numbers that people are on in the book when you source them, right? Of course you do. Because you are a WikiTreer, and that makes you awesome.)

Comments

Thank you for the compliment!! Yes, I add the page number and whenever feasible, I include the quoted text from the book.

I think I understand what you mean with the pipes so correct me if not... If I add [[Category:Toups Clan | 1]] to one Profile and [Category:Toups Clan | 2]] to the next, then the Profile with the “1” will show first in the list even if alphabetically, it should be second. Right?

I don’t think that would be a good idea for me since if I miscount, I would have a complete mess on my hands. I’m careful but also have ADHD so there’s times when I’m baking a cake that is for my birthday around Christmas and the kids are out of school clothes that go with the shoes that have gum on the bottom drawer that needs to be cleaned up and sources added to the profile... um... I get distracted sometimes. :)

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Yes, the "|" symbol is called a pipe. (At least by computer geeks. It might have a proper name among typography geeks.) When you're adding a category, if you put a pipe after the category name, then anything after the pipe is used to sort within that category. (So, for example, with Royal Navy ships, we put in something like [[Category:HMS Shipname (1757)|Shipname (1757)]], so the ships will sort into the Royal Nay category by their names, rather than all being clustered under "H" because of the "HMS".

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I want to thank Shae for bringing this up and Greg for this answer. I never knew we could do the alternate sort like that. I know I wanted something like this in the past so will be very glad for the conversation ... when I ever remember why I wanted it LOL