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 is a concise explanation of the scope of the article.

• The short description may be used for several purposes, including as a disambiguator in searches and as an annotation in outline articles.
• The short description should be as short as is reasonably practicable while serving its purpose. A target of 40 characters has been suggested, but there can not be a hard and fast limit. sometimes more words will be necessary to make sense.
• The short description will be the first point of contact for many readers, so it should be easily comprehensible, even if that means making it a little longer.
• Some applications may abbreviate longer descriptions. Longer descriptions should therefore be 'front loaded' -- the most important identifying information should be placed first.
• The short description will not normally be a full sentence, if a shorter construction will serve. It is not clear whether it should have an initial capital (sentence case) or not, but a capital is probably better.
• The short description is intended to always be used in combination with, and following, the article title, and should be written eith this in mind. Duplication which serves no useful purpose and results in awkward prose should be avoided.

Short descriptions and Wikipedia editing:

• 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.
• Disputes should be handled on the talk page in the same way as any other content.
• Short descriptions are subject to all Wikipedia standards of content, including BLP, neutrality and verifiability, though, like the title, they are not referenced in line. In effect they serve as an extension or annotation to the title.

Format and placing

• The format for a short description will use a magic word {{SHORTDESC: }} which takes the short description as a parameter when the software has been written. (link to technical information when available)
• Until the magic word has been developed, there is a template {{short description}} which can be used to start work on populating the articles. Eventually all articles should have a short description, so there is a lot of work ahead to create them.
• As the short description is the first thing that will be shown after the title when it is used, it is logical to put it right at the top of the page. before anything else. This may conflict with other templates and hatnotes which are convenient to place right at the top, but this particular one will eventually be in all articles, so there is a reasonable argument for giving it priority.

Implementation

According to DannyH (WMF), The magic word is currently being built. When it's 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 don't have a SHORTDESC description will display the Wikidata description.

Stage 2: Once Wikipedia editors write ~2 million descriptions, we'll 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 don't have a SHORTDESC description will not display a description at all.
• The Wikidata description will not be displayed on any page.

Content

• There is no special guidance yet for the formatting of short descriptions. 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 need no 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.

Automation and semi-automation

• Automated addition would be subject to the usual conditions for bot runs. Automation would be complicated by the need to produce accurate, concise and policy compliant short descriptions. This may not be possible, but if you have a plan, and it works, that would be very helpful.
• Semi-automated tools would be extremely helpful. If you can produce a script that is easy to use, checks through a category for the presence of short descriptions, and when absent checks for a Wikidata description and opens the page to allow the editor to check if it is suitable, then adds the description or allows manual addition and saves on a click before going on to the next article, it would accelerate the work by orders of magnitude.

Template:Short description

In the interim, the Template:Short description has been created to test short descriptions and make a start on adding them. 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, but it can be enabled (and styled, if desired) by using the class shortdescription . 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.

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 }} →

See also

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions