Talk:List of chemists

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[edit] Delete Newton?

I don't think Newton is a chemist

I disagree. Newton spent many decades and wrote over a million words on the study of alchemy, the precursor to modern chemistry. --Marmor 00:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with Newton (or other natural philosophers) in the list. Newton was certainly an alchemist. I do question Lister and some other non-chemists that lived since the discipline of chemistry was clearly defined. Camarks 22:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Israel Shahak

The article about Israel Shahak has very, very little to do about his life as a chemist and should be removed from this list. Grhs126student 19:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The fact remains that he is a chemist. Therefore he meets the criteria for the list. Rmhermen 20:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria and name change

The above comment from back in January talks about criteria for the list. What are they? Surely not that the person is just a chemist. Otherwise the list would be massive and always incomplete. Should we rename it to "List of important chemists" as has happened to "List of publications in X", renamed to "List of important publications in X"? This might assist the repeated addition by a user of his own name to the list. --Bduke 23:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Is this one for real? He is not on the list of Nobel winners.

On a related matter. I think we should restrict this list to chemists who have a WP article and move any redlinks to here on the talk page until an article is created. That would ensure that all entries meet a notability test. However it is clear that some redlinks are very notable. They just need an article. What do people think? --Bduke 21:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the criteria needs to be different than just those chemists that have a WP article, otherwise this would be redundant with a category. Notable chemists that don't yet have an article should be listed. Perhaps WP:BIO and/or WP:PROF could be used as guidelines. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
If they are that notable, they should have an article. In the meantime, listed here would draw attention to the need for an article. I have just been through the whole list and checked redlinks, finding that several did actually have articles. I will check that the blue links are all for real and not to disambiguation pages. I have done quite a bit of reverting entries on this list and it is often difficult to know whether they are notable or not as the entry makes no such assertion. I certainly think it is best to move those here. There is one guy who adds himself about every month. --Bduke 21:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I have tracked down the redlink above. It was this vandalism on 5 May 2006. This shows how difficult it is to maintain lists like this with redlinks. --Bduke 21:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-verified people on the list

Re the above discussion, I am moving here those entries that I can not verify.

  • David Anthony Alberola, (1859–1927), American chemist and physicist. I can find nothing about this person. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bduke (talk • contribs) 06:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

Moved until verified, I could only find one paper by one of the names at this time. Das Nerd 22:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Bert Maes (born 1975), Belgian organic chemist
  • Gitte Van Baelen (born 1982), young, dynamical Belgian organic chemist from Mol

[edit] Combine with category: Chemists

I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to combine this list with the category chemists, or maybe change it's name to List of Famous Chemists. It seems silly to have two lists running side by side and the category list is easier to add to. - Curious GregorTALK - Synthesis for all 08:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC) (Sorry forgot to sign just now)

  • Comment. It is wrong to think of categories as lists. They categorise existing articles. If you read two sections above, you will see that I suggested removing entries that did not have an article. That list would then be equivalent to the category, although note that the category has many sub-categories. Chemists are mostly categorised under categories such as Category:American chemists. My proposal was opposed on the grounds that the list could include chemists who did not yet have an article. Adding the word "famous" or "important" is frequently opposed as being subjective or original research, so I'm not inclined to support that. I'm inclined to give a weak support to your proposal but I am going to draw the attention of the good folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry to it. This list does get a lot of inappropriate additions. I would also note that merge is not the appropriate word. The list would have to be deleted after ensuring that all the links were correctly categorised. --Bduke 22:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree with you on it not really being a case of Merging the article, but combining them in some way. I have made a suggestion about classifications [[Wikipedia_talk:Classification here]. It might not be the correct place for this kind of suggestion. If possible could you tell me where to post it to get people to think about it. Many Thanks - Curious GregorTALK - Synthesis for all 11:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll have to think more about it. Your suggestion or something like it came up on the wikien-l list some time ago. --Bduke 12:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep both - If I understand Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes, categories and lists can have different uses for helping find information and helping organize the editing. The advantages of lists are you can see the gaps in content that need added (red links). Also, you can follow the changes in the list content via history. Lists can also be sorted various ways, which may or may not be useful. Related changes can be more effective with lists; there can be invisible links to the talk pages to follow them and a list can be maintained as one page where a category may be large enough to require several. ChemGardener 18:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • There does not seem to be consensus to change anything and no comment for two months so I'm removing the tags.--Bduke 05:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adrian Albert

A random point Adrian Albert, (1907–1989), is said to be an Australian Medicinal Chemist, yet he was born in Chicago and is the place he most associated with. He never appears to associate with Australia...???

A wrong link. Adrian Albert was an Australian Medicinal Chemist and very famous too. The link points to someone else. I'll fix it. --Bduke 07:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Fixed. The Australian is Adrien Albert. --Bduke 07:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)