Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/archive06

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
  • Archive 1: Discussion completed through May 2005
  • Archive 2: Discussion completed through October 2005
  • Archive 3: Discussion completed through February 2006
  • Archive 4: Discussion completed through August 2006
  • Archive 5: Discussion completed through September 2006
  • Archive 6: Discussion completed through October 2006
  • Archive 7: Discussion completed through November 2006
  • Archive 8: Discussion completed through December 2006

Contents

Bond length of fluorine

Someone take a look at bond length of fluorine created by User:N4nojohn, is this copied from some textbook? If not, we definitely should encourage this guy to continue contributing. Femto 13:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I really doubt it. I really really doubt it. I've taken the liberty to welcome this user with open arms. Join in :-) --HappyCamper 14:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
No, it's taken from lecture notes, not a textbook. I have made my comments on Talk:Bond length of fluorine. Physchim62 (talk) 14:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Ah, from lecture notes. At least I was right :P --HappyCamper 16:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

RSC Publishing editing journal articles

RSCPublishing (talk • contribs) (seemingly a journal publisher) has been editing a fair few journal articles. I don't think they've broken any wikipedia rules/guidelines, and they seem to be doing quite a good job with their edits so far, but as they have a vested interest in advertising themselves someone should probably keep an eye on their edits. They're mostly editing chemistry journal articles, hence why I'm posting this here. I noticed them when they edited a physics article I watch, which's my area of speciality. Mike Peel 14:16, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

My God yes, that's definitely our friends from up Milton Road! (that is to say the journal publishing arm of the Royal Society of Chemistry) They don't seem to be doing too much harm for the minute, and are helping with our coverage of scientific journals: I'm a little more sceptocal of their links to "breaking articles" pages, but I think we shouldn't worry too much—or if we should we should have a thorough campaign to improve our articles about journals, RSC and others. Physchim62 (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
These sorts of accounts need to be discouraged, if not outright blocked. There are two reasons for this. The first, is that there is no manner on Wikipedia for which we can confirm the user behind that account represents that agency. Sending an e-mail is not sufficient. Personally, only the office can really do that. Secondly, it is not possible to tell whether the account is a role account or not. It is akin to someone using the accoung "Harvard University" on Wikipedia, although in this case, RCS publishing is not that well known to the general public. I'm tempted to block or ask for a name change, but as I'm stretched too thinly on Wikipedia, I'll leave one eye open, and one eye closed - for now. --HappyCamper 17:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any big harm yet. As pointed out above there no way to verify this users association with RSC but that would also indicate that we should not have a bias against a particular user name. Now if some bad editing occurs the user's name may be indicitive of motivation and be somewhat damning. For example if they start "mistakenly" overstating the impact factors of all RSC journals then we could more easily say that it was not a simple mistake but motivated by probable association. This is extremely common with vanity articles where the primary editor has a name similar to the article and they make bad edits. Editing articles about ones self is dicouraged but not against any rule. If you do a good job, bravo. Most people in the world are not capable of writing a good article about themselves even if they make the notability cut to begin with. The only blocking of this editor should be based on bad editing.--Nick Y. 22:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Gotcha. Not to worry. --HappyCamper 03:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
If the RSC wish to complain to the Office then I'm sure that they will be sympathetically listened to; however, this account does appear to be semi-official, and their edits are not in breach of guidelines (the journals are notable, the info appears to be accurate). Although admins are often faced with accounts placing commercially (and politically) misleading information into articles, this account seems merely to be doing work which other editors would eventually have got round to doing themselves: legit editing, in other words. Physchim62 (talk) 14:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I have been keeping an eye on this for some time as this account is largely improving articles that I started. I think they are doing a great job. If they bend the rules, we can deal with it. BTW, I'm now back from an overseas wikibreak but exhausted. --Bduke 02:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Exhausted? I have been travelling a bit and am a bit tired too. But you know what I discovered today? Try this Wikipedian brand of coffee! Quite worldly in flavor I might add. Coffee on me. Cheers! --HappyCamper 02:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Ahh...the sweet aroma just fills the air...
Ahh...the sweet aroma just fills the air...
I don't drink coffee; I take tea, my dear. (not an Englishman though :) Gave them a pointer on their talk page to this discussion. This is a nice example why editors associated with the topic shouldn't be too active. Take Annual Reports Section A, Annual Reports Section B, Annual Reports Section C. Basically identical, all praising the RSC as a not-for-profit publisher, all with same "About the Annual Reports" sections. They seem to have been created mainly as a promotional vehicle for placing external links (having not even internal links between themselves, but already 6 external links to rsc.org each). Or if this wasn't the intention, the results are indistinguishable in any case. Why do we need that? Femto 14:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
These are important and distinct reviews that are published annually by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Perhaps they do need a bit of a tidy up, but they should stay. I think the RSC editor does a better job editing an existing article or stub than when they start an article. I'll try to look at then later but I'm still exhausted and have other things to do. --Bduke 22:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Me too - though my trip was only a short distance, I came back exhausted and full of cold! I think we should let RSC add this information as long as it seems to hold to WP:NPOV and doesn't just read like an advert. In my experience people who edit for spamming (or other reasons involving deception) use anon or unknown accounts that disappear - by using the name RSCPublishing they are being totally open about who they are. I think the message is, "We're improving these articles because we want info on our journals to be up-to-date and accurate, but if by any chance we're breaking any rules please let us know and/or revert us." They seem to be factual and well-written, so they should stay, IMHO. Walkerma 03:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello. We have noticed that there has been some discussion about the identity of “RSCPublishing” as a Wikipedia editor, so we would like to clarify. We are a group of three users, all employed by the publishing arm of the Royal Society of Chemistry, which is based in Cambridge, UK. Our objective in setting up the account was to add correct, factual information to some existing articles and stubs describing RSC journals (or to create new articles where none existed). Specifically, we wanted to make sure that publication histories, ISSNs, coverage, etc details were up-to date. We felt it best to do so as a registered user rather than to make changes anonymously. We have tried not to contravene any policies that are in place, and will be happy to change anything that is not deemed appropriate. We’d welcome any feedback as we are all new to the world of Wikipedia!RSCPublishing 10:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't have any problems with what you are doing and I think you are making valuable contributions to Wikipedia. However, you may be breaking a couple of minor rules. According to WP:Username, "Usernames of or closely resembling the names of companies, groups, or include the URL of a particular website are discouraged and may be blocked." Also, I think there is a rule against shared accounts, but I can't seem to find reference to it at the moment. It might be better, therefore, for the three of you to get separate accounts. You can then use your new userpages to identify yourselves and your employer, if you wish. --Ed (Edgar181) 12:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Rotating images - views sought

At least one user, well intentioned no doubt, is inserting animated images into various WEChem articles. If you havent seen such, one is coming to an article near you soon. I took one out of benzyl alcohol, but I suspect that my edit will be reverted. A rotation or two of a molecule is fine for me, but the continuous rotation is annoying/distracting, IMHO. It is just difficult for me to read text when something is wriggling on the same page. But then, perhaps I am a contrarian or suffering from some perceptual disorder. Thus, I ask that we strive for some consensus. My vote is for no animation unless it can be controlled to a fixed few oscillations or toggled on and off.--Smokefoot 01:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that those rotating images do not add any value to the article. Frankly, they are quite annoying! It's not like it is a Chime molecule which you can rotate and view in spacefill, ball and stick, frame, etc. I would prefer that such images do not appear at all. --Rifleman 82 02:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree! We should be nice about this, though, and assume good faith (also "don't bite the newcomers"), because this work is clearly well-intentioned. The contributor appears to be a biochemist, something we need more of on Wikipedia! I'll post a gentle comment on their talk page. Walkerma 03:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to not have rotating images (but I have not seen one as they have been deleted) and that we wait until Jmol images can be included (Jmol is equivalent to Chime but better). The Jmol extension needs more work before it can be included in Wikipedia. --Bduke 07:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Do you know how much work is needed? Are we likely to see Jmol in the next few months, or is it years away? This extension of the software could have an impact outside Wikipedia, as others in the chemistry community are getting interested in wikis. Thanks, Walkerma 17:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
It's probably not a lot of work. Hopefully, I will find time to finish the Jmol extension in November, I have been quite busy recently (office work, Jmol v11, ...). After that, it's up to the Wikipedia administrators to decide to include it. -- NicoV 20:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
FYI: Here are links containing animated graphics that are under discussion: Phenoxyethanol, 2,2,2-Trichloroethanol, 2-Butanol, Bis-tris methane, Benzoin, Bisabolol, Bis-tris propane.--Smokefoot 17:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • agreed, the dynamic images are no doubt added with the best intentions of the editor but they should go V8rik 21:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed, will take it with me in my next run through chemical pages, however good the intentions have been. I am in favour of Chime/Jmol implementation, by the way. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I too am annoyed by not being able to stop the molecules from spinning and don't get alot out of them spinning about since I can visulize it easily. I would however like to point out that it may be extraorinarily useful to the billions of non-chemists who don't get what information is being conveyed by static images and those who have difficulty visulizing in 3D (mostly non-chemists of course). Of course the right solution is the jmol implementation but perhaps this is a okay stop-gap measure. Perhaps some outside perspective should be solicited (no pun intended).--Nick Y. 22:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
How about making stereograms of molecules instead? --HappyCamper 22:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
That of course is one of the tools used in some (older?) organic chemistry textbooks to teach geometry of molecules.--Nick Y. 05:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

NPOV and organic materials

The area of molecular electronics is a topical but complex interdisciplinary field with strong chemical content where WE readers seek information and insight. Unfortunately this theme has been highjacked by someone pushing a particular point of view, seemingly because that they or their friends have not gotten credit deserved for their discoveries. This problem begs for administrative review, because an area of science is being misrepresented. Check out: Organic semiconductor, Conductive polymer, Polyacetylene, Organic electronics, Organic light-emitting diode, Polypyrrole.--Smokefoot 02:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this definitely looks like someone is treating Wikipedia as a soapbox, and this definitely needs to be dealt with. However, it is not a quick task we can resolve in a few minutes. Would it be appropriate to tag articles or sections with {{POV}} and/or {{POV-section}}? I hesitate to do that myself until I see more opinion here, as this subject is well outside my area of expertise. I do have an old book on polyacetylene I may dip into, though, to try & get a reality check. Although I think Nobel committees have overlooked important people in the past (e.g. Lise Meitner]], when I have looked into such claims in more modern cases it has seemed more like sour grapes. Thanks for alerting us, Smokefoot! Walkerma 04:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure there is a problem here. All these articles claim that Weiss et al published work on conducting organic polymers before the published work of the Nobel winners. This case is discussed in Nobel Prize controversies (linked from Conductive polymer at least) and there are references there to a New Scientist article that makes this point. Maybe it is OK to report this. Maybe these articles just need cleaning up - reference to the Nobel controversy page in every article for example. Am I missing something? --Bduke 07:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Martin here, and I have slapped cleanup tags on Conductive polymer, organic electronics and organic light-emitting diode. I don't dispute the claim of priority for the Australian group, merely the way that it is portrayed in the articles: Wikipedia does not exist to second-guess the Swedish Academy of Sciences. There are also other style points to be addressed in these articles. Is HappyCamper watching? this seems to be his/her domain. Physchim62 (talk) 12:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm the culprit here. Many, if not most, science and technology pages have a history section, a particular interest of mine. I have struck strictly to NPOV and NOR, merely citing, giving brief particulars, and (where they exist) giving links to the relevant papers. I assume the interested reader is capable of reading and interpreting them without my help.

As far as I know, these are the only papers. In fact, I would love to see more. So NPOV is being maintained and the work of no particular group is being "pushed". If there were others, I would be citing them too, with great pleasure.

Effectively I give just a dry recitation of publication dates and contents. I have looked pretty hard too. I welcome any additional material on the early history of the relevant fields, which is admittedly messy. E.g., until I posted the cites, I'll bet nobody knew that electroluminescence in organic compounds was shown in the 1950's, if not earlier. I have been told it might go back to the 1920's, but can't find the reference. So you-all start contributing too.

In the case of conductive polymers, I also note without comment that the Nobel committee did not cite the relevant papers. If you think even this is (e.g.) a NOR violation, then take it out. And yes, the articles do need some syntactic cleanup, etc. But do not distort the well-established history of discovery and enforce a specific POV by removing the cites. If memory serves, removal of such well-cited material is against the guidelines anyway. Pproctor 13:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I have taken a brief look at the articles. It is not exactly my field either but I don't think that the problems are too aggregious. Pproctor's literature work seems well founded and notable. The only issues I see are language and proportionality. Regarding language I think this could be solved easily by choosing less confronatational language, but it is really Pproctor's responsibility. Note that again this is not aggregious. Regarding proportionality it seems that more needs to be spent on the nobel prize winning work. I would suggest an entire section.--Nick Y. 16:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I have edited conductive polymer a bit to give it a shove in the right direction. Pproctor, perhaps you could do the rest.--Nick Y. 16:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Am doing so. BTW, I was thinking about doing a section on the Noble prize issue, but I feared this would be too confrontational. Treading very carefully here.
BTW, the confrontational language about the work of Weiss et al was provided by an anonymous poster using an IP number 130.130.37.6 assigned to the University of Woolagong, a major center of Australian research on conductive polymers. I spiffed it a bit, but left it intact. Nobody wants to make a public statement that the Aussies did essentially the same experiment that eventually won the 2000 nobel, except 14 years before. But there it is. Pproctor 18:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


  • I have tried to follow the discussion but this is so confusing. I note that any controversies should be confined to Nobel Prize controversies and not all over the place, I also note that the use of references is extremely sloppy. Please try to play by the rules and provide a article title and a direct DOI link to an freely-accessible abstract. This is the only way for outsiders like my self to verify claims. Organic electronics and molecular electrons should probably merge, containing one history section V8rik 19:33, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree about removing "controversy". Have or am removing in favor of a bland more or less ordered listing of who did what and when. However, the controversy is part of the history and thus quite relevant.
As for abstracts. We do our best. Some of the journals do not have abstracts per se, or at least did not when the papers were published decades ago. Similarly, many older (e.g.) medline/pubmed entries do not include abstracts. So, where these are available, I have given links to full-text (HTML or PDF) copies of the articles. E.g. [1] --Click on the respective "PDF" link. This surely meets the requirement for "verifiability" better than just the abstracts.
Agree that full citations (Including titles) at the bottom linking to the respective papers or an abstract is arguably the best mode of citation here. However, "The rules", Wikipedia:Citing sources, says:
  • "The system of presenting references in a Wikipedia article may change over time; it is more important to have clarity and consistency in an article than to adhere to any particular system."
Wikipedia:Citing sources states other modes, specifically-including imbedded HTML links, are acceptable. These are a little better (for me at least) for on-the-fly editing, since they don't interfere with the train of thought so much. As soon as I get thru an editing frenzy, I may to go back and use "<!ref><!/ref>" -type links. However, if someone else <Grin> wants to take on this chore, I certainly will not object.
Organic electronics and Molecular electronics have significant overlaps, but are really two separate fields and should remain so. Pproctor 17:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
It looks like Pproctor is doing a good job in cleaning up these artilces. I din't mean to foment contraversy by separating out the noble prize issue into a sub section. My intention was to remove contraversy from the Nobel prize statement. In other words the section should be about the Nobel prize winning work with an only brief reference to any contraversy. As it stands now it has more about contraversy than the Nobel prize winning work. This should change. I will give it another push in teh right direction.--Nick Y. 22:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's keep the contraversy issue short but present. The reader can follow the links and learn more.--Nick Y. 22:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
We can say that the Nobel prize decision has caused controversy without taking sides, just as we can say that the Australians made doped polyacetylenes and polypyrroles before the Japanese but never showed that devices were feasible. A link to the Nobel citation (in "External links") would probably be handy if we can track it down. Thanks to all who are participating in the cleanup. Physchim62 (talk) 14:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

GoogleInChI and other Mashups / Chemical Markup Language

Greetings, this is my first post on this side of wikiversity!

I've been doing some research on Chemical Markup Language, in order to be able to access all of the databases with a single standard, and I found the following Google Video that I think is quite interesting:

I guess you already have visited the page but here is wikipedias article:

I think it would be a good idea to get in contact with this people and see what can be done on wikipedia!

best regards! WiKimik 03:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I missed this earlier! The Google Video is very helpful, thanks. We ARE in contact with these folks; in fact User:Petermr is Peter Murray-Rust, co-developer of CML. I have been sounding out several Wikipedians about the idea of setting up a WikiProject on chemical information/informatics, and a major goal of such a project would be to coordinate chemistry standards between the outside chemical community (ACS/CAS, Blue Obelisk, RSC, Pubchem, Chemistry Central) and Wikipedia. IMHO we need to have ways of attaching InChI metadata to chemical structures automatically, and I'd also like to see us improve our linking to DOIs. I have a chemistry wiki under development, where I hope to catalyse some of this work. If we get this project going, would you be willing to help out, WiKimik? Anyone else? Thanks, Walkerma 19:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Count me in if I can find time (I'm not putting as much time in the Physical Chemistry project as I wanted to!). The Jmol inclusion into WP project fits in here in a way. --Bduke 22:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Can't say no to this. Already busy with improving (well, trying to) the mediawiki code for chemical compounds. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, unless someone else wants to take the lead on this, I want to hold off starting this project for a month or two, by which time I should have much more wiki-time. I want to make sure that the project is lively and can have an impact - that takes a bit of time & commitment. Watch out for me spamming you in December! Walkerma 15:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, looking forward to that. Don't forget! --HappyCamper 04:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Nomenclature of alcohols

The IUPAC nomenclature states that the position numbers of substituents should be put directly before the multiplying prefix of the substituents; yet in many alcohol articles the systematic name (presumably IUPAC name, as is linked there) is given as something like "1,2-propanediol" instead of something like "propane-1,2-diol". What's happened with the names? Is my concept about nomenclature incorrect or are the articles incorrect (I've consulted the page alcohol#Nomenclature: my concept's correct) - or do we have two separate "systematic nomenclatures"? --Deryck C. 09:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You're right, the articles are wrong! The position numbers should be placed after the stem indicating the number of carbon atoms, although for simple alcohols it is very common to see them at the start of the name. This is tolerable so long as it doesn't lead to any confusion as to the structure. Physchim62 (talk) 13:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the textbooks in the US all seems to advocate the "1,2-propanediol" format, including the one I use (though at least they use "acetic acid" not "ethanoic acid"). Presumably this is another example of the US chemistry community not wanting to harmonize their naming with the rest of the world? Walkerma 16:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
The prefix/infix differences have been discussed a few times on Talk:IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry. Executive summary: "the great thing about having standards is having so many different standards to choose from"--IUPAC vs CAS, common name vs systematic, etc. DMacks 17:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
In that case shall I change all the names labelled "IUPAC names" into the propane-1,2-diol format? --Deryck C. 10:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

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 23:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Scientific citation guidelines

Hi Chem folks,

Can we get your opinion on Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines...? It's a proposed guideline, put up and supported by the Physics and Math wikiprojects, to deal with what we view as overzealous demands for inline citations of undisputed textbooks facts. Perhaps it won't be suitable for all areas of science (and we'll have to change the name), but the construction of the guideline was inspired by how we're told things are done in Chemistry articles, so it makes sense to see if you folks agree with it. Any thoughts? -- SCZenz 03:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It looks excellent to me! If this is the product of the endless discussions at WP:GA, then it has been useful for clarifying policy in this important area. There is much more scrutiny of references, and I hear/read more & more from outside the community that one of the most useful things in Wikipedia is the list of references! This guidelines page looks to have been well put together and well-written, a very nice piece of work. I certainly don't disagree with anything in there. I have only one suggestion - could we try to make it standard policy to include the DOI for every journal ref and ISBN for every book ref? I'm hoping to see us connect Wikipedia up seamlessly with Chemistry Central, PubChem, ACS and RSC publications and others, and these simple links will really draw in chemists. Great job, guys! Walkerma 06:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to add your suggestion, which is so brilliant I can't believe I didn't think of it myself. If you would like to clarify or change it, it would be much appreciated. I am only familiar with physics, where we don't seem to have a uniform database identifier for the entire field, although the arXiv preprint numbers are fast becoming the de-facto standard. (Although journals usually remove then when they publish an article, unless the reference hasn't yet appeared in a journal.) –Joke 15:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Thanks, these guidelines are much needed because there can be confusion sometimes. I am happy to see that in references full title and DOI's are appreciated, also that the use of examples and simple derivatizations in mathematics are encouraged without running the risk of getting hit by a NOR verdict. I am also glad to see that Wiki finally acknowledges that technical articles can in fact be short, I hope that will put a stop to all the merge and stub madness that is crippling Wiki and finally we have a guideline for overview articles not having to list references when they are already listed in a secondary article (now we can start to revitalize the unsolved problems in chemistry article, currently slammed with a silly no-references tag. ) And why is DOI not universal? V8rik 16:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Image wishlist

I'm wondering...what sorts of images are on our WikiChemists' wishlists? --HappyCamper 04:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

well the standard of what many chemical viewers hate are the ugly, persistently rotating images such as that on benzyl alcohol. Low chem-art drives people away from the field. More positively, what I would most like to see but figure is impossibly far off:
  • for molecular species: a structure that can be rotated upon command, morphed with a click from (i) wire-framework with atom labels to (ii) space-filling to (iii) charge density.
  • for most polymeric solids, such as most binary oxides and halides, we'd want (i) wire-framework with atom labels of the asymmetric unit, (ii) some subset of the options in SHELX's drawing module, and (iii) "pack" where one could look at multiple unit cells.

--Smokefoot 13:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I've removed that image already, though I think it'll be reverted soon. I don't like those images either. --Rifleman 82 16:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmm...I was thinking of some other things entirely, say, hard to obtain things. For example, images of radioactive compounds from the lab. Illustrative absorption spectra, and the like. Test tubes of transition metal ions and their colours. Stuff that would really interest the generally reader... --HappyCamper 21:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
That there are many chemistry professionals here... makes it easier to collect these things. I've been taking some photographs of distillations, etc. Perhaps we can set up a separate sub-project where requests can be posted and fulfilled? --Rifleman 82 22:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there enough momentum for a project like that to be feasible and sustainable? Maybe a simple subpage would do? --HappyCamper 22:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Something like this: Image Request? --Rifleman 82 22:16, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes!! --HappyCamper 15:43, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
  • yes great idea, Wiki needs images not only of molecules and reactions but also of simple things like a chromatogram or a NMR spectrum, often you see an image taken somewhere but then the copyright is an issue, better to produce new images and give it the proper licence. It is also possible to use the gallery tag for multiple images see for example a great set on Benzophenone V8rik 16:34, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
    I'm wondering about that. If an image is produced by a particular machine, is it still copyrighted? --HappyCamper 09:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi chemists. This isn't exactly a wish, but an image-related dispute. Over at selegiline, one user, Jclerman, has decided that all chemical structures in Wikipedia should be screenshots of ChemIDPlus. He promptly replaced a structure I added to selegiline's infobox with a JPEG from this site, explaining that the infobox must be internally consistent, and since it has links to ChemIDPlus from the CAS number and so on, we must use the image from that site. I've suggested he continues discussion of standard image styles here. Anyone want to help? --Ben 03:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Ben's image is far superior, and furthermore it seems to comply with our style guide. This government image is not only very poor in quality, it is also not in ACS format (which we all agreed upon) - so even if cleaned up it would be non-standard. I'm all for us interlinking with other sites, and particularly open access & non-commercial sites, but that surely doesn't mean we have to use their JPG files as well! Or am I missing something? Walkerma 05:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Ben's image is better and support the re-introduction of his images that he did today. I also switched to his image at the related article Emsam. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
What does "internally consistent" mean here? --HappyCamper 13:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I suppose User:Jclerman believes that there is only one true depiction of the molecule, and that truth resides at ChemIDPlus. I interpret it that he expects all images of molecules in wikipedia should come from that ChemIDPlus so that they look "consistent" in terms of style (bond length, width, element font size, etc.). That said, if he were able to manipulate molecules, twist them around in his mind, he'd should see that they are one and the same and no canon is necessary. Side note: emsam and selegiline seem to be the exact same molecule. Why are they different articles? Both articles claim that they are MAOI. Should they not be merged? Rifleman 82 13:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
That puzzled me too...article seems to say that emsam is a commercial patch with Selegiline on it. --HappyCamper 13:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Huckel's rule a stub?

Hi over there, although i am not active on weekdays on wikipedia i am still keeping an eye in some. The othey day I've found Huckel's rule article is rather short and it has no images or any example of how is it used. I tried to use the information already writen on the article for my study, however i believe it is quite a stub, will somebody enhance it a little? or at least to put an image of a benzene or cyclic ring to explain the rule?. I would appreciate someone would do so. Cheers --HappyApple 04:22, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree - the article could certainly use some expansion and good editing. My German is a bit rusty, but it looks like there is a better article at the German Wikipedia which could be a good source of material for expanding the English version. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I have improved it a bit.--Nick Y. 17:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Article names starting with numbers

I'm asking about a convention - is the custom here to name the article "3-methylheptane" or "3-Methylheptane", ie. should we capitalize the first alphabet of the name if the name starts with numbers? --Deryck C. 05:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be 3-Methylheptane, but I'd suggest adding a redirect from 3-methylheptane. See here. Walkerma 05:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very very much. I appreciate very much your rapid reply. --Deryck C. 05:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, completely agree with Martin. Can I take this opportunity to remind editors that the redirect is essential in these cases, because the MediaWiki software will not recognise 3-methylheptane and 3-Methylheptane as the same article (it is only case-insensitive for the first character). Physchim62 (talk) 08:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for citation guidelines

Please see Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines. The proposal currently has the formal support of both the math and the physics projects but we need to know if other science projects agree with it or not. (both math and physics held straw polls, that may be a reasonable method of determinining things. I'll presume that how you decided consensus is an internal matter). JoshuaZ 21:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

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