Categories cannot be easily moved like other pages. For this reason, please choose category names carefully.

(Other pages have a "move" tab at the top of the page, to the left of the "watch" tab. However there is no "move" tab on category pages. Admins can easily delete and recreate the page, but this loses any page history.)

Moving a category is also a bigger decision, as every article in the category must be edited (usually it's easiest to use the pywikipedia bot, with category.py). If you want this done, leave a note on the talk page, and perhaps mention it to an admin (admin priveleges are needed for some of the steps below, in any case).

These steps should be arranged more neatly (with main steps, broken down). But for now...

Steps:

  1. Go to Special:Export and paste or type the current name of the category you want to move. (Add to the large box, not the one line Add pages from category: box.)
  2. Either add the talk page here also, or just use the move tab from the talk page. (Or is this automatic?)[1]
  3. Uncheck the first option, Include only the current revision, not the full history. You want to save the history, so make sure this is clear, not checked. Offer to save as a file should be checked (this is the easier way... or at least the way that I know).
  4. Click Export, and save the .xml file (which will be called something like Appropedia-20080110030559.xml, where the numbers are the date and time of saving).
  5. Use a text editor to open the file.
  6. Go to the line starting <title> and change the title to the desired title.
  7. Optional (when moving many pages in a batch): search and delete (or replace as appropriate) any templates which do not belong in mainspace, such as {{Browsetopic}}.
  8. Save your edits.
  9. Go to Special:Import, browse to the .xml file (with the updated title) and click Upload file. The category page should now be at the desired page name.
  10. Move every article in the category to the new category, by editing the category tags. For details on using pywikipedia bot, see meta:Category.py.
  11. Deal with the old category. Note Appropedia:No redirects for categoriesIf there is a chance there are links to it especially from outside Appropedia, don't delete, but add a temporary {{category redirect}}, adding the current date as an argument. This is only temporary - The old category page should then be deleted some time later (after double-checking that the category has no members). If a talk page is being deleted as well, be sure it has already been copied to the new location, and don't delete the redirect.
  12. At the old category page (now an empty page), click "What links here," and fix all the redirects (is there an automated way to do this? What are the steps for replace.py?). Inevitably this will be missed sometimes - so part of maintenance involves checking for redlink categories at Special:Wantedpages. (Categories on this page may also be broken redirects, or simply genuinely wanted category pages that haven't been created yet).

Between category pages and other namespaces

Use the Export-Import technique above, simply changing the full pagename (e.g. adding or removing the "Category:" prefix, or replacing it with a different prefix. There is no other difference between the XML files of category and other pages[2] so this should be safe.

Notes

  1. If for some reason the talk page needs to be moved separately, You can move using the "move" tab - this is possible with category talk pages, but not with the category pages). This preserves the history. This has the advantage of creating a redirect.
  2. Based on a comparison made by me --~~~~
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