User talk:MichaelMaggs/Draft SD guidance

== No more than 40 characters ==

I object to this as people will use it as an excuse to shorten descriptions regardless of functionality. This is already a problem. There is no broad consensus for a hard limit, and 40 characters is too short for a significant subset of short descriptions. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a change: is already there. May need a separate discussion (I disagree btw). MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Column of "Recommended short descriptions"

Propose these should be titled "Suggested short descriptions" as they are not necessarily optimum, for example, does every reader know what the Olympic Gmes are? If so, should "Olympic Games – Major international multi-sport event" not have a short description? Do all readers know what "Ghana – Country in West Africa" is? I would not be surprised if a significant percentage of American readers do not know that Ghana is a west African state. If a suggestion is labelled a recommendation, some people will use it as an argument to remove a short description even if it is useful to some readers. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Done. Changed Ghana to India to avoid questions about how well that country is known. Olympic Games should be OK, though: it's not possible to gloss everything, and attempting to overdo it makes it sound like mansplaining. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:33, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

"Not supposed to be a definition"

There are users who interpret this as "Must not be a definition", which is wrong. It does not need to be a definition, but if it is that is OK. A short description that also happens to be a reasonable definition of the topic is acceptable and should not be changed just because it happens to be a definition. This has happened. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:06, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that's fine, and the wording here is unchanged. The link is to WP:SDNOTDEF which explicitly says "There is no objection to an otherwise-suitable short description that also happens to work as a definition." Can't really be clearer than that. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:46, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Claim that "Concept" is better than a long description that attempts to define the topic, contrary to SDNOTDEF

Not necessarily always true. Please do not make statements that will be interpreted as universally true when they are not. Particularly when they rely on an undefined condition which is open to interpretation (what is a long description in this context?) · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:16, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Added 'excessively'. Still undefined of course, but may help. Again, a separate discussion (not here) probably needs to be had to tie down the meaning of 'too long'. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:52, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Place for discussion

It would probably be best to discuss this draft on the main talk page rather than here, as that will show up on people's watchlists. If OK with you, I'll copy this whole discussion across. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:56, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Done. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Please discuss this proposal at Wikipedia talk:Short description#Updating examples and WP:SDNONE guidance, not here. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

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