Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 20

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Autogenerated shortdescs for Belgian municipalities

Hi, I don't know if this is a new issue or not, I certainly didn't notice it before. The automated summaries for Belgian municipalities could do with some improvements. E.g. Lier, Belgium now has "Municipality in Flemish Community, Belgium". This should either be "Municipality in the Flemish Community, Belgium" (added "the") or preferably "Municipality in Antwerp province, Belgium". Fram (talk) 09:16, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

I think this is caused by the design of Module:Settlement short description. The module directly reads whatever is in the various subdivision_name fields and uses it to create the short description with the approximate format "{settlement_type} in {subdivision_name1}, {subdivision_name}", which in most cases is correct since a "the" is generally not needed before regional names. It's a tricky issue, since if we try changing Template:Infobox Belgium municipality to display "The Flemish Community" and "The French Community", the "The" would remain capitalized in the short desc, while if we use "the Flemish Community" and "the French Community", the uncapitalized "the" wouldn't be correct in the infobox.

And getting it to show the province won't work, because the module only reads up to "subdivision_name2", and the province name is listed in "subdivision_name3". Liu1126 (talk) 16:02, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Okay, then I guess for Belgium we'll have to use "real", manual shortdescs and not the automatic ones, pity! Fram (talk) 08:28, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

SDs for templates

While expanding the documentation for the {{hr}} template, I noticed an unhelpful Wikidata description showing that needs overriding. Now, templates generally have

• a protected page containing the actual code, restricted to template editors for widely used ones, and
• a documentation page, with a lower level of protection if any, which is transcluded into the template page.

Two questions:

• Can a local SD placed on the documentation page rather than the template page and still function properly? (Yes it can: it gets transcluded and displayed, and Shortdesc Helper says it's generated elsewhere, which is true.)
• And if so, should it be placed there?

(My feeling is that the SD is documentation, like the TemplateData is, so the documentation page is actually the logical place for it.) Musiconeologist (talk) 02:00, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

From experimenting in my own user space, what I now know is:

• If a template page has no SD but its /doc page has one, the one on the /doc page is used.
• If both pages have one, then the result depends on whether {{Short description}} appears before or after {{Documentation}}, and the second SD is the one used. So I think it simply gets set twice.

Musiconeologist (talk) 14:56, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the last SD on a page is the one that is used. The others are ignored. And I agree that an SD for a template should go in the documentation so that it is not accidentally transcluded with the template itself, and so that it can be edited without the need for template editor rights. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:12, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 Thanks for both of those. It looks as though virtually no templates have SDs at present—the only ones I've found so far that show anything other than Wikimedia template are the handful that I've set myself, and ones that add a SD where they're used and have that one themselves as a side effect.

I started trying to write some draft instructions for adding them to templates, then realised I needed to test properly what happens with templates that also set a short description. So I ended up experimenting with this test template, which has SDs pretty well everywhere one can go, and in the process discovered some rather nasty Shortdesc Helper behaviour which I've documented there. (It can edit the generated short description, and remove |noreplace from it, both without the user knowing.)

What I don't know is whether the same behaviour can also happen in template space (in particular, whether Shortdesc helper will still provide an edit button). Musiconeologist (talk) 18:08, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Locomotive short descriptions

There is currently a discussion started at WikiProject Trains regarding the short descriptions for locomotives. MediaKyle (talk) 11:03, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Not a definition, but the Android app doesn't agree

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T390105

The project page states at least three times that the short description is not a definition, but we keep on getting definitions anyway, to the point where it seems like a lost cause. According to a report I have just heard, one reason for this may be the Android application, which instructs users to "Summarize an article to help readers understand the subject at a glance". That is not what it is actually for, and may help explain some of the results we are seeing. Does anyone know where to report this, so the Android app can be altered appropriately? Should it be a Phab ticket? Adding Musiconeologist. Mathglot (talk) 06:01, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot The other part of this is that tapping Learn more about article descriptions while adding a short description in the app leads to this Mediawiki page section rather than to our page. The app needs to check which language Wikipedia the user is adding a SD to, then send users to our page if it's English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia page otherwise. There are quite a few talk page comments there from people who seem not to realise they're in the wrong place. Musiconeologist (talk) 07:22, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

See also #Misleading wording in Android app. Musiconeologist (talk) 07:44, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to duplicate an existing topic. If you left that back in January and nobody responded, we may need to escalate. Mathglot (talk) 08:10, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Apologies for not responding sooner. I think the easiest immediately useful change would be for someone with the necessary editing privileges over there to edit the Mediawiki page so there's a link to wp:Short description right at the beginning of the section. I can't remember what the page protection level is, but I don't think it's any higher than extended-confirmed. Musiconeologist (talk) 19:32, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Mathglot, the GitHub repo mentions this backlog tracker on phab. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:50, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks; I have added this as T390105. Musiconeologist, that ticket could benefit from your comments, as I do not have Android. Mathglot (talk) 20:24, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot Thanks, and I'll have a look. Caveat: my app version isn't the very latest and I can't update it at present because of space issues, but I don't think they've changed it. Musiconeologist (talk) 20:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Not a worry; there's a place at the bottom of the OP that I left out, where the version number can be added. If you add your version and device, etc. in a follow-up comment, I can port the data back into the OP. Feel free to add any other observations or comments that would be helpful. Mathglot (talk) 20:48, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot I've added more details of the app version and behaviour, and suggested that it should check whether the article is on English Wikipedia or not and link to the appropriate page. Maybe I should also add a link to Suggested rewording of first paragraph above? Musiconeologist (talk) 00:37, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Musiconeologist, depends how you do it, as that discussion is stale and I wouldn't encourage responses there. The topic is a bit fragmented and it could be helpful to add a {{Courtesy link}} from there to here, or a link here showing the earlier context. Templates {{discussion moved to}} and {{discussion moved from}} might also be useful. Mathglot (talk) 00:48, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot Ah yes. I meant simply as background and for reference—something along the lines that we've recently updated our wording to that. Maybe I'd be best just quoting it, in fact. But it might be even better just to wait for some responses to your request below for suggestions. Musiconeologist (talk) 01:01, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

See § Android app instruction to users about SD below for follow up. Mathglot (talk) 20:51, 26 March 2025 (UTC)