The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Denied.

Operator: Mike Peel (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 21:12, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Function overview: Synchronise short descriptions with Wikidata

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): python (pywikibot)

Source code available: on bitbucket

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia_talk:Short_description#Copying_short_descriptions_to_Wikidata

Edit period(s): Daily

Estimated number of pages affected: TBC, there are 2.1 million articles with local shortdescriptions but perhaps quite a lot of those will be the same.

Namespace(s): Most namespaces

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): No

Function details: The bot looks for articles where we have no short description, or where the short description does not match the Wikidata description beyond capitalisation differences. It then has two options:

1. If there is no short description here, then import the English description from Wikidata.
2. If the short description here does not match Wikidata, then replace the short description here with that from Wikidata.

This is the opposite of d:Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Bot/Pi bot 14, at least for option 2, although option 1 is complementary. The code is preliminary, I'll improve it to match the description soon. Related discussions are at d:Wikidata:Project_chat#Importing_short_descriptions_from_enwp and Wikipedia_talk:Short_description#Copying_short_descriptions_to_Wikidata. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:12, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I read the discussion over at Wikidata which had a very WP:OWN attitude (I personally would be pretty pissed if my descriptions would be overwritten by a bot based on content taken from another project). For point #2, since any short description added here was manually added by someone and then (hopefully) vetted by other editors, it's probably safe to assume it's good enough. I don't see any value replacing it. This proposal also will probably cause inconsistencies with infoboxes which handle the short description. I'm also not sure how much #1 is worth it when it's done by a bot with no manual vetting. --Gonnym (talk) 22:12, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• This bot request appears to defeat the very reason for the existence of ((short description)). It should not proceed without a much wider discussion. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:40, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Needs wider discussion. The two tasks are somewhat contradictory. #1 would certainly speed up the process of adding short descriptions, but overriding a local consensus with #2 as Gonnym describes is problematic and wastes edits. I wasn't really involved in the short descriptions discussion when it first came around, but I seem to recall it was fairly contentious. Setting a notification isn't the same as having a consensus for this sort of task. I'm not going to decline outright but until I see a local consensus this isn't going anywhere. Primefac (talk) 23:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• If memory serves, but the whole reason why we put up the whole shortdescriptions items was because of various problems with using Wikidata for this (e.g undetected vandalism, edits there not showing up in our history). So while I could see support emerging for #1 with more discussion, #2 would require some wider debate as noted by Primefac. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:54, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm happy to start a wider discussion beyond the ones I linked to above, any suggestion of where? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I suggest WP:VPR. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:19, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• @Mike Peel: Two questions:

1. As far as I can see, you have not supplied any evidence of a consensus on en.wp for this task, let alone a consensus result of a well-advertised RFC. Is that correct?
2. If your goal is that en.wp should always use the short description from Wikidata, why copy the data rather than making the template import that description? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:19, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• The bot proposal on Wikidata, and the project chat thread I started there, was aimed at starting the discussion there. This bot proposal came out of that, with a similar thinking that the proposal would start the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Short_description#Copying_short_descriptions_to_Wikidata. I'll post something at WP:VPR soon, since the short description page wasn't sufficient. On (2), I'd have no objection to that, but I don't know if that would be acceptable to others. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @ Mike Peel, apart from the lack of notification, the discussion labelling isn't very clear.

  WT:Short_description#Copying_short_descriptions_to_Wikidata is headlined about copying to Wikidata. However, this bot proposal is about copying from Wikidata.

  Those two propositions are very different. Many editors will shrug and say that Wikidata can import from en.wp whatever it likes ... but that importing from Wikidata to en.wp, and overwriting local content on en.wp is a much bigger issue. That sort of thing has been highly controversial in the past.

  I hope that at the very least an RFC will make it explicitly clear that this bot proposal is about overwriting en.wp short_descriptions with whatever is on Wikidata. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @Gonnym, Pppery, Primefac, Jo-Jo Eumerus, BrownHairedGirl, and Jonesey95: RfC started at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Synchronising_short_descriptions_and_Wikidata_descriptions. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:37, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I am misunderstanding the proposal, item 2 is probably not a good idea, and probably fails WP:CONTEXTBOT. Many short descriptions on Wikidata are far too long to comply with en.WP's guidance. See this import and this import, for example, where I had to shorten the Wikidata descriptions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:41, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95: The enwp guidance is relatively new, the Wikidata guidance is at d:Help:Description - which says "In most cases, the proper length is between two and twelve words." It doesn't look like you tried to copy your shorter descriptions back to Wikidata, which is a shame as they would probably be improvements there. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:55, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just to note that the RfC was closed today [1], with consensus against both options as they stand. I'm withdrawing the second option accordingly. I'm exploring alternative options for the first, with @MichaelMaggs: at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Short_descriptions#Bot_proposal_to_create_short_descriptions_from_scratch,_for_articles_requiring_one, it's up to the community here if you want to close this request now or wait for a revised proposal, probably later this month (I can start a new bot request if needed). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Denied. The RFC was closed with an opposition to this proposed task. Primefac (talk) 03:36, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.