When browsing a category that has sub-categories, I don’t think we need to show that categories name if you are browsing its page - it’s not necessary as you know you are in that category. It also makes the page look cluttered - worse when you use the block style or when category names are longer.
Current:
Suggested:
This is an old, old discussion that was already had many moons ago. I originally agreed with you, repeating the same category over and over isn’t that helpful on a category page – and that is the way it used to be, we used to suppress category display on the topic list page when viewing a category – but @sam decided it should be this way.
(You’ll notice the /new page does similarly suppress the new indicator on that page.)
I ultimately don’t have strong feelings either way, it is the kind of thing that I feel people are going to complain about no matter what you choose, as in, no solution will work for all people here.
This is something that can be customised via CSS…
… however it would require something like this or each category:
body.category-plugin .topic-list .category a[href="/c/plugin"],
body.category-howto .topic-list .category a[href="/c/howto"] {
display: none;
}
I’d agree with Sam if all of the subcategories were being suppressed, but I’m guessing the original setup wasn’t as per the suggestion?
Thanks - that’s a good stop gap, but do feel this should be in core…
I’m not so sure it should be in Core as “yet another setting”.
I do think it would be good to have a better CSS selector to make not displaying it easier.
I don’t think it needs to be a setting - I can’t think of any good reason to repeat the name of the category when you know you are already in it, particularly important when it clutters the view. It just doesn’t offer anything of value imo.
That just goes back to the old discussions.
Some like it, some don’t.
It’s more difficult to add something that isn’t there than it is to not display something that is there.
That’s why I think having a way to do a simple CSS display none would be the better approach.
Were the discussions based on the same suggestion though? I’d agree that all are better than nothing, but disagree that all are better than just those of the subcats (and not the cat you are already in).
Like you said tho, it can be changed via CSS so not a huge deal.
Just thought I’d throw my opinion into the ring.
When I initially read your post I was like “oh yeah, hadn’t really thought of that before”.
However on reflection, I think it makes sense to keep it and here’s why.
I envision the ‘Latest’ view as a continuous stream of topics and the category and tag selectors simply as filters. I don’t imagine that I’m browsing to a different page that should necessarily have a different template. I’d assume that the filter approach is how it was initially conceived.
Although they may seem redundant, to me they serve the purpose of communicating that as a user you’re simply filtering, not navigating somewhere else.
In my opinion as soon as we start changing small things like this for different parts of the site, the more confusing Discourse will eventually become. The reason I like and use Discourse is for its simplicity and consistency in the design.
Now maybe it’s because I’m looking at this from the ‘Latest’ tab. I guess it could be argued that if you’re on the Category view and you click a category, it makes more sense to imagine you are navigating into a category and to a different page.
I think this is probably the two schools of thought and why people would disagree forever on something like this. There isn’t a right or wrong answer. A setting to behave like either would be beneficial I think as it should be up to the site owner to decide what he/she wants.
That’s my point tho James 
Cat 1 ux - Discourse Meta
Cat 2 plugin - Discourse Meta
One lists categories including own category, the other does not.
If one has sub categories then we only need to see those - just like tags - we only see tags when a topic has them.