There is a plague of incorrect Short descriptions at English Wikipedia, and it sounds like the Android app is partly to blame. Apparently, the Android application gives the following instruction or label to users about to enter a short description in English Wikipedia:
Summarize an article to help readers understand the subject at a glance.
This is incorrect, as the Short description is neither a definition nor a summary of an article, nor is it meant to help readers understand the subject. What it is, is explained at en:WP:Short description, but in brief, it is a scoping statement, that along with the title, is used to help a user identify the desired article in a list of search results where the title alone is not sufficient to pick the right one. In my eyes, is more akin to an article hatnote for topics with similar titles to help users quickly decide if they are on the right page or not, only the context for s.d. is different, namely, a set of search results. It is not a definition, and not a summary.
Steps to reproduce
I do not have Android, so cannot give specific steps, but please see en:WP:Short_description#Not a definition, but the Android app doesn't agree.
This first arose from @Musiconeologist's comment here (diff), where they said this:
I think one (frustrating!) reason people so often write definitions, summaries and the like is probably that the Android app first describes adding short descriptions with "Summarize an article to help readers understand the subject at a glance". Then, if they tap for more information, it sends them to the wrong page, namely the Wikimedia one. That then gives them the wrong advice.
Expected results
- Give a correct explanation of Short descriptions, and a correct link for users to follow for more information.
Actual results
- Wrong explanation, wrong link.
Environments observed
App version: t.b.d.
Android OS versions: t.b.d.