Change 785243 had a related patch set uploaded (by Gergő Tisza; author: Gergő Tisza):

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] Add Link: Add 'excluded sections' task setting

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785243

Moving to Code Review for now, will return to the optional part.

Change 785822 had a related patch set uploaded (by Kosta Harlan; author: Kosta Harlan):

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] Add Link: Add array validation for excludedSections field

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785822

In T304150#7873097, @Tgr wrote:

Moving to Code Review for now, will return to the optional part.

I've made T306792: initWikiConfig should set excludedSections for link-recommendation task type for the optional part. There's a follow-up patch here that needs review, but after that this can go to QA.

Change 785243 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] Add Link: Add 'excluded sections' task setting

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785243

Change 785822 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] Add Link: Add array validation for excludedSections field

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785822

Change 785926 had a related patch set uploaded (by Gergő Tisza; author: Gergő Tisza):

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@wmf/1.39.0-wmf.8] Add Link: Add 'excluded sections' task setting

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785926

Change 785926 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@wmf/1.39.0-wmf.8] Add Link: Add 'excluded sections' task setting

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785926

Change 785937 had a related patch set uploaded (by Urbanecm; author: Urbanecm):

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@wmf/1.39.0-wmf.8] Revert "Add Link: Add 'excluded sections' task setting"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785937

Change 785937 merged by Urbanecm:

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@wmf/1.39.0-wmf.8] Revert "Add Link: Add 'excluded sections' task setting"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/785937

Here is a list of most commonly used section titles to exclude.

I used English as default, but I also checked in French, German, Japanese (by identification) and Spanish (~100 random articles each). Synonyms are separated by a /.

The list is not exhaustive, and it is not our goal to treat all local cases, as communities will be able to use Special:EditGrowthconfig to edit the excluded section titles. The table only shows items when I spotted them at least at two wikis.
The terms are mostly plural, but they can be found in their singular form as well.

Some sections could be interesting to exclude, as they are listings of things (books, artworks...):

• (Selected) Works
• Œuvres
• Publications, Publikationen, Veröffentlichungen
• Galerie (where you only find images using <gallery>)
• Rundfunkberichte

Some of the titles can be sub-section of a section title, so the entire section should be excluded:

== Voir aussi ==
 === Articles connexes ===
 === Liens externes ===

In T304150#7884237, @Trizek-WMF wrote:

Here is a list of most commonly used section titles to exclude.

I used English as default, but I also checked in French, German, Japanese (by identification) and Spanish (~100 random articles each). Synonyms are separated by a /.

[en]	[fr]	[es]	[de]	[ja]
References	Références	Referencias	Einzelnachweise	参考文献 / 参考資料
Notes	Notes	Notas	Anmerkungen	脚注 / 注釈
Notes and references	Notes et références	-	-	-
See also / Further reading	Voir aussi / Voir également	Véase también	Siehe auch	-
Bibliography	Bibliographie	-	-	-
Weblinks	Webographie	-	Weblinks	WEB
External links	Liens externes	Enlaces externos	-	外部リンク
Sources	Sources	Fuentes	Quellen / Literatur	文献
-	Articles connexes	-	-	関連項目
-	Autorité	-	-	出典

The list is not exhaustive, and it is not our goal to treat all local cases, as communities will be able to use Special:EditGrowthconfig to edit the excluded section titles. The table only shows items when I spotted them at least at two wikis.
The terms are mostly plural, but they can be found in their singular form as well.

Some sections could be interesting to exclude, as they are listings of things (books, artworks...):

• (Selected) Works
• Œuvres
• Publications, Publikationen, Veröffentlichungen
• Galerie (where you only find images using <gallery>)
• Rundfunkberichte

Some of the titles can be sub-section of a section title, so the entire section should be excluded:

== Voir aussi ==
 === Articles connexes ===
 === Liens externes ===

Thank you @Trizek-WMF! Just noting that the implementation code for the service is pretty basic -- it's an exact match on whatever strings are provided. So "Reference" will match but "References" won't unless it's specifically set in the configuration.

Also, the sections do not cascade -- you have to manually specify sub-sections if you want them excluded too.