Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Polymers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Logo
2 New stub logo proposal
3 Other ideas
4 References
5 Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project
6 Request/suggestion
7 Naming suggestion
8 Polybutadiene, featured article in es:
9 Project directory
10 Stablepedia

[edit] Logo

Can anyone find a suitable image to use as a logo on templates for this project? The best I can see so far (and that's not saying much) is the straight-chain/branched chain image in Spanish and Catalan wikipedias. Physchim62 11:42, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I've done some searching and I haven't found much that would be suitable. Ideally, it would be great if we can find something that would really excite someone into learning more about polymers. Still searching... --HappyCamper 12:30, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New stub logo proposal

The typical Wikipedia stub logo is small. For example, the chemistry one is 30 x 30 pixels and larger than some others. It's really hard to find something easily recognizable as a polymer symbol and still fit into such a small square. A picture of a box or a part made out of a polymer is not readily recognizable as a symbol for a polymer. However, I have made a 30 x 30 pixel symbol which we can use for polymer stubs. Here it is: The R group is larger than the H atoms because 1) a small R in those kind of pixel sizes is hard to make legible while a small H is easily legible, 2) the R groups in the molecules are physically larger than the H atoms. I've given it a light yellow background instead of white so that its logo border will be distinguishable, yet not take up an extra layer of pixels all around the border. I can make a different light-colored background such as light blue, red, green, purple, or orange. What do you think? H Padleckas 14:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Even fairly small images can look good as long as one doesn't try to cram too much detail in them. For example, here's a quick stick model of polyethene I made:

I think it would make a nice logo, at least until something better comes along. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the yellow logo over the stick figure, although the larger R sort of looks a bit weird. Perhaps a little circle around it would be better? I don't really mind which one we adopt - after all, this WikiProject is very small, and the important part is that we all have fun contributing on the topics we really like. --HappyCamper 03:58, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I like them both! I had thought of doing a repeating monomer type logo back in the summer, but never got round to it (graphics aren't my strong point). A syntactic polypropylene would look good on a talkpage logo, but not for stubs (too much detail). Physchim62 (talk·RfA) 05:16, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I can make the R smaller, but putting a legible R in a circle would be tough given the small scale and limited number of pixels. I could probably turn the R into a solid-filled circle. Does anybody have a preference on the background color before I change the R and upload? If the stick figure is chosen, I would prefer to give it a light background color, such as a cream color, so that the logo can be distinguished as a small rectangular illustration. I can make that modification and upload the modified stick figure. Any thoughts? H Padleckas 05:09, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

That's fine with me, if you feel it'd look better that way. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:54, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I modified the Polymers stub logo to make the R smaller to be consistent with the H atoms, and I uploaded the modified logo into WikiCommons. Both the older and the newer versions are available in WikiCommons now. H Padleckas 14:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other ideas

Some other ideas: Nanotube & Polymer [1], Ball & Stick [2] [3], Dendrimer [4], Syndiotactic polymer [5]. If you would want me to help, I could try doing the first ball & stick or the syndiotactic one from scratch in powerpoint (due to copyright issues)... then resize it & save as png. Personally, I like the nanotube one, but it's beyond my skill. But if it's just choosing between these two logos that are proposed, the CH2CHR one looks slightly better. Nathaniel 14:32, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea of two (or more) strands of syndiotactic PP at about 100px resolution for a talk page template. I will move my vote to the monomer repeat design for the stub on practical grounds—it fits better with a line of text above than the PE logo, and stub templates are not always placed by experts in page layouts, as I know from WP:Chem! Physchim62 (talk·RfA) 14:45, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

syndiotactic polypropene

How about this one on the right? It's actually just one curved strand, but I've artistically cropped it so that it looks like two. ;-) I've made it transparent so that one can set the background color in HTML. Note that the background strand is actually semitransparent; that's a feature, not a bug. PyMOL calls it a "depth cue". —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I just uploaded what I feel is a nicer view of the same molecule. If you're seeing a version where the strands don't cross, please refresh the page. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:56, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I like this one. It's quite nice, but for practical reasons, you may have to make it smaller. Incidentally, this would be nice to put up on the syndiotactic or polypropylene pages. Nathaniel 02:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Done. I put it on both pages, even though the polypropylene article already has two images. Others can judge whether it's worth the space it takes there. As for that size, you can certainly scale it to any size you want on the page; I made sure the original is big enough that it scales down nicely. However, I'm afraid 100px is getting close to the smallest legible size, for example at 30px it's just a blue splotch:

To make it look better at such small sizes it would have to be cropped, and even then I'm not sure if it would help much. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:58, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be better to just have one strand? From a cursory glance, it looks like DNA instead of a representative polymer (but then again, DNA is "technically" a polymer...) --HappyCamper 00:30, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References

Hi, I'd like to help out with some polymer entries. Before I start, is there a standard format for referencing for chemistry/polymer articles? I did a search and found that numbered citations don't work so well with Wikipedia, although that is standard for most chemistry journals that I read. Is (author,date) commonly used?

Dflanagan 10:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

At the moment, we do not have a standard for citations, so please feel free to add references in whichever manner you feel most comfortable with. Since this is a Wiki, these can always be corrected to a particular standard. There is this page which lists a method of adding references. There is also a numbering scheme which can be used - check out Template talk:Ref to see how references within pages is done.

Actually this is a very good question...maybe we should spend some time to standardize references. Ideas? --HappyCamper 15:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

In WP Chemistry we do include author (initials OK for first names) and year (not usually full date). Many people follow the American Chemical Society format, which you can see at Wittig reaction. For other examples see hydrochloric acid. With our recent FA (acetic acid) an unusual format ended up being used that is not the norm for chemistry articles. Walkerma 05:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:CITE is the main guideline for referencing. I stress the word guideline, as you will find many different styles used in articles... Wikipedia:Reference explains how to use automatic numbering of references. I agree with Martin that we usually use ACS style for chemistry-related articles, as it is all but indistinguishable from APA style recommended generally on Wikipedia. Harvard style (author, year) is also used, particularly on biological articles, and no-one is going to criticise you for adding references this way to chemistry articles. As HappyCamper says, the worst that would happen is that someone has to come along and change the style later, but this is much easier than finding the refs in the first place! Happy editing, Physchim62 (talk) 14:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi guys,

I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team, and we are looking to publish a paper/CD/DVD version of Wikipedia. We're looking for articles rated as A-Class or B-Class using these criteria which should be familiar to folks as the criteria used at WP:Chem. You already have this extensive list of polymer articles, do you have any idea of the status/assessment of these articles? Would any of them be classed by you as A-Class or B-Class or even just as good articles? I also know of this list, are the assessments here still valid? Please leave your comments below.

Speaking now as a WP:Chem member do you still plan to take control of that table of polymers? Henry's proposal last year to do this did receive support. If you do this, will you be leaving it where it is or moving it? Thanks a lot. Walkerma 05:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...the only one I can think of right now is Polythiophene - written almost entirely by Dflanagan :-) If anything, I think this article is probably the best we have so far that is related to polymers. The other ones are still more or less stub like. --HappyCamper 01:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Polythiophene is certainly VERY nice, a definite A-Class! I'd like to see a photo of it, then it could be an FA IMHO (good publicity for this project?). I will also include natural rubber, polyethylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and starch as B-Class, these all need a lot of work but provide a basic article - unless you think any of these are too bad to include. Please feel free to edit/update our polymer listings as you see fit. Thanks! Walkerma 05:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of polymer? Walkerma 05:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it needs some work...lots of basic articles and definitions are really scattered and not very well organized. I was thinking of working on a set of templates to do this, but I haven't got around that yet. Activity outside of Wikipedia is picking up again... --HappyCamper 04:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request/suggestion

I know very little about polymers (or chemistry in general), but I would like to ask project participants to ensure that the major uses of different polymers gets mentioned at the top of articles and that the polymer also get categorized under its different uses. My interest in polymers comes from the woodworking side. For example, Phenol formaldehyde resin is linked from Plywood, but there is no mention of its use as an Adhesive or Glue in the article, or anything about its properties. Thank you for considering my request. Luigizanasi 22:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Acknowledged. When I get the chance I will try and update the articles to reflect this. It might be a while because at the moment it seems that we are stretched quite thinly. But I will keep it in the back of my mind at least. --HappyCamper 04:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming suggestion

I suggest that articles on polymers of multi-word monomers get parentheses, for example Polyvinyl chloride to Poly(vinyl chloride). That's the way it's printed in my chemistry book, and it makes more sense than "polyvinyl chloride" which looks like it should be parsed "(polyvinyl) (chloride)". Any objections? —Keenan Pepper 17:32, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

It would be rather awkward to do so, in my mind. Even in some publications, "polyvinyl chloride" is used, not "poly(vinyl chloride)". The latter is used more for pedagogical reasons, in my mind. --HappyCamper 20:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polybutadiene, featured article in es:

Hi all. I am pleased to announce that the article Polibutadieno (polybutadiene) has been voted featured article in the Spanish Wikipedia. I was the main contributor to the article and tried to give it a structure that can later be applied as well to other industrial polymers. My next target is poliestireno. If some other Spanish-speaking polymerist is around there, you may want to translate these articles into English. I would gladly help but can't do the work myself by now.

We have a couple other featured articles in the Spanish Polymers Wikiproject: Moldeo por inyección (injection molding) and Efecto térmico de memoria (memory thermal effect).

--Hispalois 12:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note! I will see if I can get organized to translate the material into English. --HappyCamper 05:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)