This article iswritten inAustralian English, which has its own spelling conventions (centre,realise,program,labour (butLabor Party)) and some terms may be different or absent from othervarieties of English. According to therelevant style guide, this should not be changed withoutbroad consensus.
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What has a list of government departments got to do with thepolitics of Australia? They belong in an article about administration.Adam 13:27, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Answer: (1) This is the destination page ofGovernment of Australia where such a list probably could go; and (2) Ministers of government administer departments, and that generates 'politics'! Hence, I say, put it back.Peter Ellis 04:27, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There is an important distinction between government and politics which should should be maintained. If you want to write an article about the structure of government in Australia, which would be a good thing to have, then de-redirectGovernment of Australia, transfer the "Government" section ofPolitics of Australia into the new article, and put your list of departments there.Adam 04:39, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I agree I keep getting frustratrated at having nowhere to linkAustralian Government and similar. This term refers to parliament and the public service and is quite a different thing toPolitics of Australia. In fact recently all federal government departments rebranded themselves with theGovernment of Australia crest, and the department name smaller underneath. Has anyone started on an article about this stuff that we can redirect appropriate things to? Maybe this is worth listing on theAustralian wikipedians' notice board as an article that needs work/colaboration.Martyman 23:02, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Oh good I'm not the only one irked about this.--ZayZayEM 03:10, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This needs to be sorted out. It should not keep bunny hopping the single article back and forth. Two seperate articles definitely need to be formed.Politics covers all politics, not just federal government structure and issues.
What is the purpose of thePolitical data section in this article? Most of it is either covered in the Government section, or not relavent to an article on politics of Australia. The only part worth saving is the list of parties, which should be moved to thePolitical parties section. -Borofkin 01:13, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree. That "data" was copied from theCIA factbook in the early days of this article and is now mostly duplicated inGovernment of Australia.Adam 02:22, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Done. I leftInternational organisations. Not sure what to do with it. -Borofkin 03:24, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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mostpolitics of articles for other countries include a discussion of (or at leastMain article: links) government. for better or worse, people expect apolitics articles to include a discussion of government, and so the politics of article can be thought of as a "top-level" article, with more specialised material in more specific articles. with thewikipedia:summary style we can do this nicely with short summaries of the major articles in the area. please don't revert this without a discussion here on the talk page. thanks.clarkk 23:54, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There is no need for articles to duplicate what is in other articles. If people want to know about the structure of Australian government, they can look in the relevant articles, to which I have provided links. This article is about Australian politics. The changes you have made create the bizarre situation that the opening paragraph of the article has nothing whatever to do with the topic of the article. It is as if the articleButterflies of South America begins with a discussion of theTheory of relativity.Adam 00:57, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
i don't think that the analogy of butterflies and relativity is apt, many of thepolitics of... articles include a section on the system of government, seepolitics of the United States andpolitics of the United Kingdom, since the system of government is relevant to politics. i am not trying to duplicate information, i am simply summarising it (in fact i did not write the original summaries, i was simply restoring the summaries that were already there). this is a standard way of organising articles (did you look at thesummary style?), government is usually thought of as an aspect of the overall politics of a country.clarkk 02:00, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I have suggested a new introductory section.Adam 02:24, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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I disagree with the use ofSD:None for this page. You stated that "SD has nothing whatever to do with 'providing a descriptive annotation and indication of the field covered by the page'". However, I disagree as I was paraphrasingWP:SDPURPOSE: "Short descriptions provide: a short descriptive annotation to the title, together with the title, a very brief indication of the field covered [and] a disambiguation in searches, especially between similarly titled subjects in different fields". As such, I believe the short description "Political system of Australia" satisfies these purposes in a way the title by itself does not as it is not "sufficiently self-explanatory" (perWP:SDNONE) as the word 'politics' has a different meaning in the colloquial and political science sense and hence is not "reasonably clear".
In a nutshell, I think a description is needed as to me the title "Politics of Australia" would be an article about day to day politics, what Albanese is up it, is Sussan Ley about to get rolled, etc. However, this article is more about the political structure of Australia in a definitional sense.
A clarification is also needed because In other countries (such as the United States) the definitional information is largely included in the "X Government" article (e.g.Government of the United States). But because in the Westminster system, "X Government" usually refers to the executive, this article is closer to the pageGovernment of the United States. The short description therefore provides this further context allowing the reader to identify the field covered by the article in a way that the title by itself cannot because it is ambiguous.Safes007 (talk)08:05, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There is only one purpose to the SD, and it is to get users to the right article as fast as possible when presented with a short list of similarly named articles, such as you might see in response to a search query. You quoteWP:SDPURPOSE exactly right, but you didn't catch the essential point about disambiguating titles presented in lists. It is entirely irrelevant how many meanings 'politics' has, and the short description has nothing to do with summarizing the article, or defining the page title, or describing the page title. The only purpose it serves, as explained in SDPURPOSE, is to help a user pick out the right title in a list of similarly named titles, when page title by itself is not enough. Your second paragraph shows where you missed the mark, because you state that SD is supposed to help you understand whether it is more about "day to day politics..." or more about "the political structure of Australia", but that is literallynot the purpose of SD—it has zero to do with helping you understand nuances about the article such as that. Zilch. Nada. Nix. Bupkis. Diddly-squat.
Consider this: a user is executing a query in the search bar, and a bunch of articles pop up, and they all have kind of similar names, and which one is the one he is looking for so he can click and go read it? Adding just one or two words next to a confusingly similar title completely resolves the ambiguity, and lets the user nail the right article in one click it, and read it. THAT is theonly purpose of short description.
'Politics of Australia' does not need an SD, because there is no possible query you could perform in the search bar at the top of this page that would result in a list of page titles including this one that are so similar that you couldn't be sure to pick this one out from the other ones and immediately know that it was the right one, i.e., the one you wanted to read.
But what if someone wrote an article about the latest highbrow bimonthly journal in Sydney calledPolitics in Australia and somebody else wrote an article about a garage band out of Melbourne gaining celebrity called 'Politicos of Australia', and now your query brings up all three, now what? Well, then you *would* need a short description, because for some people, they might click the wrong one because the names are confusing, and they might have to click two, or even all three to get to the one they wanted. But if you added short descriptions of just a very few words each, now it is clear which is which:
Politics of Australia — government and party operations
Politics in Australia — trade journal
Politicos of Australia — Melbourne band
and you are done; everybody can get to the article they wanted in just one click. That is its only purpose – they are just the minimal number of words necessary to distinguish one article from another so you quickly get to the right one; often, just one or two words, sometimes three or four; rarely more than that. There must be dozens of Melbourne bands; do they all have to have different short descriptions? No! The ones that need one at all, can all have the identical short description: 'Melbourne band'. (Unless, of course, two Melbourne bands have very similar names, then you would need another word or two: '1960s Melbourne band', 'Melbourne jazz band', or whatever.) But since we don't have the trade journal and we don't have the garage band, there is no article to confusePolitics of Australia with when doing a query, therefore, no short description is needed for it. Remember the purpose: disambiguation in lists of confusingly similar titles,not definitions. If there is nothing to disambiguate from, then you don't need one and shouldn't have one.
Another angle: notice how none of those sample SDs in the the example above mention Australia? That's because page titles and SD's are *always* presented in tandem—that is the whole point!—so if you ever see the same word (or a synonym) in both, then you know right away that the SD is wrong. You do not have to say, 'Australian trade journal' for the second one, because then the pair says,Politics in Australia — Australian trade journal, and it's just wasted words. If you see the same words on both sides: that is ared flag that the editor does not understand short description.
The people who built this function did a rotten job of naming it imho, because the whole purpose of it has become obscured, and when people read the wordsshort description it is perfectly natural and reasonable for someone to think that it means a description, or a definition, of the article, or the title, maybe to qualify it or explain it better ordescribe it, or something. Only it isn't that at all. They screwed up. (Although to be fair, they likely could not have foreseen the problems it would eventually cause.) If they had called it,search list helper, orarticle list disambiguator or something, then we wouldn't be here having this conversation. But they didn't; they took the easy way out, named it with a nice, simple, easy-to-remember, two-word nameshort description, and it has resulted in havoc ever since, where we now have hundreds of thousands (maybe millions?) of articles with incorrect short descriptions. Too late to fix it now, pretty much, but if one happens to cross my watchlist, then I try to fix just that one. Only 999,999 to go, after this one. Wanna help? Cheers,Mathglot (talk)09:42, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It may be the case that short descriptions were originally intended to be solely used for disambiguation, butWP:SDPURPOSE does not currently align with this. AtWP:HOWTOSD thetwo underlying purposes are: "to complement the title with additional useful information in such a way that a user who sees the two together can easily tell what the article is aboutand distinguish it from other similarly-titled ones". Your comments seem to disregard the first element of the short description.
This is also seen in the leadWP:SDPURPOSE which only mentions disambiguation as anexample of how the short description can be used, not its underlying purpose: "Taken together, the title and short description concisely explain the subject of the page—for example, to help a user identify the desired article in a list of search results."
You make a reasonable argument, but I think this is better put on the talk page ofWP:SDESC as I don't believe the current guidance aligns with your view of the underlying purpose of the SD. Under my reading of the broader purpose of the SD, because the word 'Politics' is ambiguous, a short description is therefore needed so that the reader "can easily tell what the article is about" (i.e. see that the article is about the political structure of Australia and not day-to-day politics).Safes007 (talk)10:43, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You keep quotingWP:SD andWP:SDPURPOSE correctly, but then miss the implications of it. There is nothing in the description of the SD function that support your view that thatthe reader "can easily tell what the article is about" (i.e. see that the article is about the political structure of Australia and not day-to-day politics). There is simply no support for that. I suspect this disagreement is no longer confined toPolitics of Australia, but is about the basic meaning of short description itself. I suggest wehat this discussion, and if you still disagree what SD is really about, further discussion should be taken up atWikipedia talk:Short description because there is nothing specific to Australia or its politics in this discussion. Thanks,Mathglot (talk)10:53, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is necessary to have this discussion here as it in the context of determining whether this page should have a short description.
I disagree that there is nothing to support my view on the SD page when I am including direct quotes from the page. In full: "the purpose of the short description [is] to complement the title with additional useful information in such a way that a user who sees the two togethercan easily tell what the article is about and distinguish it from other similarly-titled ones."
See also inWP:SDNONE: "The short description 'none' should be used sparingly, and only where the entirety of the title will be reasonably clear to English-speaking readers worldwide." As the term "Politics of Australia" is not reasonably clear as it is ambiguous, a short description is necessary.
Your view also doesn't align with the examples on the SD page. E.g. inWP:SDEXAMPLES the short description of "Flag of Mississippi" is "US state flag". If the short description's only purpose was disambiguation, a SD would not be necessary as there are no bands, journals, etc that have the similar name. Similarly the example SD for "List of Star Trek: Voyager episodes" is "Episodes of American TV show". This short description is not used as a disambiguation as there are no other things called "List of Star Trek: Voyager episodes". Instead it is providing a "descriptive annotation" and a "very brief indication of the field covered".Safes007 (talk)14:27, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You continue to quote correctly, then fail to understand what it is telling you. The guideline is about disambiguation at search time, and *not* about ambiguity of the article title in isolation, period. Short description *never* appears without the page title, they are *always* portrayed in tandem – page title plus short description. (In particular, it does not appear on the subject page, so readers never see it.) It is this tandem pair that uniquely identifies one page from another in a list of search results presented to users (typically search results; could be database listings, etc.). When you quote, "can easily tell what the article is about", yes, SO THAT a user can pick it out of a list of other tandem pairs, just as you quoted in the second half of the same sentence, NOT so a user can understand what the page is about when looking at this page.
Both of your examples align with the purpose: if you never heard of Mississippi (or vaguely heard of it and knew it was out there somewhere in the western hemisphere), then the possible confusion in names is not going to be with bands and journals—duhh!—but either with other regional names you also don't know very well, like Mississauga (which also has a flag), or with other regional or administrative entities that also use the name 'Mississippi', like,Mississippi Territory (which has a flag, see the Infobox). Remember, it's about getting the user quickly to their desired page, and in the same Mississippi example that you quoted that does need an SD, they also list 'Norway' as one that does not need one, because the presumption is that everybody is supposed to at least recognize the 200+ countries of the world, thus they don't need disambiguation via SD (not sure I entirely agree with that: Niger/Nigeria; Tonga/Togo/Tobago/Tuvalu?) but that subnational entities like Mississippi do. Those are debatable points, and you could debate them (there, not here) but they are a good starting point, and you have to start somewhere. So, no SD for 'Flag of Norway', but yes SD for 'Flag of Mississippi'? Sure; works for me. If you disagree, take it up there.
I am not going to continue going through every example on the SD project page; for one thing, it is highly off-topic for this page, and for another, it's just way too much effort. The SD of this page is something that no viewer sees when he comes to this page to read about thePolitics of Australia, so even if a reader gets here and is not sure what this page is about, the SD does *not* help them in any way, because they never see it here. (You could try a hatnote like{{For}}, or{{About}}, if you think this page is confusable with another one to the extent that it needs to be seen by readers who land here.) The SD is literally only visible to searchers, and only in tandem with the page title. I feel that in attempting to explain this, we are starting to go in circles, so unless some new angle arises, I am going to opt out for now. If you want to add a short description to this article, please get consensus for it. If you wish to change theWP:Short Description info page itself and what it recommends, that is also an option, and you can initiate that atWikipedia talk:Short description. Cheers,Mathglot (talk)23:19, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Do you thinkWP:Short Description clearly supports your contention that SD's are "about disambiguation at search time, and *not* about ambiguity of the article title in isolation, period"?
If you do, can you please show me where this is clearly stated in the guidance? This view just seems to go directly against the broader three purposes listed inWP:SDPURPOSE.
If you do not thinkWP:Short Description supports your contention, I think you need to bring this up on theWP:Short Description. I do not have any views or context about what SD's should do or be so I don't have any suggestions or insights into changes to that guidance. I am just trying to apply it. Hence why I brought up the examples to see how to apply the guidance. Your points regarding Mississippi makes sense, but I don't think they apply to the short description given for "List of Star Trek: Voyager episodes".Safes007 (talk)04:34, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it supports it, and I don't need to quote it, as you have already quoted it yourself, so requoting it would serve no purpose. There is nothing new here, you are just restating your opinion, which is unnecessary as I already know what your opinion is. I doubt further words on my part will get us any closer to a resolution either, such as explaining details of the Star Trek example, followed—what?—one by one with every other example on the page (around two dozen) because I don't think it's likely that it would change your opinion, and because it's a fool's errand—I am simplynot going to spend the effort to parse even one more example on the page to your satisfaction. So it's clear that the best option for me is to disengage now. You disagree with how to interpret what SD says. Fine, that's your right. What you can do now, is: seeka third opinion,moderation, other methods ofdispute resolution, or consensus to add the short description of your choice to this page. I won't stand in your way, but I just don't have more energy to spend or anything new to contribute on this very, very niche topic; I have already expended far too much. I wish you all the best,Mathglot (talk)07:04, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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