Help:Tracking categories

Tracking categories are a feature of MediaWiki that allow pages with certain characteristics to be tracked. It works by adding any such page to a category automatically.

What category to use is determined by the tracking category's system message (i.e. a page in the MediaWiki: namespace). If the message is a single dash (-), then the tracking category is disabled. Often such categories are marked as hidden ( __HIDDENCAT__ ) as they are meant for maintenance and not general consumption. Some sites use Parser functions to modify which category is used based on namespace, but that doesn't work properly until 1.19.

Extensions can also add new tracking categories (via Parser::addTrackingCategory method).