Abstract Wikipedia:Suggested functions

Content that can be added to abstract articles is limited by which functions exist on Wikifunctions. If you're making an article that needs a new type of sentence, either create it on Wikifunctions, or suggest it here to get input from others.

Due to different grammar rules in different languages it may be beneficial to discuss new functions here first, as not all generic concepts work across all languages.

To suggest a function, create a section below (new sections go at the bottom), and provide an example of its use. Make sure to sign your suggestions using ~~~~.

Functions which aren't directly related to Abstract Wikipedia can be requested at f:WF:Suggest a function.

Intro sentence for species articles

I imagine Abstract Wiki will be largely used for taxa articles, similar to that of Lsjbot.

For example, for a species:
Bursadella dichroalis is a moth in the family Immidae.
article name is a(n) X in the Y Z

EatingCarBatteries (talk) 19:18, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Furthermore, there could be more information like:
It was described in 1880

EatingCarBatteries (talk) 19:21, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps a useful step towards that would be to make a function that takes a Wikidata reference and outputs a label, with the label of the more general concept linked through 'instance of' or 'subclass of' as an adjective, plus determiner for languages that use them: the family Immidae, the dog Rin Tin Tin, the planet Mars. Arlo Barnes (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

I started with a simple helper function f:Z32852, which outputs something along the lines of "Homo sapiens is a species" or "Canis is a genus" The implementation isn't connected yet with no testcases, because I don't have functioneer (am currently requesting).

I'm not sure yet how to do the whole instance/subclass of and adding determiners, are there functions that already would do that? EatingCarBatteries (talk) 07:42, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Can we not just fetch the taxonomic information from WD? I guess you'd want to manually set it sometimes. Feeglgeef (talk) 22:54, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. I think it wwould be really useful to have something like Wikidata ID is a [function getting the common name of the correct taxon rank] in the family [function getting the family name]

However, figuring out the expected common name of the right taxon rank above is not easy, as going from a moth species to d:Q56315380 seems non-trivial. ♥Ainali ^discussion_{contributions} 08:16, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Link to Wikidata

We have f:Z32428 for internal (Abstract Wikipedia) links and f:Z31697 for Wikipedia links (article title). Other link functions are available! So far, though, I don’t think we have a function to generate a link to a Wikidata item, and I’m not sure how it should by styled so as to avoid confusion with an Abstract Wikipedia link.

Note: we have no architecture for injecting a link into a sentence fragment, so a link like this would need to be a standalone HTML fragment and should be reusable within many “sentence fragment” functions. GrounderUK (talk) 11:21, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Done This is now working. Thank you, @ChaoticVermillion

Q104587954: Wikifunctions

(I think the third argument defaults to the page content language here.) GrounderUK (talk) 14:45, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

@GrounderUK: It is worth noting that links can be injected into sentence fragments in a rather roundabout way, by using a string replacement function. See Q190. JJP_Master (she/they) 11:50, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Ah, yes… good point. I’ve been thinking about proposing a more abstract representation of HTML, so that elements can be addressed more directly by attribute value. I thought it would be drafted this weekend, but that now seems unlikely. You will be able to see it, eventually, in f:Wikifunctions:Type proposals/HTML fragment structure. Meanwhile, f:Z33470 needs more attention. GrounderUK (talk) 11:38, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

Basic creative work description

Something like
Title is a(n) Year Genre{optional} Format by X.

Under exact formatting provided, would only work for extended or pictorial (or sculptural) works of monolithic authorship.

Alef.person (talk) 00:22, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Hmmm... I might create two functions for this, one with and one without a genre later.

I don't know what I'd call it though. Maybe "introduce creative work" and "introduce creative work with genre"? QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 06:28, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Those would probably work.

Alef.person (talk) 21:49, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy ping: User:Alef.person QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 06:29, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Time element

It would be helpful to have something like "X Y on [date]", e.g. "The company was founded on April 7, 2026". Sdkb (talk) 06:15, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Possibly also add X Y in [input] as a subclass of the same function, e.g. "Automobiles were created in Germany". Somepinkdude (talk) 13:30, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Images?

There does not seem to be a way to include images in abstract articles? (Not even using raw HTML/wikitext?) I think we will need that. Mormegil (talk) 09:35, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

See phab:T421841, which is currently being worked on. — rae^5e <talk> 16:30, 29 April 2026 (UTC)