Template:Annotated link is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use ((edit template-protected)) to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.

Short descriptions

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Short descriptions, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of short descriptions in articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Short descriptionsWikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptionsTemplate:WikiProject Short descriptionsShort descriptions articles

There is an issue with this template picking up short descriptions defined with a (correct if unnecessary) numbered parameter.

e.g. Outline of sports did have ((Short description|1=Overview of and topical guide to sports))

The link ((Annotated link|Outline of sports)) then displayed the "1="

Edited the SD template to not use 1= and both page and link to it display OK.

• Edited this Outline of sports – Overview of and topical guide to sports
• Left this Outline of bicycles – Overview of and topical guide to bicycles

There are 3,745 articles that have short description template and the |1= parameter. This search should find them:

• hastemplate:"Short description" insource:/description *\| *1 *=/

That's too many to try to work-around manually, so we'll have to wait for the bug to get fixed. --RexxS (talk) 16:52, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be a bug in ((Template parameter value)). I have posted a bug report at the template's talk page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:38, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not able to edit the Lua, so I created a template to test a workaround for the TPV bug. ((SDlink)) with tests in User:GhostInTheMachine/WIP. When TPV is fixed, SDlink can just become an alias for Annotated link. -- GhostInTheMachine (talk) 14:38, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

While the bug remains, use ((SDlink)) instead. This checks for and fixes the bad values being returned by ((Template parameter value)) — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:15, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A trick such as this sometimes is necessary, if the shortdesc needs to contain an equals-sign. The alternate workaround of (([[Template:(({1))}|(({1))}]])) gives correct results. DMacks (talk) 17:56, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to use ((Anl)) or ((Anli)) for abbreviation --BoldLuis (talk) 07:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@BoldLuis: for what purpose? If it's WP:NOTBROKEN, it doesn't need fixing. Natureium (talk) 00:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To long to write. They can be shortcuts, much used in Wikipedia. --BoldLuis (talk) 23:16, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I read that annnotated link is not recommended for disambiguation pages. What about See also sections? --Error (talk) 12:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Short description article says This can be used in outline and index lists, and in shorter lists in articles such as "see also" sections or disambiguation pages.

Try using ((Annotated link)) and see if it does provide a clearer link. If not, then consider changing the Short description in the target article. — Ghost in the machine ^{talk to me} 15:21, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Error and GhostInTheMachine: According to User:BilCat, this template is "not for use on disambiguation pages". But I've never seen a rule like this: why should this template not be used on disambiguation pages? Jarble (talk) 19:57, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 50#Use of annotated links. The description above is outdated, as DAB pages are no longer listed. @Bkonrad: any thoughts? BilCat (talk) 20:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have much more to say than what was said in the linked discussion. I think that captures well the issues with using annotated links on disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 20:07, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It is perfectly OK to use ((Annotated link)) in a DAB page. Generally, you might think it better to use a plain link with a hand-crafted description — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 22:29, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GhostInTheMachine, no it is not. The documentation for this template expressly states the template should not be used for annotating links on disambiguation pages and the linked discussion provides the rationale. Further the text quoted from The Short description article above from May 2020 was removed from that page. older ≠ wiser 22:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation is a messy word. It sounds like ways of making something smaller rather than way to indicate the correct choice. Moving on.
Short descriptions exist to disambiguate searches — where you looking for the heavy metal rock band or the steam locomotive? Since they are short, the language tends to be terse and much of the detail has to be cut from the description so that it is short enough.
A disambiguation page is much like a search result – the various links need descriptions to provide the did you mean.... As such, using the annotated link template is not evil – the short description really is a description intended to help with disambiguation. However, the disambiguation page allows for longer descriptions and so the short descriptions should be replaced with a description that is less terse and includes some of the detail that had to be cut from the short description. In other words – annotated links in a disambiguation page are not evil, but they are also not adequate.
I think that the archived discussion boils down to something like the above... — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:59, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GhostInTheMachine, use of the annotated links template on disambiguation pages has been rejected. Reasons are not only what you mention. 1) format is not consistent with that for dab entries and 2) the purposes of a short description are not completely aligned with that of disambiguation pages -- there was objection to the fact that changes to a short description will result in a change in what is displayed on the disambiguation page but will NOT trigger any indication to anyone with that page on their watchlist unless they are also watching the source page. If you have an issue with this deprecation of usage, I suggest you take it up with WP:WikiProject Disambiguation or at WT:MOSDAB. older ≠ wiser 14:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone watching here (but not there), please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Short descriptions#Annotated link template where I'm suggesting deprecating this template in article space. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:15, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am among the most experienced Wikipedia editors and I find the existence of annotated links in Wikipedia highly offensive. Why is it a good idea to have links that cannot be edited? I don't know that I've ever seen and example that was not done in an illiterate manner in need of editing. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:41, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hardy, you can edit the annotations by editing the short descriptions. ~Kvng (talk) 18:30, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. And if a particular short desc. is good for the article but not good for a particular list entry (e.g. for contextual reasons), then don't use the template and do just do an entirely manual list entry.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:22, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Michael Hardy. The usefulness of this template is debatable. The effect of this is (intentionally or not) spewing of more or less irrelevant short descriptions in See also sections. Being able to customize any short description of links where they are used based on the context (if such a description is needed at all) is paramount. Sauer202 (talk) 14:06, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And I agree with SMcCandlish. I have done quite a few of these, in the many cases where the article names in the See Also were impenetrably cryptic, meaningful to those in the know but not otherwise. Pathfinding is one of the glories of Wikipedia and we should encourage serendipity. Yes, there have certainly been occasions where the short description has been unhelpful in context and I have had to replace it with something more meaningful. (This action is particularly likely to be needed when the link is to a section of a big article.) So if you find a case where you are not content with the SD displayed then (a) change the SD in the target or (b) write a relevant description. It would be better of course (IMO) if SDs weren't limited to a silly 40 characters but I've lost that argument. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am aware the short description is not limited to 40 characters, that is the recommended length for where 40 characters works acceptably. If it needs more to work, it can be made longer. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 09:17, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Pbsouthwood: Are you sure? That is not the message I took from Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 9#Length – 40 or 90 characters?? and some of my SDs have been 'improved' to fit. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:36, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

John Maynard Friedman, Sometimes a short description that is useful and accurate cannot be written in lass than 90 or 40 or some other arbitrary number of characters. Apps can be rewritten, we should not be dictated to by app writers for their convenience, and WMF do not have editorial authority over Wikipedia. Sometimes short descriptions can be improved by shortening, sometimes they are still acceptable, but not as good, sometimes a Procrustean approach just results in a useless, confusing, inaccurate or misleading short description. Our first duty is to our readers, we do not knowingly mislead or intentionally confuse them to suit an arbitrary limit. Demanding that we do so, to quote the section title, is highly offensive. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 03:59, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Which was exactly my argument. See Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 9#Conclusion, where I list the many reasons why the current policy is fundamentally wrongheaded. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:55, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In "The handling of short descriptions is changing, so this template may not take default short descriptions from Wikidata", it's unclear what "may not" is intended to convey (i.e. "must not" vs. "might not").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"does not" was correct in this context. This template cares only about local descriptions and ignores Wikidata descriptions (and has since its creation). A edit in August 2020 to the doc page confused how this template fetches short description (always local) with how Wikipedia apps and other users fetch short descriptions (at the time local by default but Wikidata if no description is defined, currently also always local). I've reverted that edit. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:23, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there something equivalent for use with a redirect to a section? Praemonitus (talk) 02:22, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Praemonitus: This template already works with section redirects. Here's an example:

• Invasivorism – The practice of eating invasive species. Jarble (talk) 14:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the redirect has a short description it will be displayed. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 09:20, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jarble I agree with Peter, if the linked article does not contain a short description, the one from the redirected article should be added.

Right now it does not work. Example:

Meat analog – Plant-based food made to resemble meatPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets --AdrianHObradors (talk) 19:38, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The text of a short description is written on the assumption that it will be seen alongside the title of the article, not that it will be seen alongside the title of a redirect to the article. It might not make any sense in that second context. That's especially likely if the redirect is to a sub-section. So I think it's appropriate that this template does not extract a short description from a redirect's target, as it might not make sense.  Dr Greg  talk  20:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And I disagree with Peter. There are many cases where the section targetted by the redirect is too small to have its own article but is reasonable to include in a broader topic article – but to use the ultra-terse SD for the overall article would mislead. So if you are applying ANLI and see no SD, then it either put the overall article in the ANLI (instead of the redirect) or add an SD to the redirect. There are still so many articles without SDs that you have to investigate anyway so it is not much extra hardship. I'm not sure if this amounts to the same point that DrGreg is making?--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:30, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we are in agreement.  Dr Greg  talk  20:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see and I understand. We all on agreement then --AdrianHObradors (talk) 23:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Just as an FYI after Mainframe98 had to correct one of my edits, the SD goes after the #Redirect line. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Short description#‎But what about wp:think of the reader? to which editors interested in this template may wish to contribute. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:13, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the original article is in italic – a book title or non-English language, for example – the template is putting the short description into italic too. Can this be corrected? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:41, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The 'piped link' option almost does it, see

• Renovatio imperii Romanorum – Intention to restore the Roman Empire

but this example really should use ((lang-la)) but it doesn't work. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:53, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I don't understand. None of the above show an Annotated link with italics — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 19:02, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, they don't but arguably they should. What I was looking at is this form: ''((Annotated link |Renovatio imperii Romanorum))'' which has this result:

• Renovatio imperii Romanorum – Intention to restore the Roman Empire

which is not correct, the short description should not be in italics. It should appear as

• Renovatio imperii Romanorum – Intention to restore the Roman Empire

but of course it would be impossible to write ((anli)) to have any awareness of what markup surrounds it. No, my main concern is this: the ''...'' markup for non-English text is deprecated by MOS:ACCESS, a ((lang)) template should be use to advice screen readers to use the appropriate 'voice' (makes more sense for e.g. French than Latin, obviously). So I'm looking for this template to be able to 'nest' another template, so as to cope with ((Annotated link |((lang|fr|À la recherche du temps perdu)))), which right now it can't:

• Lua error in Module:GetShortDescription at line 230: attempt to index local 'args_name_title_table' (a nil value).

Any clearer? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:55, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just had a thought that maybe piped argument might work ((Annotated link |À la recherche du temps perdu|((lang|fr|À la recherche du temps perdu)))) but no:

• À la recherche du temps perdu – 1913–1927 novel in seven volumes by Marcel ProustPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

Unless I've mistyped? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:14, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do'oh, that's a redirect! :-( --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:16, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Renovatio imperii Romanorum – Intention to restore the Roman Empire

That works! So just need another example in the template doc. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:18, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would just keep it simple. This works... Renovatio imperii Romanorum – Intention to restore the Roman Empire — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 20:27, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But unfortunately it uses the deprecated markup for foreign languages. I definitely consider it would be useful to add use of a nested Lang template to the examples. I'll try to find an example that isn't Latin. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:23, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have added these three lines to the examples on the doc page:

Piped to use template:lang per MOS:FOREIGNITALIC

((Annotated link|Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques|((lang|fr|Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques))))

Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques – International organisation for underwater activities

I assume that there are no objections. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:01, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

At Village Pump (Technical), John of Reading explains that "When used in mainspace, the ((lang)) template also spits out [[Category:Articles containing French-language text]], which breaks the syntax of your intended wikilink. You can add nocat=yes to avoid this." so I have revised the doc page accordingly. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:38, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like this template is incompatible with ((=)). I've written up the problem I observed at Template_talk:=#Incompatible. -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a problem because it's also incompatible with the other way of putting equal signs into short descriptions, ((short description|1=A short description with an = sign)). The annotated link template incorrectly shows the "1=" part of short descriptions whose argument is formatted with |1= like that. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Add None (note the caps) to the list of short descriptions to show as blank, which I think is: ((safesubst:#switch:((safesubst:Template parameter value|(({1))}|Short description|1|1|1))||blank|none|null|not required|redundant| per User talk:Qwerfjkl#Short description case issue. Qwerfjkltalk 18:19, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am opposed to this. I do not think it is broken. The editor assumes that "lowercase short description searches" need to be upper case, but the documentation was clear a while ago and was changed by IceWelder (talk · contribs) without explanation or valid reason. Leave it as is until consensus is reached that upper case should be used at all. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:29, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My change was not really without reason. WP:HOWTOSD requires that all short descriptions start with an upper-case character. "None" does not pose an exception to this as far as I can see. I quoted HOWTOSD when I made the edit; sorry if that was not clear enough. Furthermore, it would be consistent with many recent bot changes (like this one), and I agree with Qwerfjkl's notion that "none"-SDs should not interfere with (and much less be the target of) the work of editors explicitly seeaking out and correcting lower-case SDs.

Lastly, I think the most elegant fix for Qwerfjkl's request would be to make the #switch input case-insensitive by converting it to lower-case and thus not requring hardcoded upper-case variants of any keyword. IceWelder [✉] 19:09, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done for now: looks like a consensus needs to be established for this alteration. Please garner the needed consensus before using the ((edit template-protected)) template again. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 18:48, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Remember that "none" is not itself a Short description — "none" is a flag to the system meaning that there is no Short description. The question instead should only be: Do the various parts of "the system" handle "none" and "None" in the same way? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 22:40, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The description includes this: "If a Short description template exists in the targeted article, but is empty, or contains a space, non-breaking space, the word blank, none, null, or other indication that a short description is not appropriate or needed, the output should be an un-annotated link. If it is not, list such cases on the talk page for attention, or fix it if you can." Well, "List of red dwarfs" shows the word "None", when it shouldn't. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 17:56, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The parameter is case sensitive (why that is so I cannot say). older ≠ wiser 19:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please modify this template so that the comparison with keywords such as "none" is case-insensitive? This could be achieved via the magic word ((lc: )). -- Dr Greg  talk  00:04, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have detected the same thing at veggie burger. Had to change None -> none at 4 lists AdrianHObradors (talk) 19:26, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I came across the same thing at List of cognitive biases#See also. I'll get to work on a solution. Cheers, ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 06:00, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Eric Kvaalen, Bkonrad, Dr Greg, and AdrianHObradors: This edit should fix the issue; let me know if there are any concerns. For future bugs like this, feel free to make a template-protected edit request and that'll draw attention. Cheers, ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 06:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing! Will learn how to do that next time :) --AdrianHObradors (talk) 09:53, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So, ((annotated link)) creates a link to an article followed by a transclusion of that page's short description. Simple enough. However, if at a later date, that target article is moved, this template does not follow the ensuing redirection to find the new target (e.g. John Kennedy – President of the United States from 1961 to 1963Pages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets). Is there a way to fix this? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:46, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When an article is moved, two things are supposed to happen. (a) Whoever does the move should go round all the "what links here" and update the links to point at the new target or targets. (b) Make sure the old name, which is now a redirect, has its own SD. The reality of course is that (a) is often not done and (b) is hardly ever done. If (b) is not done, then there is nothing to transclude and the article with the ((anli)) will display with no description – which hopefully will alert someone to ask why not and fix it.

It is not perfect, but we mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good: it is better than nothing at all. I assume that you are referring to a See also list of articles? Most seem to have no appended explanation anyway, giving the visitor no clue as to what they are about. This template provides visitors with a brief summary of the content of target articles and provides editors with a quick and easy baseline so that the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented for every article that lists it.

For articles with See also lists that have a local brief description, if the target article is moved, the same problem exists here too. The local brief description may no longer be valid unless the mover does (a) above and also updates the local brief description.

So to answer your question, not as far as I know: it is just another aspect of step (a). Anyone got a better idea? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:13, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is best practice to avoid most redirects in See also. If an article is moved, we probably want to update the See also entries that link to it. Maybe someone can write a bot to do this. Maybe it is something that needs to be done manually. ~Kvng (talk) 01:38, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to use this template in a way that doesn't violate MOS:CAPS, i.e. doesn't introduce unnecessary capital letters in words that aren't proper nouns, sentence starts, or acronyms? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:45, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give an example? AFIK, it just repeats the article name as given, then appends the short description from that article. I have discovered rather too many horrible SDs when using this template. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:30, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The example that I noticed was Great Filter#See also. The issue is that the short description is appended with a leading capital letter, when there's no MOS or common sense reason for there to be one. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:23, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not possible because the good folks over at WP:SDESC have decided that short descriptions on the English Wikipedia should all start with a capital. The template could force the first letter to lower case but that doesn't work because the first word in a significant number of short descriptions is a proper noun. ~Kvng (talk) 13:53, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Kvng. Your last point hadn't occurred to me. That would put me in the "let's not use this in articles ever" camp, for what it's worth. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:32, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A possible solution is to create short descriptions with a lowercase first word unless it's a proper noun. This is the Wikidata convention. It is easier to create a capital versions from this. There are still some confounding examples like, "iPhone accessory". ~Kvng (talk) 14:18, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Arms & Hearts: Are you questioning cases like Black swan theory – Theory of response to surprise events, that there is the second "theory" has a capital T? Since it is essentially a bullet point, surely that is a trivial technical breach that is completely inoffensive? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:55, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The MoS is there because it reflects the consensus of the community; while there are times when we might want to make exceptions to it, hardcoding them into templates that can't be context-sensitive is, if not exactly the end of the world, not quite "completely inoffensive" either, in my view. I'm not saying that I'm going to remove it from every article I see it in, but I'd probably object to it in any article I've worked closely on and certainly won't be adding it anywhere myself. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:42, 27 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just noticed extsiance of this template. Text shouldn't be automatically capitalised. Eurohunter (talk) 17:13, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The caps look stupid on the Relish artilce. 2404:4404:27B3:6500:C480:79C0:6BBA:1 (talk) 08:01, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since I'm apparently not the only one irritated by this, I wonder if anyone with appropriate levels of template clue could look into a fix? From what others have said, it looks as though the best option would be to add a case-determining parameter to this template, such that, for example, ((Annotated link|lc=y)) would change the case. That way the MoS issue could be averted without breaking things elsewhere or needing widespread changes to short descriptions. (I appreciate it's probably no one's top priority, but worth a shot.) – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:31, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea! ((as of)) has an |lc= parameter. Not sure I have the chops for this but could learn. ~Kvng (talk) 16:11, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But this is a bit of a sticking-plaster solution. Suppose you use the lc option to convert a description of "Television show" to "television show". Then six months later someone rewrites the description as "TV show" and that will be converted to "tV show".  Dr Greg  talk  16:34, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's definitely an issue, but isn't it in some sense an issue with the template itself rather than the proposed fix? It's already the case that someone could change a short description in ways that negatively impact the description used in a "see also" section or similar elsewhere. That could be via subtle vandalism on an unwatched article or just a case of a description that's suitable for transclusion elsewhere being changed to one less suitable. This would be just another case of that broader problem, which would be a reason to avoid using the template rather than to avoid making a change which would otherwise be an improvement. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:43, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"The perfect is the enemy of the good". There are a huge number of articles with a See Also list of terse article names that are meaningless except to cognoscenti. Yes it would be great if all these were annotated by hand but it doesn't happen. ((anli)) achieves a good enough result for the rest. Serendipitous information discovery is a key objective of the project and if a tiny number of articles get trivial collateral damage in the process, too bad. Vandalism is a fact of life, hacking SDs is among the least of our problems. You are entirely at liberty to annotate the See Also of your favourite articles manually if you prefer. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:07, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but liet's not shut down discussion of possible improvements. I think adding a |lc= to the template would be an improvement. A bigger improvement would be starting descriptions with lower case as is done as WikiData. Making that change at this point will produce pain. ~Kvng (talk) 17:02, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I gave that impression, it was entirely unintended. My objection is to those who seek to deprecate the whole template because of this less than perfect side effect. Clearly a change to the way that the template works (so as to remove the source of friction) would be the best outcome. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:09, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kvng: I don't suppose you got any further with thinking about this? There seems to be a consensus in favour of a change but I'm afraid it's beyond my know-how. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:49, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Arms & Hearts, It does look like we potentially have consensus to add an |lc= parameter. I don't have a lot of template experience but am interested in learning. I have just looked and have not found an example for how to lowercase the first letter of a string. Closest I found is how to lowercase the whole string. ~Kvng (talk) 21:33, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kvng: If you were able to look into it that would be terrific. If not, I'm sure there are others who've posted on this talk page, and who've worked on this and similar templates, who'd be able to lend a hand (and who are welcome to weigh in here). No huge urgency of course. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I will admit to scanning the discussion, but looking at the Great Filter#See also example given at the start and picking out the important part that short descs should start with a lowercase letter; this template is not at fault and shouldn't be responsible for tidying up other people's mess i.e. the short descs need fixing at the source. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 06:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Might I suggest a tracking/maintenance category so interested editors can find and fix the problems instead of hiding them? Yes, I think I might. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 08:08, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:SDFORMAT, short descriptions should begin with a capital letter. This makes sense in the context of the search (which is where I assume readers most often see them), but not in the context of this template. This is why the template, not the SDs themselves, is the issue. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 10:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ah ha! I had it the wrong way around and sit corrected; thank you. Yes, so, the concern would be the incorrect application of lowercasing. An initial uppercase letter is rarely going to be wrong, in terms other than those defined by the MOS; but incorrect application of lowercasing for the MOS might often create a mess (demonstrably the Preview step is frequently skipped). Perhaps a tracking category for cases where the |lc= has been applied? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 16:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm coming here from List of numeral systems#See also, where this template is used a few times and where the Lua script running time is exceeded. I copied that section to my sandbox, and got the same problem: "The time allocated for running scripts has expired", despite the whole page being just eight transclusions of this template. When I view source on that sandbox page, I see:

Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template)
100.00% 10073.844      1 -total
 99.71% 10044.426      8 Template:Annotated_link
 99.59% 10032.270     22 Template:Template_parameter_value

Something appears to be wrong here, but I don't know what it might be. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:54, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to be something to do with Table of bases, as it only happens when that and only that has an ((anli)). Also, if I add that (to an totally irrelevant article), it blows up there too. Above my pay grade to work out why. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:14, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One occurrence of ((Template parameter value|Table of bases|Short description|1|1|1)) works. "Parser profiling data" at the bottom of a preview says "Lua time usage 5.500/10.000 seconds". It fails if there are two identical occurrences (expected since 2×5.5 > 10). I don't know why it's so expensive on Table of bases. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:34, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have posted to Template talk:Template parameter value#Expensive call. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:04, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I find this template horrible.

Unfortunately, it is has started to become used on many See also sections of pages. But the annotation supplied is often not very suitable for all the different contexts that the See also links are used in. This means that the annotation is not very relevant much of the time, and it is hard to make quick edits of the text in the relevant context. I mean this goes against the principle of a wiki, where text can be continuously improved on in various contexts. Many people probably don't think of this when they use the "Annotated link" template, but in reality it creates a lot of more work for those who come afterwards and want to contribute to improve the text for the given context. Therefore, I propose that this template should be abandoned. It creates more headache than it is good. Sauer202 (talk) 07:36, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. This template has has resolved the issue in so many articles of a cryptic list of "See also" topics. Article names are terse by design which means that they can be meaningless to readers who are not already familiar with their topics. A key attribute of Wikipedia is that it provides access to new information and broader perspectives. This template provides a quick way to address that problem, by exposing the WP:short descriptions. Of course it is true that the ridiculous 40 character limit means that the default SD is going to be inadequate in some cases – but it is better than no explanation at all, which is what would happen if your proposal were to be accepted.

As for your specific complaint, you are entirely at liberty to provide an explanation of a related topic that is more tailored to the the container article. You aren't obliged to use the template, nor are you obliged to retain it where it is already used provided that you supply a description that is better in the context than the default SD. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:18, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I generally find that SA entries using this template are an improvement over the bare wikilinks they replace. Not perfect but better. Better is better. Let us know if you have an even better suggestion. If you install WP:SDHELPER, the ability to update a description is two clicks away. When you update a description you get two birds with one stone. ~Kvng (talk) 14:44, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per better is better (chuckle) Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 19:00, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have added |quote= to the sandbox and as can be seen in the testcases it works just fine. Any objections to pushing this change to the template? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 18:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good but better is better as album/book/movie/artwork titles should be in italics. e.g.,

• Mona Lisa – Painting by Leonardo da Vinci

Which was quick and easy (((anli|Mona Lisa|''Mona Lisa'')) is short) but there are some quite long titles. So your next task is add the function |italic=.

And if you are feeling really keen, add |lang= to automate the fairly long-winded process of adding a ((lang)) expression and not forgetting to include the nocat=yes. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:46, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I started out adding |emphasize= (yes; "italic" might actually have been better) too, but realised that ((annotated link|The Man with Two Brains|''The Man with Two Brains'')) already does it (handling DABs while it's there): The Man with Two Brains – 1983 film by Carl Reiner

|lang= would require all the ((lang)) params as well to pull off correctly, right? Well I just started reading the ((lang)) docs and that's a big "nope" (right now).

I appreciate the support, but I'll still give it a day to see if anyone watching has any concerns. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 00:05, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why would the length of a title to be italicized make a difference; am I missing something?Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 00:07, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On reflection, most people with copy/paste a long name rather than retype it, so file that one under "failure to put brain in gear" and ignore. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:23, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Brains (I say responding in part to your edit summary) are basically electrified sponges, so I get it 😜 Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 17:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So, instead of typing this:

((Annotated link|Jump (Every Little Thing song)|"Jump"))

your proposal means that we could, instead, type this?

((Annotated link|Jump (Every Little Thing song)|Jump|quote=yes))

— Archer1234 (t·c) 00:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes because ((Annotated link|Jump (Every Little Thing song)|"Jump")) creates:

"Jump" – 2001 single by Every Little Thing

instead of:

"Jump" – 2001 single by Every Little Thing

using the |quote= param Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 00:50, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You say "instead of", but to my eye those results look identical. Am I missing a difference (maybe I've got some script changing the result I see versus what you see). What do others see? — Archer1234 (t·c) 01:02, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I think I see the difference. In the first case the double quotation marks are part of the link and in the second case they are not. Have I got that right? — Archer1234 (t·c) 01:12, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Correct 🙂 Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 01:46, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done let me know if I fudged up somehow. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 23:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

((SDlink)) claims to fix a problem with ((annotated link)) that doesn't appear to exist, so I have started a discussion at Template talk:SDlink § Redundant? regarding its apparent uselessness, suggesting it should be deleted. Please chime in there. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 05:35, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I completely misread and misunderstood that template's purpose; although there is indeed a problem, it should be fixed in this template instead of making and maintaining another. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 23:39, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While I was updating the syntax of the few quoted titles I found, I found (who needs Grammarly?) that editors are trying various ways to manipulate the results which itself might need looking at, but on Author, Author (Star Trek: Voyager) there's a case for a simple (ish) insertion (appending the link/prepending the annotation) of a qualification. They've done:

((annotated link|The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|"The Measure of a Man" (''Star Trek: The Next Generation'')))

and made:

"The Measure of a Man" (Star Trek: The Next Generation) – 9th episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Next GenerationPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback

I ran a quick and dirty test with and without an |abbreviation= and it seemed okay; here's a simple example (sadly there's no short desc (bloody typical)):

((Annotated link/sandbox|The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Measure of a Man|quote=yes|insert=(''Star Trek: The Next Generation'')))

makes:

"The Measure of a Man", (Star Trek: The Next Generation) – 9th episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Next GenerationPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback

I'd like other people's thoughts on this. Sorry for the vague; I think my brain just ran out of caffeine. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 23:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is it worth the effort? What is wrong with

• ((Annotated link/sandbox|The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|The Measure of a Man|quote=yes)) (''Star Trek: The Next Generation'')

the output is the same? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:53, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(Have you, as I was, gotten distracted by ((AnnotatedListOfLinks)), which just gives up on converting a qualified existing link like

• The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

?) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:53, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation) doesn't (currently; I am working on a solution) spew a short description, I'll show the same effect with another:

this:

((Annotated link|The Partisan|quote=yes)) (the cover version by [[Electrelane]] is brilliant)

makes:

"The Partisan" – 1943 song by Anna Marly and Emmanuel d'Astier, popularised by Leonard Cohen in 1969 (the cover version by Electrelane is brilliant)

whereas

((Annotated link/sandbox|The Partisan|quote=yes|insert=(the cover version by [[Electrelane]] is brilliant)))

makes:

"The Partisan", (the cover version by Electrelane is brilliant) – 1943 song by Anna Marly and Emmanuel d'Astier, popularised by Leonard Cohen in 1969

And no; I haven't looked at ((AnnotatedListOfLinks)) at all, but will. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 17:35, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly; I think that's horrible. Something more along the lines of:

((Annotated links|
* [[Thing]]
* [[Other thing]]
* [[Stuff]]
* [[Other stuff]]
))

seems better to me, possibly even being extended functionality of this'n. But I'm veering hazardously away from my todo list right now. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 17:51, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I made a module: Module:User:Fred Gandt/getShortDescription which appears to be working. I tried some more fancy stuff but I couldn't get it to work, so this will grab an explicitly set (by ((short description)) on the article) short desc, but can't get an implicitly set short desc set by the likes of ((infobox television episode)). It will however grab the wikidata desc if asked and allows for fallback. There's a bunch of test setups in the code at the bottom if you feel like testing it.

I'll be dotting the tease and crossing my eyes after some anime and sleep, but it seems like it'll do. It is not for formatting the result; it just gets the result.

Here's an example trying to get the short desc of Author, Author (Star Trek: Voyager), which has an implicit short desc from ((infobox television episode)). It asks for the preferred explicit short desc but will settle for the wikidata desc and to fallback to a provided string if that's not available:

Code: ((Annotated link|Author, Author (Star Trek: Voyager)))

Result: Author, Author (Star Trek: Voyager) – episode of Star Trek: Voyager (S7 E20)Pages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback

Code: ((#invoke:User:Fred Gandt/getShortDescription|main|name=Author, Author (Star Trek: Voyager)|prefer=explicit|fallback=a TV episode))

Result: Script error: No such module "User:Fred Gandt/getShortDescription".

Any comments welcome, as long as you're singing my praises and throwing confetti 😉 Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 07:01, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First draft of Module:User:Fred Gandt/annotatedLink is done (many more tinkerings required):

Code: ((#invoke:User:Fred Gandt/annotatedLink|main |name=Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques |display=World Underwater Federation |wedge= |quote= |dash= |abbr=CMAS |case=lower |aka=''Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques''))

Result: Script error: No such module "User:Fred Gandt/annotatedLink".

Note the inclusion and effect of |case= @Arms & Hearts: 🙂

Okay? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 20:19, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]