Topic on Talk:Wikimedia Apps/Android Suggested edits

The guidelines for descriptions state that they should not begin with capital letters. However, the app prompts me to capitalize my article descriptions.

I agree, this need to be clarified. I have adopted the Short Descriptions as my WikiGnome calling, in part. Over 12 yeas, I made thousands of edits (12k+ total), many of which were for SD's in en- and ru- Wikipedias. The rules I follow, and recomend, are: on En-wiki, short descriptions start witth a Cap letter. On RU-wiki, always with a lower case, unless it's a proper name or similar. That is the de facto format for almost every page I see.

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Description#Capitalization is not in line with what appear to be common best practices + a long-established and closely followed policy by hundreds of editors.

I second the question/proposal whether such should be revised along the lines of the generally accepted principles and to eliminate any confusion, as my colleague had indicated above.

I will be happy to do what is best for the community. In which forum can this be discussed and weighed on by Admins and Stewards?

Cheers,

~~~~

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Floyd23

@Floyd23

Thank you, @Of the universe.

Wikidata description norms and English Wikipedia norms contradict each other, yes. Unfortunately.

okay, my personal confusion is resolved then. Thanks

The guidelines on the suggested edits main page also says lowercase:

"Article descriptions ...are not capitalized unless the first word is a proper noun."

Should this be changed/removed?

I'm talking about this section: Wikimedia Apps/Suggested edits#Tips for creating article descriptions

I agree, please change, so that it is aligned. Wiki-uk (talk) 19:17, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Aligned with what? Descriptions generally shouldn’t be capitalized anywhere except for the English Wikipedia. Either describe what the majority does (lowercase), or explain that “sorry people, you should write it lower case everywhere, except for the English Wikipedia, which decided to do it differently”. Aligning with one wiki against hundreds of others is not acceptable, even if that one happens to be the largest.

@Tacsipacsi, we're talking about alignment between the app and the page about the app: The app has a "suggested edits" functionality which prompts the user to capitalize English article short descriptions. The page about the app's suggested edits functionality (which we are on the talk page for) states that short descriptions should *not* be capitalized. These two things are out of alignment.

A "Wikidata description" and a "Short description" are not the same thing. For many Wikipedias, the article description defaults to the description held in Wikidata. On the English WP, the Short description is not fetched from Wikidata, but is part of the article itself. Wikidata descriptions are not capitalised. Short descriptions start with a capital letter. As such, the app should provide advice that depends on which WP is being edited and this article still needs to make this difference clear.

I came here to resolve this as well. It's confusing on Android. If you read the instructions, you're told not to capitalize the first word unless it is a proper noun. Then when you attempt to actually write the caption, it automatically prompts you to capitalize. I'm surprised this thread has been here two years as of this writing and there has not been a fix. Here is a screenshot with highlighting. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EnCUANosRqCjk0t6ol0v_g6OCNimykqb/view?usp=sharing

Thanks. I went ahead and clarified the guidelines.