diff --git a/app/models/article.rb b/app/models/article.rb
index f2002f9..cf2209c 100644
--- a/app/models/article.rb
+++ b/app/models/article.rb
@@ -70,4 +70,24 @@ class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
     "/" + [profile.identifier, path].join('/')
   end
 
+  def self.short_description
+    if self == Article
+      _('Article')
+    else
+      _('"%s" article') % self.article_type_name
+    end
+  end
+
+  def self.description
+    if self == Article
+      _('An ordinary article')
+    else
+      _('An article of type "%s"') % self.article_type_name
+    end
+  end
+
+  def self.article_type_name
+    self.name.gsub(/article$/i, '')
+  end
+
 end
diff --git a/test/unit/article_test.rb b/test/unit/article_test.rb
index 66f00d1..5cd0b4b 100644
--- a/test/unit/article_test.rb
+++ b/test/unit/article_test.rb
@@ -143,4 +143,19 @@ class ArticleTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     
   end
 
+  should 'provied proper descriptions' do
+    assert_equal "Article", Article.short_description
+    assert_equal "An ordinary article", Article.description
+  end
+
+  should 'provide a usable descriptions to subclasses that don\'t override them' do
+    klass = Class.new(Article)
+    klass.stubs(:name).returns("MyClass")
+    klass.expects(:_).with('"%s" article').returns('"%s" article')
+    klass.expects(:_).with('An article of type "%s"').returns('An article of type "%s"')
+
+    assert_equal '"MyClass" article', klass.short_description
+    assert_equal 'An article of type "MyClass"', klass.description
+  end
+
 end
--
libgit2 0.21.2