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The short description of a Wikipedia page is a brief phrase intended to complement and clarify the page title, particularly in contexts where this is seen in isolation from the page itself. Taken together, the title and short description concisely explain the subject of the page—for example, to help a user identify the desired article in a list of search results.
Short descriptions appear in the results of Wikipedia mobile and some desktop searches,[note 1] and are also displayed immediately below the title on the article page itself by some mobile Wikipedia apps.
The default desktop view of an article does not show the short description, but logged-in users can change this by enabling the Shortdesc helper in the Gadgets section of their Preferences. Short descriptions are then displayed and directly editable.
Purposes
Short descriptions provide:
- a short descriptive annotation to the title
- together with the title, a very brief indication of the field covered
- a disambiguation in searches, especially between similarly titled subjects in different fields
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In a list of suggested articles on the mobile platform -
In a list of suggested articles using the Vector 2022 skin -
Creating a wikilink in the desktop Visual Editor -
A list of annotated links in an index article on Wikipedia (Vector 2022) -
Part of a Wikipedia Index article showing optional warning messages about missing short descriptions -
Wikipedia category, annotated using short descriptions (Vector 2022) -
Wikipedia category page with colour-coded annotations. Black is the page's short description. Magenta is taken from Wikidata as there is no Wikipedia short description, and red has no short description or Wikidata description available
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Short descriptions are also used as annotations in lists of links, such as "See also" sections and Index list articles, where they provide some context for the link when a local annotation is not provided. The template {{Annotated link}} is available for this purpose.
Pages that should have a short description
All mainspace articles should have a short description (including those with a short description "none"; see below). Redirects and most pages outside the mainspace do not normally need a description, although one may be added in the rare cases it would be useful.
The short description may appear directly in the wikicode for the page, via the {{Short description}} template, or may be transcluded automatically from a template such as an infobox. Disambiguation pages make use of transcluded descriptions, and those do not normally need to be edited manually.
Content
The short description is part of the article content, and is subject to the normal rules on content, including Neutral point of view and Biographies of living persons. The normal editing rules such as Consensus and the Editing policy also apply.
As explained in more detail below, the aim is not to provide a definition of the article's topic, nor to summarise the lead. Instead, concentrate on the purpose of the short description: to complement the title with additional useful information in such a way that a user who sees the two together can easily tell what the article is about and distinguish it from other similarly-titled ones.
What this entails will depend on how self-explanatory the title itself is, and each article should therefore have its own purpose-written short description. It is the editor's responsibility to ensure the short description is appropriate, accurate and compliant with Wikipedia's policies; this is particularly important for biographies of living people and for medical articles. While the Shortdesc helper tool allows text to be imported from Wikidata, that should be done with caution as Wikidata descriptions do not follow Wikipedia policies, and are often inappropriate: see § Why not simply re-use Wikidata's item descriptions?.
Content text
When visible on desktop or mobile, the short description immediately follows the article title, and the two should be comprehensible when read together.
A short description is not intended as a definition, and editors should not attempt to define the article's subject, nor to summarise the lead. There is no objection to a suitable short description that also happens to work as a definition.
As far as possible, it should:
- focus on the purposes stated above
- start with the most important information (mobile applications may truncate long descriptions)
- use universally accepted facts that will not be subject to rapid change, avoiding anything that could be understood as controversial, judgemental, or promotional
- avoid jargon, and use simple, readily comprehensible terms that do not require pre-existing detailed knowledge of the subject
- avoid duplicating information that is already in the title (but don't worry too much if you need to repeat a word or two for context)
- avoid time-specific adjectives like "former", "retired", "late", "defunct", "closed", "current", "new", "recent", "planned", "future", etc.
- avoid subjective adjectives like "small", "famous", "popular"
Format
Each short description should:
- be written in plain text – without HTML tags, wiki markup, typographic dingbats, emojis, or CSS display manipulation
- start with a capital letter[note 2]
- avoid starting with an article (A, An, The) except when required for correct grammar and meaning
- avoid using a final full stop (period)
- be short – no longer than is needed to fulfill its functions effectively
- 83% of short descriptions use 40 characters or fewer (including spaces).
- Only 2% of short descriptions are longer than 60 characters, and short descriptions longer than 100 characters will be flagged for attention.
- Short descriptions exceeding 40 characters may be truncated in some contexts.[note 3]
- Because they are intended to be scanned quickly, longer and more specific descriptions can be less useful.
Examples
A good way to draft a short description is to consider the words that would naturally follow if you started a sentence like this:
- "[Article subject] is/was a/an/the ... ".
You can then use those additional words as the short description. So for example if you wanted to write a short description for Stève Nzigamasabo, your sentence would be "Stève Nzigamasabo is a Burundian footballer", and Burundian footballer becomes your short description.
Here are some more examples, though they can all be varied if the context allows something better. Remember to ensure that your description is short (§ Formatting). See also § Inclusion of dates.
| Type | Notes | Example article title | Suggested short description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Titles that are globally self-explanatory | The entirety of the title is reasonably clear to non-specialist English-speaking readers worldwide. | Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill | none |
| Locations | Most locations: "[type of location] in [town/area/region], [country]" | Yiwu | City in Zhejiang, China |
| Indicate the country in the short description, if not explicitly stated in the title. It is reasonable to expect that most country names are known worldwide, although it may be beneficial to explain the names of smaller countries. If space permits, it can be useful to include the local region, for example province, state or municipal area (those cannot be assumed to be known globally). | Geology of Dorset | Geology of English county | |
| Geology of Massachusetts | Geology of American state | ||
| Geology of India | none | ||
| Person | Most persons: "[country adjective] [what the person is known for]" | Tobi Amusan | Nigerian sprinter and hurdler |
| Explain what the person is best known for. Even very famous American celebrities may not be well known to all English speakers: a proper short description helps readers of different cultures as well as those who fall outside the person's usual fan demographic. | Burt Reynolds filmography | Performances by American actor | |
| Publication | Most publications: "[year] [type of publication] by [author]" | The Color Purple | 1982 novel by Alice Walker |
| Media | Do not assume that the titles of popular media are known globally. | List of Star Trek: Voyager episodes | Episodes of American TV show |
| History of ... | Use "none" only where the entire title would be understood worldwide. Explain words that may not be understood globally. | History of Jiangxi | History of Chinese province |
| History of film | none | ||
| List of ... | Use "none" only where the entire title would be understood worldwide. Explain words that may not be understood globally. To keep it short, there is no need to repeat "List of". | List of catgirls and catboys | Human characters with feline traits |
| List of animal sounds | none | ||
| Flag of ... | If the country is stated in the title and well-known globally, "none" may be enough. Otherwise, the short description should, at the very least, specify the country. | Flag of Norway | none |
| Flag of Mississippi | US state flag | ||
| Elections | "none" is all that is needed for a national/general election, as long as the country is clear from the title and well-known globally. For local elections, indicate the country and, if space is available, the level. | 2022 Brazilian general election | none |
| 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election | State election in India | ||
| Sport | Make sure the sport is stated, as well as the country if appropriate. Abbreviations should not be assumed to be understood globally. | 2022–23 NBA season | North American basketball league season |
| Organisms | Most organisms: "[type of organism] of [common name or description]" Do not include family name or taxonomic terms other than species, genus or group. |
Rose | Genus of flowering plants |
| Miscellaneous | "Type of [noun]" | Pennsylvania Railroad class H8 | Type of steam locomotive |
| General: "Concept in [academic field]" Try to be more specific than "Concept" unless that is impossible due to the complexity of the subject. However, "Concept" is better than an excessively long description that, contrary to SDNOTDEF, attempts to define the topic. |
Independent and identically distributed random variables | Concept in probability and statistics |
In all cases, provide what information you reasonably can, remembering that your description is expected to be short and that you are not aiming to write a definition.
Inclusion of dates
Dates or date ranges are encouraged when they enhance the short description as an annotation or improve disambiguation. As long as the formatting criteria are met, biographies of non-living people, articles on specific publications, and dated historical events generally benefit from dating, but since the description should be kept short, other information may need to take precedence. Care should be taken when the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy applies: birthdates for living people should not be included unless sourced within the article.
Recommended date formats are given below, but these can be varied if there is contrary consensus on the talk page. In biographies, distinguish between dates defining a lifespan "(birthyear–deathyear)" and those defining a period in office "from startyear to endyear". For historical biographies, specific dates such as "1750–1810" are preferred over "18th-century" for clarity. Other dated events or ranges can use any format as long as the meaning is clear.
| Type | Criterion | Recommended date format | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biography | Lifetime most important | [Person description] (birthyear–deathyear) | English composer (1668–1735) |
| BLP or year of death unknown: [Person description] (born birthyear) | English composer (born 1668) | ||
| Year of birth unknown: [Person description] (died deathyear) | English composer (died 1735) | ||
| Period in office most important | [Office description] from startyear to endyear |
| |
| Currently in office: [Office description] since startyear | President of Mexico since 2012 | ||
| Term of office contained within one year: [Office description] in start/endyear | President of the United States in 1841 | ||
| Publication | Publication in a specific year | Publicationyear [Description] |
|
| Historical | Event in a specific year | Eventyear [Description] | 1861 American Civil War battle |
| Period or range | [Description] from startyear to endyear | Epidemic of plague from 1665 to 1666 | |
| [Description] (startyear–endyear) | Epidemic of bubonic plague (1665–1666) | ||
| [Description], startyear–endyear | Epidemic of bubonic plague, 1665–1666 |
Where a date is not known exactly, "c. " may be used for "circa". Other examples are given at WP:APPROXDATE, although "fl. " for "floruit" should be avoided as it is not universally understood. Centuries should not be abbreviated "c. " due to the potential for confusion with "circa".
"none" as a short description
All articles should have a short description, but some article titles are sufficiently self-explanatory to English language speakers worldwide that a descriptive annotation would not be helpful. Such articles can be given the short description "none".
A short description should never be the same as the article's title. If the primary purposes of a short description are entirely met by the title wording, that is a good indication that "none" would be appropriate.
The short description "none" should be used sparingly, and only where the entirety of the title will be reasonably clear to English-speaking readers worldwide. Bear in mind that readers outside your own country or culture may never have come across terms that to you are extremely well-known. Rather than using "none", try where you can to construct a short description that imparts useful information.
A decision on whether to use "none" should always be based on the comprehensibility of the words used in the title, and not on the form of the title. Articles should be assessed on their own merits, and editors using semi-automated tools to write short descriptions must never assume that all articles with a title of a particular form (e.g., "List of x") should be treated in the same way.
To use "none", add {{Short description|none}} at the top of the page; this ensures that the article appears in Category:Articles with short description. Occasionally, a default value of "none" may already be transcluded by a template; that default should not normally need to be edited, but it can be overridden for a specific page by adding {{Short description|Overriding description}} at the top of the page.
"List of x", "History of x", "Flag of x" and similar titles
Stand-alone lists and articles with titles such as "History of x", "Flag of x", or similar should never be given the short description "none" purely because they are lists or have a title of a particular form. Instead, one should consider each article individually and try to create a short description that provides the reader with some useful information about x. Only if the meaning of x itself is reasonably clear to English-speaking readers worldwide is the short description "none" appropriate.
Articles with titles of these types will often benefit from a short description similar to the one used for the main article about x itself. For example, a good short description for List of Friends episodes would be "Episodes of American television sitcom". It should not be "none", since the term "Friends" – no matter how well known to readers familiar with American TV – will not necessarily be clear to other English-speaking readers worldwide. The short description for the article Friends ("American television sitcom (1994–2004)") provides a useful guide to what is needed for the corresponding list.
If there is little space, write a short description that covers x alone: it is not essential to repeat the words "List of" in the short description. You may not be able to gloss every term but do the best you can while keeping the description short.
How to edit
Single page
The easiest way to create and edit short descriptions on desktop is to use the Shortdesc helper gadget. This may be enabled in the Gadgets tab of your Preferences under the "Editing" section.
Alternatively, you can manually amend the {{Short description}} template in the source editor. Short descriptions cannot be added with the VisualEditor.
If you are editing manually on desktop and do not have Shortdesc Helper loaded, do not add the template solely because it seems to be missing from the wikicode. Descriptions are sometimes set by another template (such as an Infobox) elsewhere in the article. See § Why can't I see any short description? for more information.
If you are editing manually, do not start the template with a space — {{ Short description...}} — as this may break other templates which search for {{Short description...}} in the text.
Always use the {{Short description}} template itself and not any alias. See WP:SDNOALIASES in the template documentation.
Placement
Per MOS:ORDER and MOS:LEADORDER, the template should be the very first element on the page. There is just one exception to this, namely redirects. If (unusually) you need to add a short description to a redirect, you should add {{Short description}} below #REDIRECT. For more information, see § Short descriptions on redirect pages. Placement is handled automatically if you are using Shortdesc helper.
By transclusion into multiple pages
Where a single short description (or rule for generating one) is suitable for multiple articles that all use the same template/infobox, the description can be transcluded from the template rather than being added one by one to each article. In that case {{Short description}} does not appear in the wikicode for the page.
Such transclusions are normally done after local consensus by template editors. {{Template short description}} is available to simplify the process, and ensures that the resultant description doesn't exceed the recommended length even if a page editor adds some unusually long text to an infobox. All templates that generate a default description should include a |2=noreplace parameter so that the result can be overridden by a manually inserted instance that appears at the top of the wikicode (see T193857 for technical details). {{Auto short description}} should also be added to the documentation page so that the template gets added to Category:Templates that generate short descriptions.
Why can't I see any short description?
By default, short descriptions are not displayed when viewing an article in desktop view. To make them visible on the page and to enable easy editing, enable Shortdesc helper in your gadgets preferences. On the desktop platform, short descriptions appear below article titles in search result lists only if you are using the Vector 2022 skin (the default desktop view as of February 2025). In Preferences | Appearance, make sure the Vector 2022 radio button is selected.
You can always see whether the page has a manual short description by opening it for source editing (not visual editing); you should find {{Short description}} right at the top. Unfortunately, its absence there does not necessarily mean there is no short description, as one may be transcluded from some template such as an infobox. That can't be determined from the page code (at least without following through to the template code pages), hence the recommendation to enable Shortdesc helper.
As mentioned above, please don't add a new short description solely on the basis that {{Short description}} is missing from the wikicode.
Why not simply re-use Wikidata's item descriptions?
Wikipedia's short descriptions and Wikidata's item descriptions serve different purposes, and their respective wordings are very often different:
- A short description is Wikipedia-specific and relates to an individual encyclopedia article here on the English Wikipedia. It provides a brief indication of the field, an annotation, and a disambiguation in searches, not for any Wikidata item but for the encyclopedia article itself.
- In contrast, a Wikidata item description is designed to disambiguate Wikidata items with the same or similar labels and serves to characterise the Wikidata item, regardless of the content of any corresponding Wikipedia article (or indeed whether a Wikipedia article for the item exists at all).
Wikidata item descriptions are not subject to Wikipedia's policies or recommendations, and in practice are often too long and intricate for use as Wikipedia short descriptions (see WP:SDSHORT, above). There are technical differences, too: for example, short descriptions normally start with an uppercase letter whereas Wikidata item descriptions generally use lowercase.
Short descriptions on redirect pages
Most redirects do not require a short description. Occasionally it may be useful to add one:
- on soft redirects where an annotation would make the page clearer
- where the redirect page is the target of an {{Annotated link}}
- as an indicator that the topic described may be a valid article topic (Redirects with possibilities).
{{Short description}} conflicts with #REDIRECT if placed in the standard position at the top of the page. For such pages only, the template should be placed immediately underneath #REDIRECT.
The short description of a Redirect to section should refer to the section content and should not generally be the same as that of the article itself.
Annotated links
The {{Annotated link}} template may be used to annotate a wikilink with the corresponding short description from the article. This may be useful where links to multiple articles are presented in the form of a list, for example in "See also" sections. {{Annotated link}} does not follow redirects, and if the link has to point to a redirect it may be appropriate to add a short description to the redirect page itself, as it would in this case normally be a redirect with possibilities. In other cases it may be more appropriate to change to a direct link, or use a piped alias. The template should not be used for annotating links on disambiguation pages, for the reasons stated in the template documentation.
The {{AnnotatedListOfLinks}} template may help editors quickly apply {{Annotated link}} to multiple listed links at once.
History
Content of historical interest
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Short descriptions were initially implemented in 2017 by WMF developers primarily as a search disambiguator, using item descriptions from Wikidata. After concerns were raised about accuracy, suitability, and the potential for hard-to-detect vandalism on Wikidata, the developers created a SHORTDESC magic word, giving editors the ability to override the Wikidata text directly on Wikipedia:
The magic word approach has been fully superseded by the Wikipedia template At first, mobile devices displayed the Wikipedia-specific short description where that existed, but continued to display the Wikidata text where it did not. In 2020, use of Wikidata text to characterize Wikipedia content was discontinued. Mobile devices now display the Wikipedia description if it exists, and display no short description if it does not. |
See also
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions – Project to improve short descriptions
- Template:Short description
- Category:Pages with short description
- Category:Short description is different from Wikidata
- Category:Short description matches Wikidata
- Category:Short description with empty Wikidata description
- Wikidata Help: Description
- Help:Wikidata
Notes
- ^ This includes searches in the Vector 2022 skin, the default desktop view as of February 2025.
- ^ Other language Wikipedias typically prefer lowercase; check this if you're planning on editing any of their short descriptions on Wikidata.
- ^ Below search results and in suggested article boxes at the bottom of mobile view. See discussion.