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I'm not interested in any sort of edit war, so instead of simply reverting the recent edit that removes the article's short description, I thought I'd raise the question on this talk page. @GhostInTheMachine cited WP:SDNONE in removing the short description, but that page says that the "none" short description should be used "sparingly" and that page goes on, at WP:SDLIST to further countenance against use of the short description "none" on "History of" articles. I'm fine with the prior short description ("history of the Jewish people in the Dominican Republic"), though a slightly expanded "history of the Jewish people on the eastern side of the island of Hispaniola" would be fine too. If others think that the article's title is entirely self-explanatory and therefore no short description is helpful, then the question arises why the articles for both the Dominican Republic and Jews have sort descriptions ("Country in the Caribbean" and "Ethnoreligious group and nation," respectively.) If those articles have short descriptions, this one should too. Coining (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The article title is History of the Jews in the Dominican Republic and the Short description was history of the Jewish people in the Dominican Republic which failed on two counts. Firstly it started with a lower case letter, which is technically incorrect and the reason that I encountered this article. Secondly the SD was a simple paraphrase of the article title, which means that "none" was the better SD. I was not explicitly reverting any previous edit, just setting the SD to a better one. That "none" happens to match the SD of "none" set about two years ago might be taken to indicate that "none" is a good choice of SD for this article — GhostInTheMachinetalk to me14:52, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given that the general rule (WP:SHORTDESC) is to include a short description, I think the better way to handle the capitalization issue is to capitalize the first letter. (And accordingly, my proposed replacement SDs are revised to "History of the Jewish people in the Dominican Republic" and "History of the Jewish people on the eastern side of the island of Hispaniola".) I see many SDs on Wikipedia that are "simple paraphrases," and perhaps they should be updated, but the better response to that issue is to make the SD more descriptive, rather than remove it altogether. If the second of the two suggested new/revised SDs above addresses both of your points, we can go with that. Coining (talk) Coining (talk) 15:06, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
True, but as WP:SDNONE says, "The short description 'none' should be used sparingly." My broader point is that something like "History of the Jewish people on the eastern side of the island of Hispaniola" is also a perfectly valid SD and, I submit, a better one than "none." Coining (talk) 19:05, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @GhostInTheMachine, after six days without your responding to my suggested short description, I put it in the article, and then it took only a bit over two hours for you to revert the edit. Can you please substantively tell me what your objection to the proposed SD is beyond your edit note of "non-constructive," which doesn't tell me what you think is problematic. Coining (talk) 23:02, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the reply, but I'm trying to understand how your approach is consistent with WP:SDLIST, which says:
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.
You labeled my SD proposal as "non-constructive" and quickly reverted it, instead of engaging in dialogue here on the talk page. I'm not sure that's consistent with the guideline of WP:AGF.
The reason I phrased the proposed SD to "eastern side of the island of Hispaniola" is that parts of the article discuss the history of the Jewish people on the island before the establishment of the DR as a country. (It's still a good title of the article, because it is what a reader would likely search for, but the SD could provide the fuller context.) An alternative of something like "History of the Jews in the land currently within the borders of the country of the Dominican Republic," while well-descriptive, seemed to verge on raising political issues that aren't at all the point of what I'm trying to get at. I'm not questioning the scope of the article; I'm just trying to create a short description that I think would be helpful to readers. And if the goal you are keen on is consistency with the SD for History of the Jews in Haiti, then changing that article's SD to ""History of the Jewish people on the western side of the island of Hispaniola" would be just as consistent.
I suppose I still don't understand -- are you saying an SD of "none" is the only SD an article with this title could ever have because it is so self-explanatory? Even WP:SDNONE, which you seem to be relying on, says "Rather than using 'none', try where you can to construct a short description that imparts useful information." That is what I am trying to do, and I don't get why your form of pushback has been one that sought to shut down the conversation rather than work through any concerns. Coining (talk) 16:30, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
