Category talk:Shopping malls in Los Angeles

Emptying

User:Keizers has been removing the contents of this category, in favor of more regionalized categories. While I agree with the concept that the actual definition of the City of Los Angeles is not well formulated in most people's mind, I do object to the removal of this category. Why? Because this is the common search term for those uninformed users. There should be a forwarding TO HELP USERS FIND those more geographically accurate categories. Categories are a navigation tool. We should help users find things.

I don't work with the technical aspects of categories too often. I usually get involved when I see illogical deletion efforts. I don't have a repertoire of tools to suggest. If that means putting the geographical categories under this category, then that is a suggestion. I'd prefer something akin to a wiki link "See also." I oppose deletion and will follow this to CfD if necessary. Trackinfo (talk) 19:56, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that there is a Category: Shopping malls in Los Angeles County, California. That should be clear enough. But you could also have double categorization for malls within the zig-zag city limits of Los Angeles. However, as noted, that would include e.g. Westside Pavilion but exclude Santa Monica Place right down the street.Keizers (talk) 23:52, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If nothing else, "Shopping malls in Los Angeles" is ambiguous because we don't know if this refers to the county, the city or some other informal region. If there is a good reason for having a category for the city proper (I'm not sure there is), it should have a more specific name. ~Kvng (talk) 15:38, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While we, obviously locals, understand the permutations of the "zig zag Los Angeles City border", my concern is the general public probably does not. The emptying of this category as a precursor to its deletion is obvious. But THIS IS the search term most likely to be requested. We should use it to aid uninformed users to navigate. I'm not adverse to putting the regional categories into it. But this, as opposed to the more accurate and specific categories, is where many people will look. Trackinfo (talk) 22:35, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit confused, do you know if people actually search by Category? It's not something that comes up in a Google search, and standard Wiki Search doesn't turn up categories. Generally the categories are visible as links at the bottom of articles. So presumably it's for the case where you are reading, say, "Beverly Center" and you are interested in seeing other malls. And in that case clicking and seeing the malls on the Westside of LA is going to be useful, and then from that category page you can see that the parent category is Los Angeles County, so I don't see where the confusion would be...