User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Help!/@comment-5532276-20131005180812/@comment-188432-20131005214218

That's the nub of it, yah.

Think of the rules of categorisation as being ranked in this order:
 * 1) All articles must have a category, per T:CAT
 * 2) Categories should be based on information from stories only, per T:NO RW
 * 3) '''If the narrative gives no information about what the thing is, T:CAT outranks T:NO RW.

Note, though, that step 3 doesn't give you license to go on some sort of infinite loop, adding more and more categories as you see fit. Add the one RW category that you think is most important to finding the article. In SOTO's example, you would only add category:antelopes to wildebeest. You wouldn't add a host of others based on your personal knowledge of wildebeest.

For instance, Hawaii is never explicitly called one of the category:American states in DWU fiction, nor is it called an island. But we still prefer the state category because it's the one that makes the most sense, since it would be unusual for DWU fiction to be specifically talking about the County of Hawaii (i.e. the island called Hawaii) rather than the whole state.

Of course, all this is admittedly value judgement, which is why we really don't want to mess around with T:NO RW-violating categories, except whenever absolutely necessary.

Remember, T:CAT NOT also applies here. You shouldn't be using categories to give more information than what's in the narratives: adding categories is no substitute for writing the article properly.

Basically, when you find you absolutely, positively need to add a T:NO RW-violating category, you should also add a behind the scenes notes that makes it clear you've gone beyond what the text actually provides. See Hawaii for an example.