Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chemistry/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 23:04, 16 March 2007.

[edit] Chemistry

I believe it meets all the criteria of what is a FA. Unlike my past nomination for another article this article does have inline citations. --Paracit 00:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Oppose :

• This article needs to be copyedited. I saw serious problems with the writing; not only was it far from "brilliant" or "compelling" (which is, albeit, hard to achieve) it was also grammatically incorrect.
• I also felt that this article lacked comprehensiveness. Although I am not a scientist, I felt that many of the subsections were incomplete. For example, to have only a one-sentence definition of the molecule seemed inappropriate.
• I simply got the sense that one would have to click on a lot of other articles to get an idea of what chemists actually studied.
• Certainly the "History" section should be expanded; the narrative of the development of chemistry as a discipline is difficult to follow.
• Also, the article needs many more citations; there are whole sections without any citations. Awadewit 07:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Oppose:
• The article seems incoherent at times; some sections just look like a jumble of topics and buzzwords added for linking purposes but without logical connection between one sentence and the next (for example, see the section on chemical reactions).
• Some sections are way too short (for example, chemical industry) and others mention topics that are not suitable for a brief, general introduction (Hamiltonians and operators in Schrödinger's equation).
• I'm not convinced by the selection and order of the "fundamental concepts" listed. For example, I'm not sure that ions are fundamental enough to deserve their own section in an article of this nature.
• Also, some of the definitions are oversimplified or outdated. Some simplification is obviously needed when summarizing, but not at the expense of accuracy. For example, "the Atom is also the smallest portion into which an element can be divided and still retain its properties". While this is still taught to millions of secondary school students all over the world, it's just wrong, especially as a blanket statement. There are some atomic properties that are retained, of course, but most of the properties that chemists care about are bulk properties that are not retained by an atom.
• Also, the definition of a bond as "the multipole balance between the positive charges in the nuclei and the negative charges oscillating about them" is unfamiliar to me, does not appear in the article about the chemical bond, and is unreferenced.
• In general a few more references would be useful, especially for questionable definitions like this. If the definition matches that of the more specific article and is referenced there, I would relax requiring a reference a bit. But in general, I heartily recommend more references to the Gold Book for the definitions of the fundamental concepts. But don't be disheartened, I do recognize that writing a short article about such a large topic is not easy, which is one of the main reasons that I haven't edited here at all, other than fixing the occasional typo. The articles about the highly specialized topics are much easier. I also recognize that my writing suffers from some of the same flaws I mention (notably incoherence!), but I hope that this criticism will be useful. :-) --Itub 09:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Opppose, and please submit to a lengthy peer review. Please see WP:GTL; all of the appendices need serious attention, including pruning of the External link farm. Also, refer to WP:NOT, regarding reading list. The article is undercited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Although I generally agree that the article could use some improvement, the criticisms of this nomination are also somewhat incoherent and unrealistic. I see conflicting statements about breadth versus depth (which the primary difficulty in writing such an article). On the one hand mentioning Schrodiger's equation and the Hamiltonian (the most basic and fundamental basis of about half of physical chemistry, and essentially the only true expression of all chemistry) is too specific and on the other hand the article wasn't comprehensive enough. A chemistry article without a mention of The Equation that defines all chemistry would be a huge mistake. I don't mean to say that there is not useful criticism here, just that on further consideration these concerns would be significantly mitigated and will probably never be resolved to the degree that is expected based on these reactions. No one can write a paragraph that goes from zero to understanding quantum chemistry. Its just infinitely complex. It should be recognized that this article describes all matter and all ways of approaching its study, a pretty big task. Regarding the multipole balance statement: I see no need for this statement to be referenced since all it says is that there are multiple point charges in an equilibrium and that electrons generally move and nuclei stay relatively still (this is general knowledge). Whether this is the best way to say that or if it really describes a bond is a different issue. (My statement although simpler really does not address bonding.) Bonds can not really be described without quantum mechanics but this is a reasonable classical estimation (that it is an multipole electrodynamic equilibrium). On the other hand the simplistic statements are also criticized such as the loss of bulk properties when considering a single element. Yes, true but let's not get too detailed on such a broad article. That seems more appropriate for a small paragraph on the elements page. In general there will never be enough space to explain everything broadly or thoroughly. The article will need to remain as largely a starting point more than anything else where even schoolchildren can learn that there are many areas of chemistry beyond the scope of what they might study any time soon. I think we would be mistaken to try to turn this into an introduction in the instructive sense. The issue of citations is an area where some improvement could be made; however, general knowledge about broad subjects that can be found in college level text books are generally not specifically cited but covered by broad references to college textbooks. Although I generally agree with the use of goldbook references as primary source we could effectively turn this article into a series of goldbook quotes on each of the subjects we cover and it would make even less sense. Sorry for the long entry. My criticism of the article is that the language in many parts needs improvement to be more easily read and there needs to be more fluidity between sections although clearly this will never be very good since there necessarily must be quite a bit of jumping about. Perhaps this is more on an issue of organization than anything else.--Nick Y. 18:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• • I must clarify, I didn't say that the Schrödinger equation should be removed, just the discussion of technical details such as operators. Mentioning the equation, its importance, and its applications is necessary in my opinion, but the paragraph that talks about the operators is like having a paragraph in the article about Cars that talked about the isothermal and adiabatic expansions that can be used to model a heat engine. It may be important and fundamental, but it is not at the right level of detail. Leave the operators for the article about the equation itself or about quantum chemistry. On the other hand, the section about chemical industry is at the other extreme: it consists of two sentences. A paragraph or two, that can be basically taken from the lead section of Chemical industry would do the topic more justice. Now, going back to the definition of atom, you don't need to add more detail; it is perfectly possible to have a short and clear definition that is not incorrect. For example, define atom as "the smallest particle still characterizing a chemical element", or "the smallest portion into which an element can be divided and still retain its identity" rather than talking about "properties". For the chemical bond, rather than creating an original definition that just confuses the reader with unnecessary jargon (e.g., multipoles), look at dictionaries or glossaries for inspiration: "a force acting between atoms that is of sufficient strength to cause a collection of atoms to function as a combined unit", or "there is a chemical bond between two atoms or groups of atoms in the case that the forces acting between them are such as to lead to the formation of an aggregate with sufficient stability to make it convenient for the chemist to consider it as an independent 'molecular species'" or "force holding atoms or groups of atoms together". One should of course mention that electrons and orbitals are involved later in the paragraph, but at least start with something intelligible. The article does not need to be necessarily "an introduction in the instructive sense", but at least needs to be readable and cohesive and should not require a PhD to understand. I think the article suffers from trying to link to every conceivable topic in chemistry and is only potentially useful for someone who already knows a lot of chemistry. If someone fitting that description wanted a comprehensive list of subtopics in chemistry, I would refer them to Category:Chemistry which better serves their needs. --Itub 09:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I understand how difficult this problem is. I would shudder to write such a page myself. The editors might look at the physics and biology pages. I believe these pages are better in many ways. They explain crucial elements of the field without going into what Itub refers to as a PhD-level of detail but they also do not have sections like those on the molecule, atom or industrial chemistry which are so brief as to be pointless. That is not to say that these pages do not have problems. But I feel that they are better than this page and they have not yet achieved FA status. I particularly liked the "Future directions" section on the physics page. I thought that it rounded out the description of the discipline well - the history (where it had been), the current state of affairs (where it is now), and questions for the future (where it is going). Since the audience for these pages may well be high-school or college students, I thought that one advantage of that section may well be to excite students about the field and draw them into it. Awadewit 09:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Also, on the point about citing well-known knowledge that NickY brought up. I understand that it seems pointless and silly to cite pieces of information such as "atoms are made up quarks" or something like that, but remember that wikipedia does not have a great deal of legitimacy in the world. Citations are one way for wikipedia to establish legitimacy. Another way is credentialling (make sure that the people writing the articles know what they are talking about), but this is against wikiphilosophy. That is how traditional encyclopedias work. I think that adding the citations is a small price to pay for being "the encyclopedia anyone can edit." Awadewit 09:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Regarding citations I would point you to Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines especially the section on uncontroversial knowledge Some statements are uncontroversial and widely known among people familiar with a discipline. Such facts may be taught in university courses, found in textbooks, or contained in multiple references in the research literature (most importantly in review articles). The verifiability criteria require that such statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements. Therefore, in sections or articles that present well-known and uncontroversial information – information that is readily available in most common and obvious books on the subject – it is acceptable to give an inline citation for one or two authoritative sources at the start (and possibly a more accessible source, if one is available) in such a way as to indicate that these sources can be checked to verify later statements for which no in-line citation is provided. This is what I was referring to in saying that it is common knowledge.--Nick Y. 17:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I agree that this article is not as good as Biology and Physics. And agree that especially with regards to organization they are good templates for chemistry. Chemistry is somewhat more of a hodge-podge of inconsistent theories than either of those however and may always seem less of an elegant article because of that. I simply disagree with many of the criticisms offered here, other than issues of organization and language and much less so citations where I think there is some room to improve but is largely covered by Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines noted above.--Nick Y. 17:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
        • The overriding policy on citations is WP:ATT, not a Project guideline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
      • As a general comment, a primary utility of references in an overview article like this is not 'see, we're not making this stuff up', but providing the reader with a place to go for further information on specific topics. Even a well-organized further reading section might not fulfill this need, since it can be hard for a novice in the subject to determine which reference to consult for a particular area of interest. This kind of article has no need for thickets of citations, but inline pointers to appropriate texts, even for obvious material, still have their place. (I'm not really bothering to officially oppose here, because the suggestions above pretty well cover what I would suggest about this article at this point.) Opabinia regalis 05:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
        • One could rely on Wikipedia:scientific citation guidelines to argue that virtually no citations are needed on this page. The entire chemistry page is common knowledge (to chemists). You could put one little note at the end of the page referring the reader to one textbook. But, of course, the point of the citations, as I tried to argue earlier is partly about legitimacy, and as Opabinia regalis pointed out, it is also a courtesy to the curious reader. By the way, perhaps I should establish "Humanities citation guidelines." One of them would run like this: if everyone if a particular discipline, such as English, is familiar with the interpretation you are describing (e.g. "rise of the novel"), there is no need to footnote your sources. That would make my life so much easier. :) Awadewit 10:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
          • IIRC there were a couple of humanities people who approved of the principles in that guideline. Which isn't recommending no citations, but only a small number of well-chosen sources without footnoting them repeatedly. This can actually help with the apparent 'legitimacy' problem, as a) anyone who knows anything about the subject and sees 'All ordinary matter consists of atoms or the subatomic components that make up atoms^[1]' will think the lunatics are running the asylum over here, and b) people who get this 'needs a cite, any cite' meme into their heads tend to toss up a footnote to any old reference they stumble across, including random websites, very poor-quality textbooks, their copy of 'Chemistry for Dummies', their teacher's lecture notes... etc. Opabinia regalis 04:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Sections choice seems chaotic, there is a problem of fluency (continuity). Also, in some cases like for "molecule" the existance of a main does not justify just a line or two. Molecules is a major subject in chemistry and the main has to represent that. Fad (ix) 18:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment:Am I the only one who noticed the user who nominated this article has only a handful of edits, ,(contribs), while the nom may have been good faith it seems to be, especially based on this users [Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Timber framing/archive1|past nomination]], that they don't yet have the experience to adequately judge and evaluate an article for FA. Perhaps, just a thought. IvoShandor 11:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, I noticed that. The nomination is extremely premature at this point IMO, but I figured we could use it as a sort of peer review. --Itub 11:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess but wouldn't it benefit more, then, from a Peer review. I mean it occurs to me that those participating in FAC could better use their time to offer comments to articles that actually have a chance. No? Perhaps? Maybe? Just my two cents? IvoShandor 11:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be a lot of the same people at peer review and at FAC (at least, I seem to see the same usernames repeating). So, since it's up here, why not? Besides, I prefer the idea of constructive criticism to slamming the article down. Awadewit 12:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitely should've checked the contribs first, I believe the person behind this account has had previous accounts that disrupted the FA process. But I tend to review the articles that I actually know something about... Opabinia regalis 00:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe it meets all the criteria of what is a FA. Unlike my past nomination for another article this article does have inline citations. I think this alone is suspicious enough. Fad (ix) 02:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. If the person has consistently been "disruptive," then that is a problem. I guess I am just not suspicious enough of people on wikipedia yet (I have only been seriously active here for about three-four months). I suppose that will develop. Awadewit 07:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.