Add short descriptions from Wikidata to Wikipedia articles without short description via bot/script (Community Wishlist/W515)
Many articles on Wikipedia do not have a short description set. The problem with this is that these short descriptions are displayed in the Wikipedia app, including its neat Recommended Reading List where one scroll up to 20 articles that were recommended based on selected interests. If no short description is set, it's often unclear what the article is about so it disrupts the smooth experience where one only taps on articles one is actually interested in (or potentially interested in given its short description).
Wikidata usually has a short description for these articles but it's not displayed in the Wikipedia app and there is no option to load the Wikidata description if no short description exists.
This is a community opportunity to implement via bot or script as English Wikipedia rejected adding functionality to load Wikidata short descriptions if no short description exists – see en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions#Discussions.
One could also
- generate a list of articles without short description
- create a tool that allows users to add them with a click
- create a backlog drive where contributors go through the thousands of articles to add the short descriptions manually
However, I don't think that's as feasible or as good as doing this with a script. Note that the script may need to exclude some short descriptions and ideally would log the added short descriptions so users can go over
- a page with a table with one column for the the thousands of articles and one column for the short description that was added
so users can use that to identify potential suboptimal changes.
Unassigned
Wikipedia app users
- Created: 16:46, 27 February 2026
- Last updated: 10:42, 5 March 2026
- Author: Prototyperspective (talk)
This wish currently has 3 supporters. Voting for this wish is open until it is completed.