Wikipedia talk:Short description

"National flag" as short description

I preferred the use of "national flag" as short description for conventional flag articles of UN member states. For organizational flags, use "organization flag" for United Nations, NATO, etc., and for regional and state flag articles, for example, California uses "U.S. state flag" as short description (if shortened). 49.150.13.247 (talk) 01:03, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, what you shouldn't do is unilaterally change what the guideline says and then make work on 100 pages others have to undo. Remsense诉 03:07, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: is there a consensus for a short description that "national flag", "<country> state flag", "<country> municipal flag", etc., that is using short descriptions for flag of the United States and flag of California? 49.150.13.247 (talk) 03:12, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

If "History of California" has an SD of none, why wouldn't this be? Remsense诉 03:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Exactly it is, all list articles are intentionally blank, but some history articles also intentionally blank. 49.150.13.247 (talk) 03:24, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Right, I'm saying I don't understand why almost all "in/of" articles in this vein shouldn't have an SD of none. Remsense诉 03:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

All I say is that replacing a WP:SDNONE with "National flag" under a "Flag of [nation]" article isn't automatically needed. Although understand the need for consistency among flags, but unsure of the idea of adding/maintaining "National flag" SD's everywhere. DankJae 08:00, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

It is necessary to have short descriptions for flag articles. If you want to seek a consensus for short descriptions, please request for a comment. 49.150.13.247 (talk) 09:38, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

No it is not necessary for filled SDs on flag articles, they are treated like any other article. Editors may decide whether a filled SD is needed or if SDNONE is fine for the purpose. DankJae 11:15, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Just a general note: for flag articles such as Bloody flag, it may be necessary. But for flag articles containing a prepositional phrase (i.e. followed by "of"), such as Flag of Afghanistan and Flag of North Korea (nominated to "good article" status), then no, it is not necessary. However, all articles need the {{short description}} template as a rule of thumb. 192.254.92.90 (talk) 18:18, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Not sure why so many are taking the preference of a block evader as an authoritative interpretation of policy. Changing the short descriptions of every "Flag of" article to "none" presumes that the reader is familiar with every country, subnational division, region, city, etc. It's not an improvement. Yue🌙 05:55, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

This is the case, but I'm not sure what elegantly to do about it: what I wouldn't argue is that it should necessarily cascade—there are cases I think where X would need a shortdesc for disambiguation (let's assume for a second that articles wouldn't have one by default, so e.g. France wouldn't but maybe Luxembourg would), but Y of X wouldn't. If you're searching, I actually don't think it's very likely that you get to a situation where you see Flag of Luxembourg and need to be disambiguated, since you already probably know Luxembourg is some state or territory. Does that make sense? Remsense ‥ 论 06:02, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• We intend that all articles will have a SD. However, "none" is a valid SD in many cases – not just for lists — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 10:28, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  @GhostInTheMachine: Is this the article "flag of the United States", which is a UN member state, has short description under {{Short description|National flag}}? 49.150.13.247 (talk) 11:00, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  It was a general observation that "none" is a perfectly valid SD for many articles. It would also be suitable for many of the articles about flags as the article title already provides enough detail — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:06, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  I have a request for you. I find the definition of WP:SDNONE to be exceptionally vague. Can you and other admins on the short description wikiproject make it so the definition has more examples of articles that should (and shouldn't) be none? It would be useful to stop having these (necessary) talk pages about where this rule is used. -1ctinus📝🗨 12:51, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  Did "Flag of the Soviet Union" and "Flag of Yugoslavia" are dates encouraged in short description as well? 49.150.13.247 (talk) 22:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  WP:SDAVOID says that editors should avoid anything that could be understood as controversial, judgemental, or promotional. If you’re asking for specific flag-related examples, that wouldn’t be appropriate as it would amount to taking sides in a content dispute. Per WP:SDCONTENT: The short description is part of the article content, and is subject to the normal rules on content. Some people want consistency across flag articles, some think specific flags need special treatment, and some just like arguing about flags. There have always been such disagreements, and they are for content editors to resolve in the normal way. It's not an issue for this page. MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:38, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  Okay then, should we mass editing by changing to "none" as short description for any flag articles? 49.150.13.247 (talk) 10:22, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  No, not unless you have consensus to do so from editors who are active in those pages. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:00, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  No. Keep as "none". 192.254.92.90 (talk) 11:16, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• Note that I've rangeblocked the OP for block evasion.-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 16:30, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

To SD none or not to SD none

There is a discussion going on at Talk:List of Alberta provincial highways about whether "none" is the best choice for the SD there. I bring it up here cuz it seems the whole concept of using "none" is being challenged. I invited User:Evelyn Harthbrooke to bring her concerns here but as of yet, she hasn't. Masterhatch (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Piggybacking off of this, the algorithm is basically as follows:

1. Title is a proper name?  Not WP:SDNONEN
2. Is a X of... article?
   • Outline of... N
   • List of...  Go to obscurity test
   • All other kinds, e.g. Glossary of..., Bibliography of..., Index of...  
3. Function words used to link terms of the title phrase? e.g. History of communication, Islam and cats  
4. Article cannot plausibly be confused in scope with any other? Y
5. Article can only be described by unhelpfully rephrasing its title? Y

---

 Obscurity test is purely pragmatic, reckoning whether the average English Wikipedia reader is likely to intuit enough based on bare recognition of each term in the name: e.g.

• Communications in Alberta Y
• Communications in Kwango N, which sadly betrays our ignorance of this noble province within the DRC.
• List of Alberta provincial highways Y
• List of Alberta CCF/NDP members N

Remsense ‥ 论 01:15, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

What harm does it do if an article has a short description even if it passes the obscurity test? The short description serves as a page subtitle, that’s part of the reason they were likely implemented in the first place, and it helps accessibility, and it helps people who might need additional context. I for one appreciate additional context, and for current / former highway list articles, i’d argue it’s helpful to clarify, as List of Alberta provincial highways previously included even decommissioned highways. It doesn’t do any harm to have a proper short description. Having a short description set to “none” doesn’t help anyone and at that point the Short description template may as well be excluded altogether as there’s no reason to have a template be transcluded in an article if it doesn’t do anything. - Evelyn Harthbrooke (leave a message · contributions) 01:28, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

In my view, it's harmful in the same way (if not to the same degree) that a clunky lead sentence is. Redundant or vestigial information is distracting when its presentation is clearly meant to be particularly parsimonious (e.g. only 40 guaranteed characters). If you'll forgive me, they're such a problem to me because I don't like them for their perceived inelegance. It's something I can't blame others for not being bothered about, especially since I specifically turned on the ability to see them on desktop while most other editors haven't. Remsense ‥ 论 01:36, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Then that’s, respectfully, a personal problem surrounding your personal beliefs and opinions. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. - Evelyn Harthbrooke (leave a message · contributions) 02:52, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

That would be true if the opinions were only my own. I was just explaining how I personally understand and motivate this particular convention to the extent I do, but it's still a shared convention. Remsense ‥ 论 02:53, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Well it’s the wrong convention to have. Having a short description set to none doesn’t help anyone. It’s literally in the guideline that all articles should have a short description, yet, having it set to “none” doesn’t give it a short description and contradicts its own policy. It also does nothing to help a reader understand, especially if a potential reader needs additional context, e.g. if they struggle with reading comprehension even just a little bit. My stance on the matter is that short descriptions being set to none is unhelpful. - Evelyn Harthbrooke (leave a message · contributions) 03:05, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, this is sort of why I was trying to frame it the way I did: (forgive me if I mischaracterize) you see SDNONE as a wasted opportunity to inform readers, I see its antithesis as a potential stumbling block in informing readers. There's no empirical data in front of us telling us which one of us is closer to the mark in aggregate, so all we can do is try to understand where the other is coming from. Remsense ‥ 论 03:10, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

How can a short description be a "potential stumbling block"? I'm genuinely confused by this, because I've always found short descriptions to be useful, not a stumbling block when it comes to informing readers. It's a useful tool, and in my view, it's there to be used. - Evelyn Harthbrooke (leave a message · contributions) 08:01, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, this is potentially a point where we conceptually disagree. I'm being asked to pick the smallest nits in the world: in my mind, space just is never free and information should always be presented as intentionally as possible: text inherently brings attention to itself and contributes visual noise, and unexplained redundancy or awkward semantic overlaps between title and short description can absolutely cause confusion or just make the entire text feel less cohesive—this is the second thing one sees with any given article, and that matters a lot. Remsense ‥ 论 08:14, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Here's the problem with an obscurity test: it would be inherently biased towards wherever the person lives. Do English Wikipedia readers in Uganda know what the fuck an Arkansas is? -1ctinus📝🗨 01:56, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure—it's something where my biased intuition is totally flawed, but will hopefully improve with time. Remsense ‥ 论 02:49, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Why is "Outline of" crossed out? -1ctinus📝🗨 01:57, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Per The Transhumanist's own advice (which I agree with) and outline house style: outlines aren't as common a reference type out in the world as the others, so it makes sense the title wouldn't be sufficiently clear like "List" or "Glossary" is, Remsense ‥ 论 02:51, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

One more comment before I go to bed: multiple discussions have been brought up over when and when not WP:SDNONE applies and it has never reached any consensus. It is of my opinion that clearly an RfC is needed to revise the guideline so it is far more obvious where it applies and where it doesn't. -1ctinus📝🗨 02:03, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there are some head scratchers when it comes to when to use none and when not to use none for an SD. But one situation where SDNONE is spot on is ensuring the SD doesn't simply repeat the article's title. Masterhatch (talk) 13:38, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Quite a lot of people misunderstand short descriptions. They were introduced for disambiguation when someone uses a device to search for a title of interest. On typing "Joe Citizen", the device lists matching titles and displays the short description for each such as "politician" or "author (born 1960)". That information allows the user to select which page they want to visit. The guideline states that all articles should have a short description so that articles missing a description can be found and fixed. As WP:SDNONE explains, some titles need no disambiguation and "none" is used to mean that no short description is needed. Category:Articles with short description explains that what is actually tracked is use of the {{short description}} template—each article should have that template (possibly provided by another template). Johnuniq (talk) 09:20, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Added another example

I added Grover Cleveland's short description into WP:SDDATES. Sebbog13 (talk) 18:53, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Short descriptions for leaders

I set to "none" as intentionally blank short descriptions for titles of office holders, but the exception of Pope and Taoiseach. There are considered meaningless and not a definition. 102.213.223.46 (talk) 22:39, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

As I wrote on your user talk page:

These are not meaningless, If a country has a president and a prime minister, separating who is the Head of state and Head of government is important, this is the function of such short descriptions. Knowing which is HoS and HoG is important if you are in the search bar or wikilinking.

Speederzzz (Talk) (Stalk me) 22:42, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Monarchies, such as "Emperor of Japan", "King of Saudi Arabia" can be intentionally blank, rather than "Monarch of" per WP:SDNOTDEF? 102.213.223.46 (talk) 23:39, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

It is helpful to use actual short descriptions in such articles, since they disambiguate articles from similarly titled but not at all relevant articles like King of Wishful Thinking, King of the Hill, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, The Emperor of All Maladies, etc. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:24, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Should we start reverting all these edits? They have made a lot without consulting senior editors, especially for an IP.

Speederzzz (Talk) (Stalk me) 08:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

If a short description serves a useful purpose it is valid. If someone is removing useful short descriptions, ask them to stop. If they do not, it may be a case of disruptive editing, notify an admin as a block may be necessary. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:56, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2024

Abkhazia is not a country . It is not partially recognized » abkhazia is a historical Geoegian territory occupied by the terrorist country-Russia in 1992. The UN never ever said otherwise. 92.54.250.112 (talk) 14:00, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: Not the right page for this discussion. CMD (talk) 14:30, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

SDs for ligaments

Working on pages in "articletopic:medicine-and-health", I've noticed that many ligaments lack SDs and that the existing SDs of ligaments vary in their naming scheme more than other anatomical structures. Most commonly they're either "Ligament of xyz" or "Ligament between x and y" which makes sense considering the ligaments' connective nature (in comparison to e.g. nerves which are often more strictly localized and tend to follow only the first naming scheme).

Is there a preferred form for SDs of ligaments?

YuniToumei (talk) 13:36, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there is, so you should follow the general rules at WP:SHORTDESC. Two important aspects that often get overlooked on medical articles are that the SD should be understandable to the inexperienced reader - WP:SDJARGON; and that it should be short - WP:SDSHORT. It's not a definition - WP:SDNOTDEF. If you have some specific articles that you'd like advice on, please say. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:23, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Alright, thank you for the info! YuniToumei (talk) 20:35, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I’ve had a quick look at some of the SDs you’ve done so far, and they look very good. Great work! MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:55, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Ampersand instead of "and" in SDs

I've just come across someone changing the "and" in a short description to an ampersand (see diff at Andy Kim (politician)), presumably to save characters, and I was wondering if that is in line with the general consensus here. MOS:& prescribes the use of "and" in normal text and headings but also states that [e]lsewhere, ampersands may be used with consistency and discretion where space is extremely limited (e.g., tables and infoboxes). I don't think this specific issue has been discussed before (although there was an adjacent discussion in July 2023, Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 15#Using punctuation to shorten description, where Jonesey95 argued to use "and" instead of an ampersand), but whatever the general consensus is, this may be something to make explicit in WP:SDFORMAT following this discussion. (Ping Losipov who made the linked edit.) Felida⁹⁷ (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Felida97 what you mentioned in your message is exactly the reason why I changed the "and" to an ampersand. Sometimes when something is over the limit (like if a short description is 42 characters long), I would change it to an ampersand so it goes down to 40 characters (the limit). I don't know if you took it this way, but I can assure you I wasn't trying to vandalize the article. I just thought it would save space, again like you mentioned. If the consensus is to revert it back to "and", feel free to revert me on that article. I won't object. Losipov (talk) 19:18, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Losipov: Sorry, if that maybe came across in a wrong way, I had not at all suspected that your edit was ill-intentioned (a quick look at your user page and contributions was enough for me conclude that). Felida⁹⁷ (talk) 19:36, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Please don't change "and" to "&" to go from 42 to 40 characters. That is not a useful edit. There is a reason that "&" is discouraged: it is much less reader-friendly than "and". Since the creation of local short descriptions, there has been a persistent misconception that there is a hard limit of 40 characters. It is just not so. Editor time would be MUCH better spent in adding short descriptions to articles that have none than in tweaking existing short descriptions that are fine.

[edited to add:] It is easy to find batches of articles that are missing short descriptions and that are easy to fix: search for articles in a "YYYY births" category that don't have the short description template – in this case, 764 articles in Category:1976 births. Go year by year to make quick and easy progress on the backlog. Please. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:32, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Well said! Rublamb (talk) 06:35, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

The limit of 40 characters is wise, but not absolute, so using 2 extra characters for "and" is not that evil. Mind you, using just a comma is even shorter! Probably best to use "and" as advised by the MOS — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 19:47, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jonesey95, @Rublamb, @Patar knight: Do you have an opinion on the use of a comma, both vs. "and" and vs. "&" (for an example, see follow-up diff by GhostTheMachine at the article mentioned above, Andy Kim (politician), where the SD is now 41 characters as a result; just to be safe, I don't mean to call you out or anything and don't think that your edit wasn't well-intentioned either, GhostInTheMachine)? (Sorry, if this question is considered as unnecessarily pedantic; I just thought, we might as well clear this up, too, while we're at it.) Felida⁹⁷ (talk) 15:48, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't mind it and prefer it to "&" but I would probably use "and" for clarity. Sliding over 40 by two characters is not a problem. Rublamb (talk) 17:35, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's still better to use "and" for clarity since the character save is still not much. However, I think it is better than the ampersand since it is more commonly used and is an additional character saved. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:25, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

40 isn't a hard limit and the character save here is minimal, so we should generally we should be following the MOS here as a standard. If two characters is the difference between critical information being pushed back past 40 characters, the SD probably just needs to be majorly overhauled in a way that an ampersand doesn't fix. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:41, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

People should take the trouble to actually read the whole of WP:SDFORMAT which states that less than 40 characters is/was a common length for short descriptions. It is a statistic, not a rule, and it is probably skewed by the many thousands of automatically generated short descriptions we used to get things going when the project started. Many of the shorter descriptions are acceptable but not very good, and improving them will usually result in a longer short description. In most cases this is just fine. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:55, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Not sure why you would characterize it this way: it's been made stated repeatedly that 40 is specifically chosen because different display contexts may truncate an SD longer than that in different ways. Remsense ‥ 论 05:58, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

There are a few apps which arbitrarily truncate short descriptions. They are not helpful and were not chosen by the Wikipedia community, so have no authority over what we choose to do. It has indeed been wrongly stated many times that 40 was specifically chosen, but repetition of an error does not make it true. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:06, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

The dichotomy is a bit strong: I'm part of the community, aren't I? "I have to keep telling members of the community that a number isn't agreed to by the community" is a slightly thorny rhetorical position.

More importantly, I happen to think UX is important, and whether I chose the number or not I'd like readers using an app to have a pleasant time as much as anyone, especially as users of those apps are generally the demographic most in need of SDs. Treat it as a cynical fait accompli if you'd like. Remsense ‥ 论 06:17, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

As you say, you are a part of the community. A larger part of the community agreed that there is no hard limit. If you think you represent a larger part of the community, you can start an RfC for a proposed change, but you may find that consensus has not changed as the usefulness of the proposal is low. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:52, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there should be a hard limit, to be clear. Remsense ‥ 论 07:54, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Glad to hear it, as there are so many reasons why it is a bad idea to be Procrustean about such things. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:59, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I would prefer that the developers of apps pay more attention to making the UX user friendly, so we can build the encyclopedia without artificial externally applied restrictions. Cheers · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:57, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

RFC: should WP:SDNONE apply to articles on subnational entities and municipalities in the title? If so, what should be the format?

I have asked this question multiple times and have received no complete consensus to change WP:SDNONE to apply article names such as History of Nottinghamshire and Watersheds of Illinois. When this is resolved, please update WP:SDNONE to comply with this ruling. This RfC is necessary since there are thousands of articles where this applies where there is no consensus for use of WP:SDNONE. Additionally, the guideline is extremely short and vague for something that applies to hundreds of thousands of articles. Potential options:

1. Yes, articles on subnational entities and municipalities in the title should have "none as a short description"
2. Only for cities and subnational entities that an "average reader would know" (which I have seen brought up in the past) should have "none" as a short description (most readers know about Delhi, Texas, and Moscow, not so much Kilgore, Texas, and Ncojane) (This has been brought up in the past by Remsense)
3. No, none of these apply for WP:SDNONE (a format will have to be provided for what should be recommended in the new guideline)

Thanks! -1ctinus📝🗨 22:06, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Please explain why "History of Nottinghamshire" and "Watersheds of Illinois" are not "sufficiently detailed that an additional short description would not be helpful", which is the criteria for WP:SDNONE (not that either article has an SD at all at the moment) - Arjayay (talk) 22:22, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

From earlier conversations about this (not my thinking, these are OTHER PEOPLE'S quotes:

WP:SDNONE may work, but is not very user-friendly if the term is likely to be unfamiliar to the reader. Prefer "Aspect of Chinese history", "Aspect of Welsh history @MichaelMaggs

I whole-heartedly agree all "Aspects of history" should be gone asap. Like I said below, I was going around and changing those (and similar SDs) to "none" but ran into articles that didnt seem to make sense to be "nones". It was actually while working on SDs in Australia that got me thinking about it, specifically History of the Northern Territory. Unless you know that's a territory of Australia, "none" doesn't make sense. Wouldnt "History of the Austrailian territory" (or something to that effect) be better? @Masterhatch -1ctinus📝🗨 23:16, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Aspects of history is not usually very useful, but none may be worse. It depends on the specific title. History of the Australian territory is not efficient as it only adds one useful fact, and four of the five words are the same as in the title, but it is an improvement as it is an important fact. Nevertheless it may be possible to improve tit further some day, and better is better. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:37, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I don't know what the solution is but I do think SDNONE has gone too far. For example, unless you know Saskatchewan is a province in Canada, how does SDNONE help in List of communities in Saskatchewan? Wouldn't something like "Communities in a central Canadian province" (or something like that) be more helpful? Don't get me wrong, I support the concept of SDNONE. SDNONE works well for articles such as History of Canada. That's my two cents. Masterhatch (talk) 02:05, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  What part of SDNONE goes too far? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:40, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  It seems like every History of... and List of... has automatically become "none" whether that's the best option or not. Masterhatch (talk) 09:21, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  Someone is doing that. It is not SDNONE, it is someone's interpretation and their actions that go too far The advice in SDNONE does not encourage that behaviour. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

• Another comment Recently there was a tussle over SDNONE at List of Alberta provincial highways. I was on the side of defending SDNONE per the rules set out at WP:SDNONE. User:Evelyn Harthbrooke was on the other side. I think she brought forward another example of where SDNONE might not work. Unless you know Alberta is a province in Canada, how does SDNONE help? After the debate I looked at other highway list articles in Canada and I saw List of Ontario provincial highways wasn't "none". I didn't change it to none because I was starting to second guess if none fits there (Same as the Northern Territory SD caused me pause a while back).Masterhatch (talk) 02:21, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
• Explanation The use of "none" as a short description does not overrule any local consensus to add a non-none short description for any page. If there is a short description available that provides additional useful information of value to the reader it may be boldly added. If others disagree it is a talk page discussion matter. Look at the functions of a short description. Does the proposed short description provide better functionality/reader value? If so, it is a legitimate option. The format depends on the information in the short description. There is no fixed format. A WikiProject can recommend a format, but they cannot overrule consensus for the specific article, particularly if it is of interest to more than one project. As it happens, I am aware of wher Nottinghamhire and Illinois are, but a substantial number of readers probably do not, so a short description could usefully proviede that information. A lot of readers might also not know what a watershed is. The more obscure the topic, the more useful a short description can be, so global cities and federal states probably need less clarification than relatively unknown places. The more relevant question might be whether SDNONE is clear enough that it does not get misused. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
• Probably 3, No, but it is not clear what the question is to which Yes, Sometimes, and No are the answers. This RFC should be revised. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  It should be revised to show why it needs to be asked, too. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:25, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  Done. I spent a lot of time adding short descriptions, and when I dealt with any page dealing with... local elections, subtopics of cities (History of so and so), this came up EXTREMELY often and I had to ignore them all. -1ctinus📝🗨 13:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  Done -1ctinus📝🗨 13:10, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

• I think 3 since we cannot and should not assume that most readers are familiar with the subnational entities of the 200~ish various countries that exist, so labeling them as such helps differentiate them from similarly titled articles, which is an WP:SDPURPOSE. For example, typing "History of Mo" into the search bar gets met articles that include countries like Mongolia and Morocco, but also subnational entitles like Montana and Montreal, and board games like Monopoly. At the very least, we should be labelling subnational entities as such for the benefit of the reader.

However, there are many aspects of this RFC that are pretty unclear. Is this only about sub-national entities? How are we defining "global cities" and what is a "federal state"? What about subnational entities that incorporate the national name (e.g. Australian Capital Territory)? These things need to be clarified.

If we are opening it up to all instances of "X in Y", I would argue that we are probably overusing SDNONE even for national level entities. In an ideal world, everyone will know what is a country and isn't, the reality is that lots of people are just not very good at geography and an SD would be helpful. For example, it would probably be helpful if "History of Eswatini" had a SD of "National history" or "History of the/an African country" for the same reasons why subnational entities should be labelled. There is no harm in pointing out to readers what things are national-level in scope. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 07:03, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

SDNONE allows a short description of "none". It does not in any way suggest that when a useful short description is available it should not be used. On the other hand, removing a useless short description under SDNONE is OK. Until someone has a better short description to substitute for "none". · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, SDNONE doesn't explicitly ban anything, but practice on this page is to advise against using a SD for things like "X of Y" where Y is a country. (e.g. [1][2][3]) Obviously not every X is the same here (e.g. something like "National economy" or "National flag" are obviously natural SDs), but some consensus/guidance is probably warranted, even at the national level. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 00:06, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

That practice should be discontinued, as it does not take the purpose and uses of short descriptions into account. Competence is required, not a formulaic rule. Wikipedia avoids unnecessary rules because there are people more concerned with rules than functionality, who rely on rules to win fights which are counter to the purposes of the encyclopedia, and will quote selected parts of rules and ignore those parts which do not serve their agendas. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 03:19, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I revised it to be more clear. Thank you -1ctinus📝🗨 13:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

This is one of a series of questions essentially asking for a definite yes/no 'ruling' as to whether "none" is always OK for a particular form of article title, for example for "List of ...", "History of ..." and similar. No such ruling is possible, as the test is based not on the form of the title, but on whether an additional short description would or would not be helpful. That requires editorial judgement on an article by article basis. The answer for any particular article depends not on the form of the title, but on whether something better than "none" can be created which advances the purposes. "none" should never be used when something more informative could be provided.

That said, the fact that SDNONE isn't always well understood does suggest that we should expand the guidance and add some specific examples of good practice. If you can give me a few days, I'll work up a full proposal and post it here for further discussion. MichaelMaggs (talk) 00:50, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Sounds great, just try to keep it 1. not Anglocentric and 2. avoid partially redundant short descriptions. A policy that affects like a million articles being two sentences is frustrating and unhelpful for people who add lots of short descriptions. -1ctinus📝🗨 01:11, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes a partially redundant short description cannot be avoided without making it considerably longer. This can happen because titles are not required to be chosen with a potential short description in mind. We must deal with reality, and reality is not constrained by our rules. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 03:24, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

How would it be Anglocentric? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 03:27, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Previous proposals created an "obscurity test" that was based on what a "typical English reader" would know, which meant that english speaking places were more likely to qualify than non english places. -1ctinus📝🗨 11:09, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

What a strange criterion. Our readers include first language English speakers and people who have only a basic knowledge of English, and while we should not be dumbing down our content, we want to be as accessible as reasonably practicable to all comers. It is safer to assume that the average reader has no local geographical knowledge at all, and those who do, may not know the place by an English language name in any case. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:36, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is the essential meaning of SDNONE. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 10:32, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

After promising to post a proposal in "a few days" I've had hardly a moment to sit down and it's been impossible to find the time to devote to this. I still plan to post something, but it won't be before next week. Apologies. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:49, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Reversion of explanatory note

Hi MichaelMaggs, you reverted an explanatory note stating This is a statistic, not a recommendation to arbitrarily shorten short descriptions to 40 characters or less, and provides no information on the quality of these short descriptions which to the best of my knowledge is simply a description of fact and not a change to the guidance, with the edit summary Strongly disagree, sorry. Perhaps this is just to discourage editors from shortening SDs of 42 characters, but it negates the many months of discussions we have had about SDSHORT, and takes us right back to the early days of interminable arguments with editors insisting that their 50 or 60 word SD is fine because "I need it, and who's to say what 'short' means?". SDSHORT is the single most important guide for keeping SDs within reasonable bounds, and it absolutely must not removed. Is there a part of the explanatory note that you consider incorrect? and why do you strongly disagree with its presence as a footnote?

• As far as I am aware, the percentage of short descriptions exceeding 60 characters was not in disputed at the time it was listed, though that may have changed, and I would cheerfully accept a more recent value if it is available.
• It is clear from the language that the statement Fewer than 3% of short descriptions are longer than 60 characters, and short descriptions longer than 100 characters will be flagged for attention. is descriptive of the situation and does not prescribe any action, particularly not to reduce the length of a short description simply because of length. We have no statistics on the relation between length and quality of short descriptions, but it is likely that many very short descriptions are sub-optimal.
• The header to that item, [Each short description should:] be short – no longer than is needed to fulfill its functions effectively clearly implies that length is secondary to function, and as a general principle, our policies and guidance put function of the encyclopedia as a high priority.
• We do accept short descriptions longer than 40 characters routinely, and we do accept longer short descriptions when they are functionally desirable.
• As a general principle we do not make restrictive rules without good reason, and we try to avoid making rules overly verbose because of tl;dr, but sometimes people will not read the guidance and stop when they find a part of it that they can wield as a weapon to attempt to browbeat others to comply with a personal agenda which may not align with the intention or letter of the guidance text, or the purposes of the encyclopedia. Limiting the length of a short description to any arbitrary length is a restrictive rule.

  Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:04, 22 November 2024 (UTC)