Wikipedia:Short description

Short descriptions in a menu of suggested articles

Short descriptions as a subheading below the article title

The short description of a Wikipedia article or other mainspace page is a concise explanation of the scope of the page. Eventually all articles should have a short decription template, even if it is empty, so that it is easier to keep track of new articles which still need to have one added.

Editing procedures

The short description is part of the article content, and is subject to the standard processes for content decisions, including but not limited to Bold-Revert-Discuss and the rules on edit warring and vandalism. Short descriptions are subject to all Wikipedia standards of content, including those found at Wikipedia:Biographies of Living Persons, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:Verifiability, though, like the title, they are not referenced inline.

Content

• The short description is primarily intended as a disambiguator clarifying the article title. The short description is not intended to provide an adequate definition of the article subject.
• Because it is intended to be used in conjunction with the article title, duplication of information already in the title is to be avoided.
• Short descriptions should usually be less than 40 characters, although there is no hard limit. Some applications may abbreviate long descriptions at unspecified lengths. Because of this fact, the most important identifying information should be placed first.
• The short description will be the first point of contact for many readers, so it should be readily comprehensible.
• The short description should not be a full sentence unless absolutely necessary.
• The short description should be in sentence case.
• Short descriptions should include only plain text, without templates, links, formatting.
• WikiProjects may find it useful to suggest standard formats which may be applicable to categories of articles.
• Wikidata has English descriptions of a significant fraction of Wikipedia articles. Where these are good, they may be copied to the relevant article. The Wikidata descriptions are all public domain, so there is no need for attribution. If you use a Wikidata description, check that it is appropriate and accurate. Wikidata descriptions may not comply with all Wikipedia content policies, and it is the responsibility of the editor to ensure that Wikipedia content complies. This is particularly relevant for biographies of living people and medical articles.
• Avoid anything that is, or could reasonably be construed as, controversial or judgemental. Use universally accepted facts wherever possible.

History

Background/overview

Wikipedia's mobile interface uses Wikidata descriptions below each article title and in searches. (See Wikidata's "Wikipedia" entry: the description is below the title line.) After concerns were raised about their accuracy, suitability, and the potential for sneaky vandalism on Wikidata, the ability to define short descriptions directly on Wikipedia was added. If a Wikipedia short description for an article is not defined, as of May 2018, the Wikidata description is still used. At some point, the Wikidata fallback will be removed.

Implementation

According to DannyH (WMF), The magic word is currently being built. When it is complete, it will be deployed to Wikipedia and will be live. There are two stages after the magic word goes live:

Stage 1: Wikipedia editors will populate the magic word (SHORTDESC) on Wikipedia pages. During that period:

• Pages that have a Wikipedia-written SHORTDESC description— {{SHORTDESC:American stage actor}}— will display the new description.
• Pages that have a blank magic word—{{SHORTDESC:}}— will display the Wikidata description.
• Pages that do not have a SHORTDESC description will display the Wikidata description.

Stage 2: Once Wikipedia editors write ~2 million descriptions, we will switch to entirely Wikipedia-hosted descriptions. From that point:

• Pages that have a Wikipedia-written SHORTDESC description— {{SHORTDESC:American stage actor}}— will display the new description.
• Pages that have a blank magic word—{{SHORTDESC:}}— will not display a description at all.
• Pages that do not have a SHORTDESC description will not display a description at all.
• The Wikidata description will not be displayed on any page.

The magic word has been implemented and works from within the {{short description}}.

Help adding short descriptions

Format and placing

• The format for a short description uses a magic word {{SHORTDESC: }}, which takes the short description as a parameter when the software has been written (link to technical information when available).
• The template, {{short description}}, will be used to populate ordinary articles in mainspace. Eventually all mainspace pages should have a short description. Some pages may be better served by embedding the short description template in a disambiguation template or similar, where the short description is valid for all pages using that template.
• As the short description is the first thing that will be shown after the title when it is used, there is a reasonable argument for putting it at the top of the page before anything else. However, this may conflict with ease of editing article content, other templates and hatnotes which are usually placed right at the top, and it may make the contents of the short descriptions particularly vulnerable to vandalism and edit warring.
• If the {{SHORTDESC: }} magic word or Template:Short description is used generically inside another template, e.g. an infobox, then please add a second parameter | noreplace to the magic word, which will allow it to be overridden by an manually inserted instance (for example, at the top of the article) that does not have the | noreplace keyword. (Note: this functionality is not implemented yet, see phab:T193857, but adding the 'noreplace' keyword in templates would still be helpful in anticipation. This modification is likely to be implemented around 12 June 2018).

Template:Short description

The Template:Short description has been created to manage short descriptions in articles. For example at Nitrox the first line is:

{{short description| Breathing gas mixture composed of nitrogen and oxygen }}

It currently does not display its text by default, but it can be enabled (and styled, if desired) by using the class shortdescription , or by enabling a gadget (see below).

Any registered editor can show the text of short descriptions by adding this line to their Special:MyPage/common.css:

.shortdescription { display:block !important; }

For more detailed experimentation, a test version of the template which displays its text by default is available at Template:Short description/test.

• {{Short description/test}} displays the short description if supplied
• {{Short description/test}} displays nothing if none is supplied
• {{Short description/test}} displays the description from Wikidata if wikidata is supplied.

Making it visible in the page

Enable MediaWiki:Gadget-Page_descriptions.js from your Preferences in the Gadgets menu Testing and development section: Show page description beneath the page title (not compatible with the Page Assessments gadget).

Red means that the short description is missing; orange means it's from Wikidata (you can click it to go there).

Editor hints are only available for those who are auto confirmed, and only work for Vector and Monobook skins. Coded by User:TheDJ. May contain bugs. (Display is somewhat erratic, you may have to refresh the page a few times to get it to show.)

For a more direct and robust approach that is compatible with the Page Assessment gadget, see user CSS instructions at Template:Short_description#Testing; the code snippet there can simply be copy-pasted. This does not provide Wikidata color highlighting, however.

Seeing a short description but can't find the code in the page?

If the page isn't [directly] using {{Short description}}, try these steps:

• Look for manual <shortdescription> markup.
• Failing that, see if the Infobox template on the page has a short description parameter.
  • If not, it may generate one automatically from medata; see the template's documentation page and, if necessary the page of the meta-template used by the topical infobox. If you find that the meta-template has such a parameter and the derived topical template does not, please add it and documentation for it to the derivied template(s). Automated short descriptions frequently need to be overridden.
• At portals, look for the template {{Portal description}} in the portal's code. You can add a |topic= parameter to override to auto-generated topic name.
• Still can find it? Look for other transcluded templates or Wikidata-related code.

Taking scuba diving (Q1096878) as an example:

• {{short description/test|Underwater diving where breathing is from equipment independent of the surface }} →
• {{short description/test|none }} →
• {{short description/test|wikidata }} →

Tool for making short descriptions visible and importing useful descriptions from Wikidata

• User:Galobtter/Shortdesc helper is compatible with Page assessments gadget, shows the short description if it exists, allows editing of only the short description, shows the Wikidata description and allows it to be imported and if desired, edited.
• This script introduces the short description as a class .mw-page-description which can be highlighted by a line of css like .mw-page-description { background-color: #FF80FF; }

See also

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions
• Template:Short description
• Category:Pages with short description