How to show term-specific post list, without posts associated with child terms?

Question

Is this normal WordPress behaviour?

I have:

• Custom post type: "article"
• Custom taxonomy: "company" (hierarchical)

In the backend, when I go to the post list for "Articles", and constrain results by clicking on a "company" term, I expect to see only posts tagged with that specific company.

Instead, I see those plus posts tagged with its child companies as well.

Example: if I click my "AT&T" "company" term (9), I don't just see my "articles" tagged with "AT&T", but also those tagged with all downstream child terms across multiple descendent levels (42)...

• AT&T
  • DirecTV
    • WarnerMedia
      • HBO
      • Turner Broadcasting
        • CNN

That doesn't feel like correct behaviour.

Here is how I register the "company" taxonomy...

/**
 * ==============================================================================
 *                      REGISTER TAXONOMY
 * ==============================================================================
 */

if ( ! function_exists( 'register_taxonomy_company' ) ) {

function register_taxonomy_company() {

  $labels = array(
        'name'                       => _x( 'Organisations', 'Taxonomy General Name', 'text_domain' ),
        'singular_name'              => _x( 'Organisation', 'Taxonomy Singular Name', 'text_domain' ),
        'menu_name'                  => __( 'Organisations', 'text_domain' ),
        'all_items'                  => __( 'All Organisations', 'text_domain' ),
        'parent_item'                => __( 'Parent Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'parent_item_colon'          => __( 'Parent Organisation:', 'text_domain' ),
        'new_item_name'              => __( 'New Organisation Name', 'text_domain' ),
        'add_new_item'               => __( 'Add New Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'edit_item'                  => __( 'Edit Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'update_item'                => __( 'Update Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'view_item'                  => __( 'View Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'separate_items_with_commas' => __( 'Separate Organisations with commas', 'text_domain' ),
        'add_or_remove_items'        => __( 'Add or remove Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'choose_from_most_used'      => __( 'Choose from the most used', 'text_domain' ),
        'popular_items'              => __( 'Popular Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'search_items'               => __( 'Search Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'not_found'                  => __( 'Not Found', 'text_domain' ),
        'no_terms'                   => __( 'No Organisation', 'text_domain' ),
        'items_list'                 => __( 'Organisations list', 'text_domain' ),
        'items_list_navigation'      => __( 'Organisations list navigation', 'text_domain' ),
        );
    $rewrite = array(
        'slug'                       => 'organisation',
        'with_front'                 => true,
        'hierarchical'               => true,
    );
        $args = array(
            'labels'                     => $labels, // as above
            'public'                     => true,
            'show_ui'                    => true,
            'show_in_nav_menus'          => true,
            'hierarchical'               => true,
            'show_admin_column'          => true,
        'single_value'               => false, // Use single-select radio button, only one Organisation per object
            'show_tagcloud'              => true,
            'rewrite'                    => $rewrite,  // as above
        );

    // Put it all together!
    register_taxonomy(
        /* taxonomy name */         'company',
        /* attach to object */  array( 'article','report','session','quote','post' ),
        /* arguments */                 $args
    );

}
add_action( 'init', 'register_taxonomy_company', 0 );

}

And this is how I register the "article" post type...

/* Register custom post type */

function cpt_article() {

    $labels = array(
        'name'                  => 'Articles',
        'singular_name'         => 'Article',
        'menu_name'             => 'Articles',
        'name_admin_bar'        => 'Article',
        'archives'              => 'Article Archives',
        'parent_item_colon'     => 'Parent Article:',
        'all_items'             => 'All Articles',
        'add_new_item'          => 'Add New Article',
        'add_new'               => 'Add New',
        'new_item'              => 'New Article',
        'edit_item'             => 'Edit Article',
        'update_item'           => 'Update Article',
        'view_item'             => 'View Article',
        'search_items'          => 'Search Article',
        'not_found'             => 'Not found',
        'not_found_in_trash'    => 'Not found in Trash',
        'featured_image'        => 'Featured Image',
        'set_featured_image'    => 'Set featured image',
        'remove_featured_image' => 'Remove featured image',
        'use_featured_image'    => 'Use as featured image',
        'insert_into_item'      => 'Insert into Article',
        'uploaded_to_this_item' => 'Uploaded to this Article',
        'items_list'            => 'Articles list',
        'items_list_navigation' => 'Articles list navigation',
        'filter_items_list'     => 'Filter Articles list',
    );
    $args = array(
        'label'                 => 'Article',
        'description'           => 'Articles.',
        'labels'                => $labels,
        'supports'              => array( 'title', 'editor', 'excerpt', 'author', 'thumbnail', /*'comments', 'revisions', 'post-formats',*/ ),
        'taxonomies'            => array( 'source', 'category', 'post_tag' ),
        'hierarchical'          => false,
        'public'                => true,
        'show_ui'               => true,
        'show_in_menu'          => true,
        'menu_position'         => 6,
        'menu_icon'             => 'dashicons-media-text',
        'show_in_admin_bar'     => true,
        'show_in_nav_menus'     => true,
        'can_export'            => true,
        'has_archive'           => true,
        'exclude_from_search'   => false,
        'publicly_queryable'    => true,
        'capability_type'       => 'post',
    );
    register_post_type( 'article', $args );

}
add_action( 'init', 'cpt_article', 0 );

hierarchical had been set to true. I have changed it to false, but there is no effect.

UPDATE:

I have just checked another, separate WordPress install which runs hierarchical taxonomies and confirmed a second case - when viewing posts for a certain term, the WordPress admin post list seems to think it is appropriate behaviour to show posts for its sub-terms.

I can't believe that's correct.

Does anyone know a way to suppress this?

It makes it hard to manage things.

Answer 1

As @Milo's pointer said, this:

1. Sadly, is normal WordPress behaviour.
2. Can be suppressed using parse_tax_query and include_children set at 0...

The code found in the answer at https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/202773/39300 Works for me...

function taxonomy_archive_exclude_children($query){
   $taxonomy_slugs = ['product_category', 'application_category'];
   if($query->is_main_query() && is_tax($taxonomy_slugs)){
      foreach($query->tax_query->queries as &$tax_query_item){
        if(empty($taxonomy_slugs) || in_array($tax_query_item['taxonomy'], $taxonomy_slugs)){
            $tax_query_item['include_children'] = 0;
        }
      }
   }
 }
 add_action('parse_tax_query', 'taxonomy_archive_exclude_children');
//  An empty $taxonomy_slugs array will exclude children for all taxonomy archives.

parse_tax_query fires at taxonomy time, include_children 0 is where I can deny children from appearing.