NB: All of this applies only to English Wikipedia.
This is to document the logic and behavior proposed so far, and to discuss potential changes, caveats, and edge cases. The basic behavior is as follows:
* If an article already contains the `{{short description}}` template, we will parse the template and replace the text in the template with the new text supplied by the user.
* If the article does not contain the `{{short description}}` template, we will insert the template at the top of the article, with the text supplied by the user.
* If the article uses a template that //generates// a short description automatically (e.g. `{{Infobox settlement}}` among others), we will still make the description editable, and will explicitly insert a new `{{short description}}` template at the top, which will override any implicit short description generated by another template.
Possible pitfalls / other questions:
* Is it possible for the description itself to contain wikitext and/or transclude other templates? If so, how should we handle those cases? Is there an example of an article that does this?
* Is the name `{{short description}}` guaranteed to remain the official name of this template? Are there other names/aliases of this template that do the same thing?