What it means for a taxonomy to be hierarchical

We\’ve all done it, had to explain the difference between hierarchical and non-hierarchical taxonomies (categories and tags).

In a recent ticket, #23447, it\’s proposed that the description for the parent dropdown on the hierarchical taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. form be rewritten to be more generic. In an age of custom taxonomies, I think we can get behind that.

The current patch suggests changing this:

Categories, unlike tags, can have a hierarchy. You might have a Jazz categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging., and under that have children categories for Bebop and Big Band. Totally optional.

to this:

You might have a Jazz category, and under that have children categories for Bebop and Big Band. Totally optional.

I think we can do better. We\’d need to succinctly explain \”hierarchy\” without button-holing ourselves into just talking about categories.

As @dd32 aptly points out, we need to avoid using taxonomy labels in any future changes because of the difficulty in working with different languages.

So who has a suggestion? 🙂

#core, #taxonomies