Wikipedia talk:Special:ShortPages

Explanation for "Long comment to avoid being listed on short pages": User talk:Necrothesp/Archive 4#long comment

The header for this report can be found here. Note that only admins can edit the header page.

Long comment

Since Bot1058 automatically removes the long comment from pages in Category:Long monitored short pages, should we add a note to the special page not to long comment pages over a certain size? Although the problem is infrequent, when someone long comments a page over 256 bytes (before such comment), Bot1058 immediately removes the long comment on its next check. This recently happened at Pincushion moss, which was already 256 bytes to begin with. Jalen Barks (Woof) 14:59, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Update: threshold now at 246 bytes with the recent update to the Long comment. I've submitted a report of this to the Bot1058 Talk page, still awaiting a response. Jalen Barks (Woof) 15:34, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

More types of pages to exclude

The top of this report is loaded with pages that transclude {{Surname}} and {{Set index}}and {{TempUndelete}} and {{Copyvio}}. It is basically impossible to find actual short pages that are a problem. How can we get pages with these templates excluded from the report? Is there a database report that provides better data? If so, how do we get it linked from the top of this page? – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:41, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, change the system to avoid surname pages being added to this list, which results in editors spending time adding templates and comments (very clumsily in this and other cases) to perfectly ordinary surname pages which are quite legitimately short and may or may not expand over time. PamD 11:09, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I made an experimental database report that filters out the most common types of short pages that are not problems: User:Dreamyshade/ShortPages.

Related: Wikipedia talk:Database reports#Try to replace special pages with database reports? Dreamyshade (talk) 08:22, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Update August 2026

Per Tech News 2026-34, we can use the magic word __EXPECTSHORTPAGE__ to exclude pages from this report. I am adding it to a few relevant templates ({{Dmbox}} and {{Redirect category shell}} to start). After this weekend's software updates, this magic word is supposed to take effect, and a few more templates will probably present themselves as candidates for this new magic word. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:28, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Probably better to hold off for a few more days until it's actually deployed. Putting the nonfunctioning magic word in display:none spans is just asking for it to silently fail if there's a typo, or a typo's deliberately introduced and nobody notices, etc. —Cryptic 23:13, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

I can't think of what a non-obvious failure mode would look like. If a page stays in the report when we think it should be excluded, we'll know we didn't do it right. I'm happy to remove the display:none instances once we verify that it is working. I have made myself a calendar reminder. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:59, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

I have stopped display:none from wrapping this magic word everywhere that I could find it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:20, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

__EXPECTSHORTPAGE__ has been added to these templates [edited because the previous search stopped working]. Others that might benefit once the dust settles include:

• {{Copyvio}}
• {{Given name}}
• {{Set index article}}
• {{Surname}}
• {{Temporarily undeleted}}

Not all of these may be appropriate, and I expect there will be others. Certes (talk) 17:46, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

Here's a search that turns up more instances, including {{copyvio}} and {{Temporarily undeleted}}. All of the other templates in the list above are already handled by the insertion of the magic word into {{dmbox}}, but the proof of the pudding will be in the report output. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:43, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

The magic word has been deployed with today's software update, and the ShortPages report is losing pages rapidly, as expected. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:32, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

It's working! The first ten pages in the list, as of this time stamp, are actually short pages, not set index pages or redirects with CSD tags or any of the other types of pages that were hopelessly clogging up the report until today. Browsing through the current top 10,000 listings, I see mostly pages that will disappear, but there are some geography stubs. This report will be useful within a few days to a week, I expect. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:19, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

After many null edits by either the job queue or gnomes, the first 215 articles on this report are now actual short articles that need attention. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:36, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Shortest unedited pages

The shortest pages which are listed despite using a template containing EXPECTSHORTPAGE are currently 370 bytes long. I don't think this figure can decrease, unless the magic word is added to more templates. Perhaps posting updates here would be helpful, as it might save duplication of effort null-editing shorter pages. Certes (talk) 10:10, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

My understanding was that the magic word would exclude pages from this report entirely. I don't see any problem cases in the list of 370-byte articles. Are you still seeing this problem? If so, with which articles? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:08, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Ready for processing

With the new __EXPECTSHORTPAGE__ magic word applied to set index and similar templates, this report has become useful. The first 1,200 entries in the report are currently actual short articles that should be expanded, sourced, redirected, merged, nominated for deletion, or something else to get them off of the list. I expect that in a few days, most of the articles on the list will be actual short articles rather than set indices, surname pages, and similar article-space pages that do not need to be modified. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:06, 23 August 2026 (UTC)