World Organization

A reference to the structure of this world's content.

This is a reference article of how I organize my world and try to keep it tidy. If you see a method here that would be useful to adopt for your own world, feel free to try it out!

Article Creation

After reorganizing my articles and categories so many times, I've decided to write down reminders of what works best for me:
1. Write the political country as an organization first (because there's often more to write about and link to) and create a smaller geographical location of the land itself afterwards.
2. Write the big chonker topics first and then expand on specific points in separate articles (if there's enough information for one).
3. When a new reader lands on ANY article in Melior, make sure they know (in any order):

WHO wrote it? - (I've added an author bio that shows at the bottom of each page)
WHAT's going on? - (what's this world about? what genre is this?)
WHERE to go next? - (clear and easy to use navigation)
WHY it's relevant? - (connections to lore in the rest of the world)
WHEN it happened? - (historical context and timeline links)
HOW to interact? - (encouragement to click things, comment, or learn more)

Article Structure

Every article with a sidebar has an auto-generated table of contents which serves as both an indicator of length and is a way of easily navigating the page.
Breadcrumb navigation is also added to every page as it also provides additional context of where the article relates to in its category or parent article.
The article sidebar should only be used for secondary information such as data, additional links, or further reading and should not contain important lore that could easily be overlooked.
Linear navigation should be included to suggest a previous article and a next article (both of which should be of relevant or related topics).
Links should be used on the first mention of an article or piece of content.

Article Design

For notes on how I decide my article layouts and visual hierarchy, see my Style Manual.

Tags

I use tags for my indices, such as Characters A-Z, or Articles by Template. For example, a character called Najé will have the tags: idx-n (because the name starts with N), t-chr (because the template is a character), and chr-n because it's a character whose name starts with N.
Index tags should skip the first "the" or "a" and reference the first letter of the following word.
Character index tags are based on the first name and should ignore titles.
Some tags are used to apply visual themes to articles (notably, #nsfw articles) and other tags are used for search purposes for folks to explore certain kinds of content (see my Tags Article).

Maps

Maps should contain information in all clickable places, with links to explore further. "Buttons" should be added to jump to other related maps.

Timelines

All entries in a timeline or chronicle should be filled with a short context of the event, with links to relevant articles if there's more to read.

(For both of these, I've noticed that empty sections look unfinished and hinders further exploration, like dead ends in a maze.)

Categories

With the exception of the index in the introduction category, connected child articles are not visible in the table of contents to make things look tidy. If a child article needs to be visible then it probably has enough importance to be moved from its parent article into a proper category.
Here's how I decided to use each category:

(This is a visual mockup of how I've planned out my categories and core articles.) Click on the top level folders below to expand or collapse them (there are no linked articles in this example).
Introduction

• Introduction to Melior
• Folks
• History
• Magic
• Cosmology
• Glossary
• Index A-Z
• Characters A-Z
• Countries by Region
• Articles by Template

Places

• Regions of Melior
• Jolundria
• Kuldar
• Arklend
• Anvil
• Porosa
• Xendria
• Gallotia
• Rengia
• Orubia
• Melopia
• Selith

Fauna

• Folks
• Mammals
• Birds
• Reptiles
• Fish
• Amphibians
• Invertebrates
• Unclassified

Flora

• Plants
• Fungi

Factions

• Political Factions
• Military Groups
• Guilds and Companies
• Religious Groups

Items

• Materials, Substances, and Solutions
• Common Items
• Food, Drink, and Consumables
• Clothing and Armour
• Tools, Equipment, and Weapons
• Currencies
• Furnishings and Decorations
• Artifacts and Antiquities

Lore Library

• Myths and Legends
• Battles and Conflicts
• Books, Documents, and Journals

Appendices

• Languages
• Calendars
• Holidays and Events
• Technology
• Transport
• Diseases, Disabilities and Conditions
• Traditions and Culture
• Games and Sports

Miscellany

• World Anvil Challenges
• External Challenges
• Style Manual
• World Organization
• Tags

I found it challenging to strike a balance with categories; when I started worldbuilding I had too many top level categories visible in a lonnng list, and when I tried to fix it I ended up with too many categories that were buried several layers deep.
To get around this I've decided that my categories are only 2 layers deep. To make it even cleaner I've also hidden child articles and unlisted articles that are too small or identically named (such as geographic regions vs countries).

When there's more than FIVE articles of one type of thing, I create a new subcategory for them OR consider making a broader overview article that links to each of the articles.

Introduction

The first category is the most important and it's where I want people to visit and read about first. These are core articles that give broad overviews of the world in an engaging and digestable format.
I decided to add a glossary and indices in here to provide easy navigation to further lore.

Places

I make sure to include maps everywhere so that the names of the major regions become familiar and intriguing to explore further in these categories. Each region category will end up containing articles on geographical features and an overview of the countries in that area. I'll keep the number of visible articles small so that it's not so visually overwhelming to choose from.

Fauna

This category is fairly self explanatory, it's a broad categorisation of creatures.

Flora

In this category I'll put any plant related species in my world. If I develop more than 5 of one type of thing, they will get their own subcategory.

Factions

The groups, factions, and organizations in these categories are widely known beyond their original place of founding. I put smaller factions under their appropriate local article(s).

Items

Items are categorized between common things used in daily life, and artifacts that are either more obscure, more valuable, or from older time periods in the world.

Lore Library

This category serves as a library of documented knowledge within the world in the form of letters, books, journals, poetry, spoken word, and more.

Appendices

These are the additional categories that make up significant functions of the world but are often longer to read or are more in-depth (such as calendar systems and conlangs).

Miscellany

And here's where I put all the stuff I want people to find but that aren't lore articles, like stuff I've done for writing challenges, or references like this article you're reading now!

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Inspirations

To organize my own world, I took lots of inspiration from the following sources:

• UESPWiki
• Wikipedia's Contents/Categories page

And these amazing articles from the community: