Cname

Cname, short for category name, is a variable that was created and standardized for the site templates. This variable has been somewhat confused in it's purpose mainly because the category names themselves can be confusing. This article will hopefully serve to explain the purpose of a category name.

Let's say you create a monster called Frank yet you set it's cname to Bob. What you might expect to occur is that your item is listed as Bob under any categories you have added it to. But this isn't the case, because the category name is invisible and only used behind-the-scenes by wikipedia. What would actually occur is that, when you viewed that category listing the term Frank would show up under B where the name Bob would usually sit. In other words, you've changed how Frank gets sorted without actually changing the name of the object at all.

For a more exhaustive example, let's use an item called a large fork.

cname = a large fork

Item will be displayed under a as a large fork

cname = A large fork

Item will be displayed under A as a large fork

cname = large fork, a

Item will be displayed under l as a large fork

cname = Large fork, a

Item will be displayed under L as a large fork

It is important to realize that the display name never, ever changes in these examples, only where it sorts. It is also important to note the case sensitivity, the preferred method is to have your sort name start with a capital letter regardless of the display name, since, by default, your sort groups should be A-Z and not A-Za-z. Once you start adding mixed case, you create sort results that make it twice as difficult to find what you are looking for. Including a comma and the article allows for proper sorting when similar items are compared (such as a large fork, the large fork, this large fork).

Hope this helps, please use the talk section to bring up any issues that may need clarification.