Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/archive03

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Archived talk discussion of WT:Chem for 2006

Contents

[edit] A-Class articles

I hope people don't mind, I tagged (on the talk pages) all of our A-Class articles as "Good articles" and listed them here. I think it will help raise exposure of these articles to a wider audience. I noticed a couple of things:

  • Acetic acid is listed there still, yet it is now an FA. Can I remove it?
  • Folic acid has a "cleanup" tag on it. Can someone more biochemical than me address this? I will leave a message for User:Borb. If it doesn't get cleaned up soon, shouldn't we demote the article to B-Class? Walkerma 07:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Well done, Martin. We need all exposure we can get. I didn't know of any {{GA}} template, otherwise I'd done it myself.

  • As we don't have a 'list of FA-class chemicals articles' I'd rather keep the acetic acid, hydrochloric acid and paracetamol (our three FAs) in the same 'list of A-Class'. Perhaps we must retitle the section to indicate A-Class and better?
  • folic acid: support for demotion, although it has been discussed now several times. Wim van Dorst 09:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC).

I added a few new proposals for A-Classification to the A-Class proposals. Please comment. Wim van Dorst 21:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Ammonium thioglycolate

Hello. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I came across Ammonium thioglycolate while random paging today, and I think I needs a little attention. Its content is fine, but I think perhaps a more experienced chemist could perhaps take a look at the language and make it a bit more formal. Thanks. MJSkia1 03:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I have rewritten the page as requested. I have strong doubts about one part of the chemistry, so I posted a "disputed" tag and posted my reservations on the talk page. I also left a message with the original author, requesting a reference. Walkerma 04:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
UPDATE: K resolved the disputed tag very nicely, and PC added a small chembox, now a respectable looking stub IMHO. Thanks for bringing it to our attention! Walkerma 05:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Links to ether

Under "What links here" for ether, the functional group, there are several hundred links. I've noticed that most them really should be directed to diethyl ether, the solvent. I've gone through the first hundred or so and pointed them to the correct article, but there are plenty more to do. I'll try to get some more done in the near future and maybe someone else can help out as well. Thanks. Edgar181 16:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I corrected a few of them. Another similar situation exists with alcohol. There are thousands of links to that article about the functional group which should be directed at alcoholic beverage or ethanol. But maybe that one does not need the effort to correct them because there is a note at the top directing to those other articles. MikeParker 14:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I think we ought to have a go at correcting them, although there are nearly 2000 links: I don´t see what George W. Bush has to do with organic chemistry, for example... Physchim62 (talk) 16:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the mention of alcohol. I have wasted much time reverting drunken idiots on that page, and it never occurred to me (duh!) that they might have been linked into there. I did about 50 of these with the edit tag "dab alcohol" and I will do some more, this should hopefully reduce vandalism. I think ether is less of a vandalism problem. BTW, the ether page used to be mainly about diethyl ether up until a year or so ago I think, that may explain the problem. Walkerma 17:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I think ether is done now, except for user and talk pages. The remaining links should be for ether, the functional group. I'll now try to help out a bit with links to alcohol. Edgar181 19:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Magnesium sulfate

I would like to add magnesium sulfate to the project, may I put the notice on the talk page? Or someone else do it the way its supposed to be done. User:218.103.132.85

I have added the template as requested, we should have done this. I will even try to get a photo of some MgSO4 soon to spice up the page a little! Thanks, Walkerma 06:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Google question

A while ago I started the list inorganic compounds by element, where compounds are listed by fomrula (rather than by name as on list of inorganic compounds). One aim of this was that if someone did a Google search on (say) AlGaAs2, they might find this page, and then find their way into the article. Google does now find the page, yet if one types AlGaAs2 into the search as well, it finds nothing. If one goes to the page itself and does an "Edit-Find in this page" it finds AlGaAs2 without a hitch. Does anyone know what the problem is here, and how I can fix it? Thanks Walkerma 16:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The problem may be with Google. Perhaps they didn't index AlGaAs2 correctly, or perhaps they haven't indexed Wikipedia recently. (I think they index Wikipedia weekly.) Also, I imagine that the list of inorganic compounds has a rather low page rank, because most all links are outbound. If it is Google's problems, there's nothing we can do. I hope that helps. ~K 17:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. The page itself is on Google, and the cached version does include AlGaAs2. I can understand it having a low page rank, but it should at least find it! Walkerma 17:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It might be a problem with the indexing of formulae: have you tried searching for AlGaAs<sub>2</sub>? Physchim62 (talk) 09:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Work with WP Mol & Cell Bio

Hi folks,

Please see this discussion, scroll down to the end for my comments. We need to coordinate biologically-related stuff with them, I think it should be very helpful- they could help with any our FACs, for example, by writing a bio section if relevant. Walkerma 17:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Amino acids

Guys, all the amino acids in their main images in their respective articles, and in the images in the amino acid article, have been drawn in D-configuration (first noted by an anonymous user). Normaly i would not give it a hustle but as this is a mojor fumble it has to be fixed as soon as posible. I could do it myself but i prefer that the images are replaced by those who have created them. If nothing is done for a 3 day period starting from now then i have to start replacing them.
Also keep in mind about the second optic center in Thr and Ile. -- Boris 15:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, this is serious! I never use Fischer projections myself so I never noticed till I checked in a book just now. Unfortunately the original creator of the early pics is no longer active in chemistry, but some of the more recent ones might be fixed more easily. Thanks a LOT for mentioning this. Walkerma 05:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I will begin correcting the images. The old ones can be replaced with my new ones. I will start by correcting the Fischer projections but I will happily draw normal 3 dimensional structures in the future. -- Borb 18:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you! I wonder if we should draw both Fischer and 3D, and show them side by side? I'm thinking of the way we put line angle, ball-stick and Lewis structures for acetic acid, maybe it would be good to show amino acids in two formats? I think most organic chemists like myself use wedge-dash forms, whereas some biochemists prefer Fischer. Likewise I tend to think of R/S, where many biochemists tent to think of D/L. What do you think, Borb? Cheers, Walkerma 19:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I think thats a good idea. I will do the 3D diagrams when I have finished the Fischers. Also, since there is no point getting rid of the D diagrams, is there any easy way to move the exisiting diagrams on the commons to their respective D-name? ie. Alanine -> D-Alanine? The only way I can think is re-uploading all of my D diagrams again. -- Borb 20:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, i've done them. I have uploaded them as L-Alanine etc. so the D ones are still there under their original names, i'll try to get them moved on the commons or deleted if neccesary. I will start on the 3D ones tomorrow.

What do you want to be done about the main amino acid page? Shall my new images be put there one by one or would you like me to make a collage like the old one? Also would you prefer them to be shown as their ionised forms? -- Borb 21:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you make a table of the individual pictures, to give the effect of the old collage? That way a user could click on any given amino acid and you could have that take them to the relevant article (rather than to the image file)- that would seem the ideal system. You may get some ideas from this reaction scheme (a table). If not, then just I'd say make a collage as before. Regarding the D ones, I'd suggest editing the image tags to say D-Alanine etc; it seems to be impossible to move image files to a new name. Thanks a lot for fixing these so quickly! Walkerma 22:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The <gallery> function should work well for creating a "collage" that will adapt to different browsers, etc. Edgar181 22:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Also- personally I have a mild preferance for the zwitterionic form, but I don't think it's too critical as long as both forms are explained properly on the amino acid page. What is the usual form used in biochemistry? I just checked four organic texts, two had the zwitterionic form in their main table, two had the non-ionised form. Walkerma 22:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I have made a table up here using the <gallery> function. I have also edited the description of Image:L-Alanine.png to make it redirect to Alanine. It works quite well with the images being on the Commons because the original Commons description does not have to be altered. However, it may be confusing to users who actually want to view the image's description. I will try doing a more tableless layout more like the reaction scheme sometime tomorrow if I get time.
As for whether the diagrams should be zwitterionic or non-ionised, I have no preference. I will draw the zwitterionic forms after I have done the 3Ds, it could be useful to have both in the articles and then it can be decided which forms to use in the main amino acid article. -- Borb 23:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
As a chemist (and not a biochemist), I slightly prefer the non-ionized formulae for the amino-acids, but I'm willing to be over-ruled! For image names, it is going to be very difficult to change the Commons names: however I am willing to consider requests for (minor) abuse of my superpowers to change the names of images kept on English Wikipedia. Physchim62 (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello everyone. Disclaimer: I Am Not A Chemist. Without being aware of this particular discussion, I just created, uploaded and placed in their respective articles 3D-models of the 20 standard amino acids. Could you please comment on their validity? Mstroeck 00:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orange for {{Chem Start}}

Hi all, it may be my monitor or it may be my anomalous trichromacy, but the pink didn't distinct much from the gray. So I took the liberty to edit it to orange. Is this too outrageous? If so, feel free to revert. If not, thanks. Wim van Dorst 23:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC).

I've seen these on many different monitors, and never had a problem - the grey and pink seemed very different to me. However I don't mind orange at all, although you will see that the original colours have now been used in 1 or 2 other places such as here! Walkerma 06:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chloroacetic acids

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, but I'll ask it anyway... There is a Chloroacetic acid page and a Chloroacetic acids page. There is however no Dichloroacetic acid page, it is just a redirect to Chloroacetic acids. Chloroethanoic acid also redirects to chloroacetic acids. I think that dichloroacetic acid, and trichloroacetic acid pages should be made, or the Chloroacetic acid page should be merged with the Chloroacetic acids. Does anyone have any suggestion which to do, or disagree? I posted here because I realsed that not many people are likely to read the talk pages of those tiny articles. --PhiJ 12:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The only reason for this is that nobody had got round to writing articles about dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid: I've done that now, or at least started them. Physchim62 (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Cool. I wasn't sure if the plural article was meant to be there to cover all three. Thanks.--PhiJ 09:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the plural article was there to cover them until someone got round to writing full articles about them! This trick is used quite often on articles about chemicals; we give a little bit of information until we format the whole lot. However, trichloroacetic acid definately deserves its own article, so I created it. As for dichloroacetic acid, it is less important but at least it the article answers one or two questions. Physchim62 (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2-Pyridone

I created a small article on 2-pyridone. I had a do with it during my studies. I have no clue where it should be linked to. Maybe someone could give me a hint! Stone 16:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

WOW. -- Boris 18:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, that's a very nice article! (That's British English for "WOW", by the way!) I hope you will consider joining us on this project, and consider contributing more. We should consider adding this compound to our "other important compounds" list; the tautomerism in this compound and its relationship with DNA bases make it interesting in my book. Students learning about heterocyclics are often puzzled why the pyridone form is even seen, since they know that phenol does not do the same thing to any extent, so I've often heard this compound discussed. Thanks, Walkerma 22:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • It's upthere, with a B-Class classification. That's a good start, considering that most go the laborious way of Stub->Start->B-Class. Things that could improve it are information on Application and Manufacturing/Production. And a bit on safety if applicable would be nice too. That's all. Good work, Stone! ps. Care to join WP:Chem?? Highly recommended. Wim van Dorst 16:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC).
Thanks!! I hope to get it to A-Class some day! But to get it Featured_article would be great but with a chemical so boring like 2-pyridone (sorry my beloved 2-pyridone, I had you for 5 years) will be the hard way. I will try to contribute to projects where my help is needed.Stone 07:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Absciscic acid?!?

This is probably a typo for Abscisic Acid. Absciscic acid is not even a synonym of Abscisic Acid. This article needs to be deleted. -- Boris 15:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I checked to see if Chemical Abstracts has any mention of absciscic acid, and it doesn't. So you're right, it's likely a typo. I went ahead and redirected to abscisic acid. Edgar181 15:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The redirect would be good if this is a synonym, since it is not this article should be deleted. -- Boris 15:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
No, a redirect is fine for a possible typing error as well. Physchim62 (talk) 19:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3D models of molecules

Ferrocene
Ferrocene
Ferrocene
Ferrocene
Biotin
Biotin

Hi. I also posted this over in WikiProject Chemistry, but realized this page might be more appropriate. I have started to create 3D-models of about 200 molecules, which I could upload to Wikipedia. As an example of what could be done with them, see the infobox at Caffeine. I have no experience editing articles on chemistry, so your thoughts are welcome. Is this a good idea? Mstroeck 00:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I like that. What's the program you use? You might want to cooridnate your work with Borb, he also makes 3Ds, as to where and how they should be placed in the info table. Is't the standart color for the Carbon atoms black? Black woud be better than green. - Boris 02:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm using iMol [1] for Mac OS X and data from some other place that I can' find the link for just now. I'll try to find it and post later. Yes, I noticed that the colors are somewhat strange, I'll remedy that when I create further pictures, as soon as I find out how to do it :-). Thank you for your feedback, I'll also contact Borb. Mstroeck 03:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, these look nice! I don't do a lot of 3D, though I did the image in the acetic acid infobox using the ChemDraw 3D feature. I think your 3D images look nicer, assuming things like bond lengths/angles are OK. I agree about the black for carbon. Thanks! Walkerma 03:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
While I'm wating for some more feedback, I have created some new models according to suggestions, have a look at caffeine again and tell me what you think. Mstroeck 16:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

When molecules are rather large, it's not possible to fit two representations next to each other. See Sucrose or Octane to see what I mean. Should we keep it like that? Mstroeck 17:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so about Sucrose, it's quite messed up, but it's ok - this has happened to all of us. Fru is represented with its L-form. In the D-form if the furan's ring O-atom is farther away from the viewer and the -CH2OH group at C-5 is on the left side then this group is above the plane of the ring, on your image it is bellow the plane and the rest of substituents at all the ring C-atoms are in their L-optical position. When the O-atom is the closest, as in your drawing, this group if it is on the right side has to be above the plane of the ring again. You have done the same thing with Glc. Here is a good reference. You don't have to rebuild the structure just flip the image horizontally. -- Boris 18:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Boris! Sorry, but most of what you just said is Greek to me, I must admit :-) I'm not a chemist, my last exposure to chemistry was some eight years ago... I flipped the picture, did you mean that: sucrose . Considering that I might mistakes like that again, perhaps we should cooperate: I upload stuff, you tell me when I mess up. Mstroeck 22:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not going to work. Last night when i wrote my reply i re-checked everything many times to make sure i wasn't mistaken. And i'm not but we can't use it because after you flipped the image Fru is now under Glc and vice versa. So you have to re-do it. -- Boris 16:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I created some more (see images). Have a look at them and tell me what you think. Also, feel free to put them into their respective articles if you feel they are good enough. Mstroeck 04:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

In biotin the group of 6 atoms N(-H)-C(=O)-N(-H) has to be in the same plane. -- Boris 16:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Boris, could you explain this to me? What do you mean by "in the same plane"? Shouldn't a 3D model be "correct" regardless of how I turn it? Isn't it more interesting to show as many atoms and connections as possible, instead of putting things in a plane (as I understand it) and thereby hiding the angles that atoms are at to each other? These are honest questions out of ignorance, so please don't take offense :-)
Alright, i just made an image for ya, which should be able to help you understand why these 6 atoms have to be in the same plane. If it still doesn't ring a bell then i have to explain with text too.
-- Boris 18:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Wow, thank you very much! I think I know more or less know what you mean and made a new one, which you now see on the right side of this page. Still, I'd appreciate an explanation in text if you find the time. No hurry, though :-) Mstroeck 00:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] benzoic acid

Next project: benzoic acid I started here User:Stone/Benzoic acid in the next days I want to replace the old page if everybody is OK with it. Stone 10:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

That's what i'm talking about. I love the biology section. -- Boris 14:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
An excellent choice, and a good start so far. Thanks! Walkerma 02:32, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Raney nickel is Featured!

Perhaps it is obvious to many, but I was pleasantly surprised to see another good chemistry subject as catalyst raney nickel to become featured article yesterday. Congratulation to all contributors, notably Rune Welsh. And of course it did it the honour we have (mistakenly) overlooked up to now: I listed it on the worklist. Wim van Dorst 20:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Collaboration of the month (COTM)

Walkerma's COTM proposal over at the WP Chemistry has been met with silence. I think it's an excellent idea, so I'm proposing it over here in the hopes that others will also be interested. If others are interested I'll design the page and get the ball rolling. Tell me what you think. ~K 04:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm still interested, BTW. I note that Jay is too. Walkerma 05:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it's a great idea and I will participate. Edgar181 17:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IUPAC names?

Would there be any support for systematically moving articles to use international standard nomenclature? eg Zirconium propionate -> Zirconium propanoate. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 12:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The use of trivial names (like aceton then 2-propanon)is more comon and a lot of people refere to chemicals by the name they learned. A redirect and a list wit IUPC names is a good idea, but to move alle names would be alot of work, and i doubt the benefit.Stone 14:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
You need to look over Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry). Unfortunately, you chose a bad example! Propionic acid is acceptable under IUPAC, it may even be preferred (not sure), as long as it's not substituted. Acetone and acetic acid are recommended as preferable to 2-propanone and ethanoic acid, although the so-called systematic names are allowed. Some textbooks get this wrong, you have to look at the IUPAC publications. One other problem, should it be zirconium(IV) propionate or zirconium(IV) propanoate, or even zirconium tetrapropionate? All of these names need redirects, then anyone can find the page, whatever it's called. In summary, the rules are as follows:
  • If the compound has a non-IUPAC name that is nevertheless the usual name, use that as the name. Example: Camphor.
  • If the IUPAC name is widely used (and it often is, since IUPAC accepts many common names), then that is to be preferred over non-IUPAC names (example: hydrochloric acid not muriatic acid.
To judge "widely used" it can help to use Google or SciFinder or Science Direct; sometimes a name is common in one country but not in another (I'd never heard of muriatic acid till I moved to the US). Walkerma 14:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I just added redirects to the above. Walkerma 16:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Be careful: in the example quoted, the "international standard" nomenclature is actually propionate! Physchim62 (talk) 00:17, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry), I'd overlooked it. I was taught by people very keen on systematic names, so I prefer them, but if there's an established policy I'm happy to go along. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 00:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NIH-shift

Do we have an article for the "NIH-shift"? This reaction mechanism is used by Phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) and 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPD) and i want to upload some images. -- Boris 17:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wanted to join

I think I am too stupid to join! With the asterix and four tildes at the edit page I get only stupid stuff at the preview! To edit my name manualy into the list was an alternative I was afraid of. Stone 22:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

  • No, don't be afraid: just edit the section and write your usercode/name just as all the others have done. And you're really welcome to join, of course. And even if (IFF) you wouldn't succeed at getting your name in the participants lists, you're still welcome to add good content to all those chemicals wikipages that needs a little TLC. Wim van Dorst 22:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC).

[edit] benzoic acid

Now I think it ready to present, but like all wikipedia article it is not ready. I would be really glade to get som sugestions for changes. Should the article be upgraded from start to the next level? Stone 13:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

  • It is an interesting read, but I'm sorry to say that you won't make it to the next level after {{Chem Stub}}, which would be {{Chem Start}}. I have already bumped it up to {{Chem B-Class}}. Of course there is room for further improvement, such as
  • some more on the history of the product. The Nostradamus link is interesting, but between then and now there should be some more?
  • if the US alone already produces over hundred thousand tonnes, there must be more info about the applications, e.g., how does it work as food preservative, etc.
  • US isn't the world (although some might think that), so some more on world production figures, perhaps producers etc.
  • The chemistry pictures look nice, but I guess some org chem as dr Walker would be able to add a lot too it. Try to beat him, and add it before him. Wow, that's a challenge. ;-)
  • You never can say enough about safety. e.g. what if your transporting a truck full of it? And if you fall into a bunker filled with it?

All in all, a good well growing article. Decidedly a B-Class. Wim van Dorst 23:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC).

Thanks I will work on it and I just downloaded some literature for the benzoic acid.

To be faster than Walker seams impossible he is everywhere at the same time. (He has to have 5 heads and 10 arms!)Stone 11:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think you seem to be the productive one, writing so many nice, detailed articles! I just have a big watchlist...... Please keep up the good work, Walkerma 05:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! To be alittle adicted helps alot with the project.Stone 16:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think anyones addicted to Wikipedia. ;-) We can all stop anytime we want to. Right... ~K 17:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Updating is still going on!
  • Sorry but with Nostradamus this is only cited in two cites, so I will mention the names of the other discoverers also.
  • Use and production will be updated. Most of production ends as phenole, chloride and in the food.
  • Production numbers for the world have to be found, but I am after them.
  • pictures will be update when I am back to my computer at home.

To get the old books from 1556 till 1611 printed in London and Basel is more chalenging than Ithought.Stone 16:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Uranium compounds

I believe Category:Uranium compounds would benefit from a review by someone from this project Ste. Anne 20:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the posting. I took a quick look over it, adding a definition. I moved URhGe over to its correct name and made uranium oxide into a disambiguation page. Is there anything else you had in mind? I'm only an organic chemist so there's only so much I can see! Walkerma 05:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I have issues with The Uranium trioxide entry. Specifically the section on UO3 gas. Something is fishy bout it but I don't have access to the papers quoted. I wonder if you could point a inorganic member of your group at it and see what they think. --Ste. Anne 10:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The uranium trioxide gas is very strange and the rest also. I will try to get a hand on a Gmelin and Ullmanns to get to know more. For now I changed the chemistry a little.Stone 12:03, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
A political agenda has infested UO3 related to a supposition that gaseous (!) UO3 contributes to Gulf War syndrome.--Smokefoot 14:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
For those so disposed, the debate is here: Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Depleted uranium and related articles/UO3 vapor, the editor insisting on the existence of this gas is the subject of a RfA, details of which are here: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Depleted uranium and related articles. The other articles in Category:Uranium compounds are not part of this dispute but as mentioned above, could use a looking over by members of this group. --DV8 2XL 16:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I feel very sorry to interfere in an ongoing cruel war on the Golf War Syndrom. My personal opinion is that this syndrom had something to do with the war itself. The DU is one of the sources not used in former wars in this amount so it looks likely to investigate a littel more, but after reading some of the text it looks like sponsored research from both sides which makes it hard to get the NPOV out of it. And as the dispute in research is not over it is questionable to make up the same discussion here. The UO3 gas is highly questionable, the text looks like intrinsic stable vakuum experiment. With experiments like this presepitation to larger particles is excluded for the vacuum in which only a few UO3 fly around never hitting each other. But the formation of UO3 or U2O5 dust while burning DU is likely (ever seen Mg burning?) so the U03 dust in the air is not much less dangerous than the suggested gas. Stone 09:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Changes in worklist status" table - archive?

I put this second table up in September to help make sense of the statistics we had then in the main status table - to allow us to see that some articles had gone from the list and some new ones were added, some were reduced from A-Class, etc. It took a bit of time to compile, and I don't have time now to update it. I propose that we just archive it in with the September discussion, unless someone else thinks it's important enough to maintain. Walkerma 06:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Yes. (I can't be so verbose as you). :-) Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Potassium Monopersulfate

Hello, I found this web site while searching for information on Potassium Monopersulfate. I am not a chemist but I do get involved with swimming pool water chemistry, and I would like to beg a little help and advice. I would like to know the chemical reaction of Potassium Monopersulfate when introduced into Brominated water - i.e. a spa that is disinfected using bromine tablets - These I believe are Brom chloro demethylehydantoin. The reaction of the bromine content is to disocciate into hobr (hypobromous acid) and obr (Bromide ion). the hobr reacts with organic debris to give br- (bromide ion). The chlorine content disocciates to hocl (hypochlorous acid) and ocl (the hypochlorite ion) - the hocl then reacts with the br- to regenerate hobr + chloride ion. My query is - if potassium monopersulphate is added to the spa is there a reaction to the br- to regenerate it back to hobr in the same way as is done by chlorine content? Thank you in advance for any help or advice Malcolm. Posted 8th Feb 2006. (Moved from archive1 page).

[edit] 2-Bromo-1-chloropropane page move

Someone moved 2-Bromo-1-chloropropane to the lower case title 2-bromo-1-chloropropane, which is contrary to naming conventions. I tried clicking the "revert" link on the page move log, but kept getting timed out without the change taking effect. Maybe it requires someone with administrative powers to do it. Edgar181 18:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Moves like that can be reverted by any user, so I think it was just a database problem. In any case, I have moved it back to it's correct position. Physchim62 (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of it. Edgar181 12:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phosphine vs phosphane

What's the WE stance on this nomenclature issue? If phosphane, how far does this go. Is PH3 phosphane? And is Ph3As, triphenylarsane?--Smokefoot 04:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

No, phosphine is one of our exceptions, noted as such at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry), given that so few people use the term phosphane. Ethylene oxide is another. Physchim62 (talk) 05:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VOCl3

What is the official name for this molecule, i.e. what should the article be titled?--Smokefoot 14:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Vanadium(V) oxytrichloride, I guess. And redirects are cheap. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC).
  • After a little bit more thinking, I think it would be better to drop the (V), in compliance with the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry), so it would then be: Vanadium oxytrichloride. Now the sequence of the O and Cl. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC).
    • I agree with Wim. The IUPAC name would be vanadium oxide trichloride, but I've never heard that used. I would call it vanadium oxychloride in the lab, but this is probably too ambiguous for an article title. Vanadium oxytrichloride seems unambiguous to me, unless someone objects. Physchim62 (talk) 10:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Sounds good to me. I must admit I'd thought about starting a stub on this compound, but held off because of the naming problem! VOCl2, VOCl and VO2Cl are other known compounds, see p993 of Greenwood & Earnshaw. Walkerma 12:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, chromyl chloride remains available.--Smokefoot 18:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Of the names I surveyed, vanadium oxytrichloride handily wins the Google poll and is the Aldrich name. Vanadyl trichloride is the Merck name. The systematic name trichlorooxovanadium seems to have little actual use. Count this as support for vanadium oxytrichloride. Shimmin 20:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Methylene diphenyl diisocyanate

I recently made some contributions to articles about diisocyanates, including the one with the title 4,4'-MDI. One action I took was to move this article to methylene diphenyl diisocyanate. My reasoning for this was that the article was about a compound existing as several isomers with very similar properties. The 4,4' isomer is the one of greatest interest, but also produced during its manufacture is a mixture rich in the 2,4' isomer, and a mixture of polyisocyanates, polymeric MDI. I believed the move also made the article consistent with the article on toluene diisocyanate, which exists as 2,4 and 2,6 isomers.

User:Wimvandorst has objected to this, stating that WikiProject Chemicals has agreed a principle of one article per compound. He has referred to me to previous discussion on the talk page [2]. However, my understanding of this discussion is that no firm rule was established. In particular, isomers were considered on a case-by-case basis.

If the consensus view is that methylene diphenyl diisocyanate should be named after the 4,4' isomer, I believe the name should be methylene diphenyl 4,4'-diisocyanate. I believe 4,4'-MDI is not the right title because it is not consistent with the Wikipedia:Naming conventions, which state that acronyms should be avoided in titles. Alan Pascoe 23:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Of course I still think that we should adhere to the one compound per article principle, as that is why I created the 4,4' isomer article in the first place. Nonetheless, you have a good argument in renaming it from a chemical perspective, into not using the abbreviation in the title. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC).
I am a great supporter of the one article per compound rule, partly because it's hard to write a good chembox if there are three isomers! However, this only applies when all isomers are worthy of an article. For example in the archived discussion mentioned above, the group felt that 1,2-butadiene did not deserve its own article separate from 1,3-butadiene, so both are listed together at butadiene. So the questions I have are:
  • Is 4,4'-MDI the only isomer that is widely used? If not, are the 2,4' and 2,2' also widely used? Any others (after all one could in principle make 3,4' etc, but not so easily)?
  • Are the various isomers always made as a mixture and separated, or are there different methods used for making each of them?
  • Are the various isomers always used for the same thing (polyurethane), or are there significant secondary markets that differ for the various isomers (such as one being used to make a pharmaceutical, with another used to make an agrochemical - these are fictitious, for illustration only!).

If the overall view is that 4,4'-MDI dominates, and the 2,2' and 2,4' are only isomers that are always used in mixtures with the 4,4' or at least for a very similar purpose, then the article should be one single article IMHO. I would support the status quo, where the article has the generic title but focusses mainly on the 4,4' isomer. If, on the other hand there are significant uses of the other isomers that are different, or if the other isomers have significant production by other means, then a separate article is warranted. See, for example phthalic acid - here the isomers are all major commodities, made by different methods and all with major uses and chemistry that are different, so we split the article into three separate isomer articles. By the way, Alan, welcome to the project! Walkerma 05:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] OneTwo sections in the worklist is are free of Stub level!!!

There is progress in the worklist: compliments to Smokefoot, Alan, Martin and PC, and several other contributors. we have achieved another first: the section of Commodity Chemicals has risen well above Chem Stub articles. Anyone care to work up the pentane article for a second Stub-free section? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC).

Good news! OK, Wim, you've thrown down the gauntlet, why don't we make it an informal goal for the project to get pentane at least to B-Class over the next month or so? Wim, will you help? Cheers, Walkerma 05:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
As the author of the new form chembox on pentane, I'll see if I can find anything else to improve it with :) Physchim62 (talk) 11:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I put the latest version of our chembox in, added some information, did some copy-edit work and lo-and-behold: it's Chem Start now. AND I got a full printout of the SRI report on NGLs, so I have some significant info to add in the near future. PS. What a boring chemical this is. It just is so insignificant that there's hardly any info on it. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC).

In a spree of activity, I re-assessed all Stubs in the worklist, and found quite a few articles now at a higher level. Compliments to all workers. There's isn't a third stub-free section yet, but this is quite some progress!! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 18:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC).

  • Another stub reassessing round makes it merely 48 stub left. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Pictures

I just uploaded a bunch of pictures to Commons for things like KOH, MgO etc. and thought I should mention a couple that don't have pages at present - caesium carbonate, and rhodium(II) acetate dimer. I also added a sample pic to the (Ph3P)4Pd page. I mention these because I was asked to add pictures of rare metal compounds - I took full advantage of a quiet, dry, sunny Saturday to do this. Cheers, Walkerma 04:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this what you want?

I would suggest that all members of this project Look at this Difference between revisions for the article Uranium trioxide and ask themself's if it is for nonsense like this that they contribute to Wikipedia. This has nothing to do with NPOV or depleted uranium politics, or Gulf war syndrome, and everything to do with one idiot who knows nothing about chemistry inserting his crackpot ideas into this topic. He misquotes his sources and misinterprets their content to support his belief that 'clouds of toxic radioactive UO<sub)3 gas' are blowing about the Mid East.
I have done my best to keep this editor at bay, and he is the subject of an ArbCom case, but his argument is that it is my word against his on this issue. I need some support, not at ArbCom, it's under control there, but in the Uranium trioxide article space itself. I have edit-warred over this too long now and I risk loosing my own credibility if I continue alone. --DV8 2XL 00:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I do a revert, because the gas chemistry is only at temperatures of 1000°C and I can not stand to read the Petition of James Salsman in the wikipedia which perse is a offence to me and a strong POV issue.

Luis A. Reyes Executive Director for Operations U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission BY EMAIL AS PER 10 CFR 2.206(a) --Stone 09:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Back again! And the gas is still coming up from UO3--Stone 16:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to my world Stone, and thanks for the support. --DV8 2XL 17:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bromine trifluoride

I think it is now a start not a stub anymore! Bromine trifluoride needs a native speaker to get my typos and spelling right and one with a feeling for style. --Stone 09:01, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I've had a go - let me know what you think! :)
Ben 13:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Good! But Xenon tetroxide is the next one!--Stone 16:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Nice article. I did a bit of copyediting. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all!! The three article

Should be upgraded from stub to start I think! I will try to improve all a littel with Ref and Reactions! --Stone 16:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I adapted the status to {{Chem Start}} for BrF3 and XeO4, and to a careful {{Chem B-Class}} (needs standard [[tl|chembox}}) for Benzaldehyde. Compliments for the work; I like the pictures too. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 15:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC).
Cannizaro will follow into Benzaldehyde. Ullmans Enzeclopedia told me the two methods to synthesise Benzaldehyde and Sodium technate was allso on my list. But thanks, we will get rid of the stubs step by step!

[edit] SMILES question

Hello, if there are any SMILES experts in the house, I had a question for you at Talk:Polymethyl_methacrylate#SMILES correct?. Thanks and cheers, AxelBoldt 18:42, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Another SMILES question just arose - on toluene where I reverted an anon edit. Edgar181 pointed out that the anon did in fact use the more correct SMILES, which I have now restored. Apparently ChemDraw treats aromatics as alternating single/double bonds, but SMILES does (I'm told) have a system for representing aromatics more correctly (see toluene for example). Can someone who understands SMILES (i.e., not someone clueless like me who just blindly cranks it out of ChemDraw) please comment on this, because currently none of our other aromatics uses the "correct" notation. Walkerma 17:14, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I have always used ChemDraw to generate SMILES too, and there are probably many dozens (hundreds?) of articles that have SMILES data that have this imprecise aromaticity-deficient information. Clearly SMILES notations that include aromaticity are preferable to those that do not, but I guess the question at hand is: are aromaticity-deficient SMILES data acceptable or not? --Ed (Edgar181) 17:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
And what about the SMILES produced by ACD/Chemsketch? Are those also aromaticity-deficient? -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 18:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Insofar as SMILES is a textual representation of a structural diagram, "aromatically deficient" smiles is as acceptable as a structural diagram of an aromatic compound showing alternating double bonds. Shimmin 19:46, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Using the Chembox template or normal table?

Should all the compounds be using the Chembox template or standard tables - I presume the latter so do the ones that don't need an update to use it?

Ryan Jones 22:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • We're a bit more humble than all compounds. That would be thousands. The wikiproject aims for all compounds in the worklist to have a full {{chembox}} table, for the article to achieve A-Class status. During startup, in Stubs and for articles which are part of other wikiprojects such as the Drugs Wikiproject, another style of infobox may be given preference. And there is a partially-done transcluded version of the chembox, but general consensus (see the archives under several headings) is that it doesn't do all the things properly, and it is significantly more complex than just substing the plain chembox, which by choice is strict in usage (see the comments in it), and not at all flexible (for which transclusion would be nice). But essentially: yes, all chemical compounds could well be served with a chembox. (ps. the chembox is only a template for easily substing it in an article.) Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC).
RyanJ: I understand - thanks Wimvandorst. A question to anyone - why does this not work (In the full table obviously):
{{Chembox/RPhrases|{{R1}}}} {{Chembox/SPhrases|{{S61}}}}
Ideas anyone?
Ryan Jones 10:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • It is the transcluded version, reported to not fully work correctly. And this is probably one of the glitches. Don't break you head over it, and use the plain table version. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 13:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC).
RyanJ: Will do that for now 0 thanks :)
Ryan Jones 14:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a known bug in the "ciscluded" version at the moment: I try to fix it from time to time, but I haven't found the solution yet. Note that {{subst:Chembox/RPhrases|{{R1}}}} does work, even if the resulting code looks a little strange for the uninitiated. Physchim62 (talk) 14:02, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


WikiProject Chemicals/archive03
Image:WikiProject Chemicals/archive03.png
General
Systematic name  ?
Other names  ?
R-phrases R45
Except where noted otherwise, data are given for
materials in their standard state (at 25 °C, 100 kPa)
Infobox disclaimer and references
It could be that the HTML code that is in the R/S templates, gets in conflict if assigned as a numbered variable {{{1}}} in {{Chembox/RPhrases|{{Rx}}}}/{{Chembox/SPhrases|{{Sy}}}}. Try using a name for the variable, say "phrase" -

| [[List of S-phrases|S-phrases]]
| [{{{phrase}}}]
|-

Then

{{Chembox/RPhrases|phrase={{Rx}}}}/{{Chembox/SPhrases|phrase={{Sy}}}}

and it should work.
P.S. {{Box If}} is an old template of mine that i don't use, well except for this example -- Boris 16:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The amino acid images

User:Benjah-bmm27 has uploaded new images and has replaced the old ones - see Special:Contributions/Benjah-bmm27, 19 March 2006. I left him a note. I think we should keep the old ones, for now. -- Boris 05:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I have read the comments you have left for each other, and it looks like there is plenty of room to accommodate each other's concerns. I think the content and style of Ben's new images are an improvement over the old images, but if they could be oriented as Boris suggests to keep them as "matched sets" with the 3D images, that would be even better. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Peer review#CS gas

I tried to help but as long we have no Science peer review somebody else should also have a look. Improvment is the goal!--Stone 10:50, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tungsten carbide - which one?

We have Tungsten carbide on this list but the question is which one? Do we need WC or W2C?

22:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

lets choose the one with more importance!--Stone 07:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

That would be WC, CAS [12070-12-1] according to the International Chemical Safety Card. Physchim62 (talk) 14:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DIAD vs DEAD

Smokefoot left a comment in an edit to the worklist on this. I originally suggested DIAD because it is my impression that in the Mitsunobu reaction, DIAD has largely supplanted DEAD as the reagent of choice. However I'm not an expert in this reaction, and I don't have any strong objection to DEAD being in the worklist instead. Any comments from Mitsonobu experts? Walkerma 03:27, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Martin. We're about to undertake another phase of stub upgrades and I wanted to assign the specific species you, Wim, and co most recommend. We wouldnt know either. --Smokefoot 03:34, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you assign both of them, and let your students find some references for us :) Physchim62 (talk) 14:19, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UO3 gas - need help

Need somebody recalculating a number!

Depleted uranium and uranium trioxide are the area where a dispute is running wilde.

Uranium oxide was detected to have a vapour pressure of 107- at at 1500K or so (also giving a log p to 1/T plot from 1700 to 1000K). The fellow wikipedian now states that there must be plenty of uranium trioxide arround at room temperature. With the ideal gas law I tried to calculate the numbers of molecules in one cubic meter at standart conditions. This is only a good guess I know. Now I need somebody to take a look and state that this is more or less right or total bullshit at all.

Look at Ackermann equation in the talk:uranium trioxide and state support or other there!

Thanks for your help!--Stone 07:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How is this structure posible?!?

Dialuminum dicarbide. -- Boris 00:59, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it only exists on a computational chemist's computer. If it really is an isolable compound, I would at least expect it to be symmetrical (H2AlCCAlH2). --Ed (Edgar181) 11:14, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, i thought about that too. -- Boris 08:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New template is in use

I forgot that i have to let you know about it. So here is the template in action - Alanine, Asparagine, etc (most of the amino acids). -- Boris 07:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Sorry, Boris, but it looks just like weak derivative of the chembox to me. May I recommend making it really specific for biological compounds or else simple compliance with the chembox? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC).
Wim, this template is just a variation of the Template:Chembox simple inorganic, man, it has three mandatory parameters (name, mass and formula - makes sence huh) and the rest are optional - you don't give them value you don't see them, which is better than having empty rows with "?" (well, unless you want to "draw manually" - no template use - the table for each page), don't you think? But if you insist i can make one for the full chembox template that will look and does better too, do you? I needed a better simple template b/c the articles that i keep my eyes on have info that can barely fill half of the simple chembox. And you can use it for non-biological organics too, see Dichlorodifluoroethylene, Iodotrifluoroethylene, Trichloroacetyl chloride etc. -- Boris 08:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
  • With the exception of a few molecule-specific fields like pKa, it might be nice to take the chembox in this direction: if it contains only general identifying information, demoting practically all real data to a data page, then (1a) the temptation to table creep is reduced, bringing with it (1b) more aesthetic image layout; and also (2) transclusion becomes feasible. Shimmin 19:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Pardon my bad English, Shimmin, what do you mean by saying "temptation to table creep is reduced", "transclusion becomes feasible"? -- Boris 08:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Heh. It seems the bad English is mine. :) Anyway, template transclusion is the wiki feature where the page can simply contain the name of the template and whatever data you want to feed the template, and the wiki produces templated code from this. It is the method used to make most of the standardized info boxes on the wiki, but not the chembox. The reason it can't work for the present version of the chembox is that templates aren't very flexible, and don't work well if you want to use the same template to present some data in one article, and some different data in another article. But if the chembox were to be stripped down to only those fields common to (nearly) all chemical articles (name(s), structure, identifying numbers, etc.), then template transclusion could work.
Table creep is the tendency of long tables to get longer as editors add more information to them. It is a nuisssance, and the reason that the chembox includes a link to a "data page" where all the miscellaneous properties of a substance can go, without cluttering up the main article. Shimmin 12:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Very interesting. Somewhere in the code are the solutions to the two main bugs for a fully transcluded chembox (templates as parameter arguments for R & S phrases; double bonds in SMILES)! However, I don't like the colours in the formula: white hydrogen on a white background is particularly difficult to read! Physchim62 (talk) 12:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
    • As far as I'm concerned, the high value of the current {{chembox}} template developed by the Chemicals wikiproject is in its completeness as well as its inflexibility. With this rigid template, there is no unclarity about which information should be provided: nothing more and nothing less (Ban the table creep!). And it is usable by everybody even without the knowledge of participating in the wikiproject: just edit the article and fill in the question marks. All transcluded alternatives (PC's with the aforementioned two technical issues, and now Boris's very short one) are very laudable activities, allowing for flexibility and prevention of empty chembox entries. In my opinion however they are therefore intrinsically not contributing to achievement of the WP:Chem goals. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC).
Wim, you can't load a stub article with the complete infobox ({{chembox}} in our case) you need a smaller infobox, right (unless the complete one is a small one in size)? So yeah the small infoboxes of any kind are intrinsically contributing BIG TIME. Now here is another infobox (it is still under construction and i'm going to add the info from the main part of the chembox too - pKa, isoelectric point, etc, and it will probably be completed tonight or tommorow at most) that is going to include the complete data for the organic compounds, the names and the image don't match b/c i didn't have time to make and look for the corect ones but if you want to fill it in with the good stuff fell free. This new chembox is a good example how a good complete chembox should look like (i'm sure it looks better that the old one and i'm also sure someone eventually will create an even better one). The small one (with the essential info) goes in the main article, the complete one goes on its own data article. Physchim62, you request for a "darker-not-so-white-looking" gray has been taken care for. Meanwhile i'll be waiting for you comments guys. -- Boris 15:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
    • The point is exactly that: even on stub articles you can add a complete chembox. In my opinion you even should, and preferably with the information included. And before or after adding the chembox you can add text to the stub article as well. The essence of the WP:Chem is to improve all 378 articles on the worklist to A-Class, and that will mean an intermediate phase with a partially filled chembox and limited text (Chem Start or B-Class phased articles)
    • If the intention would be to write a short article about a chemical compound, not part of the WP:Chem, alternatively you may use the already existing {{chembox simple organic}} or {{chembox simple inorganic}}, the latter of which is already transcluded by PC. And a transcluded full {{chembox}} has already been developed by PC as well, with those two tech problems.
    • Last but not least I think that your proposal for the datapage table is by all means a good step forward. There isn't a formal definition for it yet, although Martin Walker has developed an overall combination of section titles and tables such as hydrochloric acid (data page). May I recommend that you use plain b/w formulae and preferably no doubling of information already in the chembox. So, whereas I'm rather adamant about no table creep for the full chembox on WP:Chem articles, I laud you date page work. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC).
If I can join in this discussion fairly late, here are a few comments. Regarding the history of the amino acids table, last summer User:Borb developed a variant of the "Simple Organic" chembox specifically for amino acids, such as can be seen here. I think discussions at the time accepted that (a) having a short form table was much better than no table and (b) the isoelectric point and one or two other things are key data for amino acids, but not necessarily for much else. I agree with Wim that our goal should be an A-Class article with full chembox (+ isoelectric point, forgive the table creep!) for all of the main amino acids. For less important compounds that are stubs or starts I think a simple infobox is much better than none. Another point of history - the simple organic chembox (Borb's start point) was developed in 2004 (before WP:Chem even existed?) by User:Cacycle (the existing chembox at the time had become very clunky), and he chose to put the structure at the bottom. I prefer a simple form with the structure at the top, but when we were making choices we already had a couple of hundred organic articles with Cacycle's table on them so it made sense to standardise on that.
A few comments on the new template:
  • (a) I think in some cases the table creep is going sideways rather than down - I would suggest on some making the picture a bit smaller so the table doesn't take up more than one third of the printed page (look at "printable version").
  • (b) I think removing the Fischer projections that Borb put in his table is a loss - I personally loathe this Fischer projects but they are nevertheless widely used in drawing things like amino-acids. I don't know how we can fit these into the table but they need to be there.
  • (c) The table needs a disclaimer. Just copy the WP:Chem one, I think!
  • (d) I love the "Complete data" link!
  • (e) We need to discuss having a PubChem link in our table, this has been a major development in chemical information since we designed our chembox. I think we may even need to include an InChI link as well for the same reason, even if we have to remove a couple of other things to make way for these two additions.
Regarding the datapage, we conceived ours as a supplement to the main page, to include only data not present on the main page. I think the idea of a complete data page is a very interesting one and I think we should discuss it. It does duplicate information from the main page, admittedly, though only on a minor page - and it has the advantage of providing a single listing of all the data. Having a printable page with all the data kept together might be a nice feature. Currently our data pages are in much need of work, as seen in the HCl example Wim mentions (a more complete example would be Acetic acid (data page)), and I was going to propose a summer campaign to improve (or create!) these pages on all of our A-Class articles. Thanks for the work, Boris, and for the work of your colleagues at the WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology. Thanks too for consulting us! To close, a biochemist colleague of mine mentioned that he needed some basic amino acid info last month, and he was delighted with the information he found at amino acid and elsewhere. Cheers, Walkerma 07:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Halides or halogenides

Both are synonyms. Which one is recomended by IUPAC? -- Boris 08:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't find any recommendation one way or the other; in the absence of specific guidance, both would appear to be acceptable under the general rules for formation of anion names. Physchim62 (talk) 08:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
RyanJ: Its normally the first one I believe as its commonly used - I have not seen

halogenides used very often but I agree with Physchim62 there is no explicit decleration of which to use.

Ryan Jones 09:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it seems it is the first one. -- Boris 09:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Decomposition of ascorbic acid

Hi all. I've just posted a question at talk:ascorbic acid about decomposition of ascorbic acid (I'm studying chemistry at senior secondary level) — I don't know who watches that page, so I hope no-one minds if I draw some expert attention by posting here? (This might or might not imply potential edits to that article, but I don't know anything about the topic.) Thanks all, Neonumbers 10:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Decomposition? At 50°C with oxygen present you get from HO-C=C-OH at the 5membered ring to the oxidated state of O=C-C=0 there this is the reaction normaly ascorbic acid is used for an anti oxidant protecting other substances to be oxidized, by being oxidized.--Stone 10:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Stone. I've posted a response (i.e. more questions) on the talk:ascorbic acid page to avoid clutter here, if anyone doesn't mind. Neonumbers 12:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uranium trioxide Hi-jacking

Soon after I encountered the strangeness of the UO3 article, I chose to discontinue editing, hoping that the conventional inorganic chemistry perspective would prevail. Instead the problems have metastasized. The report is presently a forum for a sort of conspiracy theory, for lack of a better term. Is it not possible for our article assessment people to place a notice on this article that its reliability is disputed?--Smokefoot 23:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the revert war is still going on, and it was back to normal chemistry when I last checked, with the comment, "Wikipedia isn't a soapbox." We had a similar thing a year ago, see Talk:Methylsulfonylmethane, it finally got resolved with a peer review. Try to remember that we have about 3000 compounds covered where there is no controversy. Let's work on those! Walkerma 01:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Bringing trolls and cranks under control is the duty of the whole community. "Let's stick our head in the sand and hope this passes," puts a huge burden on those of us that care enough to maintain the integrity of Wikipedia, when half a dozen editors reverting this nonsense, like they would schoolboy smut if they found it in the same article, would drive these cranks away. In the article in question we have been treated to the spectacle of several knowledgeable chemist dancing to the tune of one editor who has by his edits and statements and questions demonstrated that he knows nothing of chemistry beyond what he has synthesized in his own deluded mind, and even their efforts are being typified here as a 'revert war'. You owe the folks that are holding the line a little better than that. I'm out of this fight now, but please support members of your own group that are still working there. --DV8 2XL 02:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, you're right, I didn't mean to imply we should ignore this. We do need to stop crank science or it will destroy the integrity of Wikipedia. I've mostly stayed out of the controversy only because it's not my area of expertise. I was simply trying to reduce wikistress, sorry if I implied otherwise. Walkerma 02:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lysine is K not L

Please forgive a newbie luddite. There is a picture in the "lysine" page that incorrectly lists the one letter code for lysine as L, not K (K is the correct letter.)

I thought the picture might be suggesting that the image is of an L amino acid, as in levorotary as opposed to dextrorotary, but a similar picture for isoleucine has an I in the same position.

The abbreviations sections has the correct letter, the error is in the picture in the lower left picture "Lys-stick.png" and was added on july 23rd 2005. I don't think the image can be corrected with a simple text edit and I don't know how to leave an explanation for removing the picture. Thanks. -ben

Good call, Ben. You leave your explanation in the small "edit summary" text box that is just above the "Save page", "Show preview" and "Show changes" buttons. I suggest that you remove the image of the article yourself. -- Boris 03:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I've edited the image in question in Photoshop. It now has K instead of L. Cheers guys. --Ben Mills 11:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC).

[edit] InChI

May I promote the use of the InChI as a powerful means of indexing all molecules with connection tables (all organic and many organometallic). InChI is a unique identifier, generated automatically (see InChI for links to open web services). We have shown it is indexed by Google and other search engines and so including it in WP will allow search engines to index these pages reliably and automatically. If InChI is added to the WP template it should be easy to add it for most compounds.

Petermr 12:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'd never heard of this a year ago, but I think it is probably growing in importance, particularly as PubChem is using InChI. I'm thinking we should probably include it in our chembox, what do others think? Walkerma 00:50, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Included. I don't like the "Database data" heading but i couldn't come up with anything better. Any ideas? -- Boris 01:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
The InChI on the formylmethionine page seems to be incorrect. InChIs need to begin with "InChI=". See the InChI page for example. --Baoilleach 17:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I see that the Formylmethionine (data page) has been updated but I still do not think this is correct. You need to be able to specify "The InChI is InChI=12/32/23/4/etc" as on Borneol. The problem is that the template used on Formylmethionine (data page) does not allow the presence of an 'equals' in the InChI value. --Baoilleach 14:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Indeed I keep hearing more and more about InChi, and less and less about Smiles. Inclusion in the Chembox may well be reasonable nowadays. But to prevent table creep, I would then like to swap it for Smiles and not adding it on . Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Weighted progress in WP:Chem (Wim's Prophesy)

I have invented a weighted progress indicator, simply calculated from the assessments of the wikiproject articles. For WP:Chem it currently stands at 57.0% done. For more details see above. Given the progress of the wikiproject sofar at 1.44% per month, it can easily be determined that this wikiproject will be finished on 2008-09-27. All articles will be A-Class then (by definition), and 10 of them will even be Featured Article. From now onward, this paragraph may be referred to as Wim's Prophesy. If true, I'll gladly buy champagne to all participants then contributing for more than three years. :-). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 17:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC).

I think that by one year from now we'll have over 100 members, and so we'll reach our goal faster. However I think stub -> start is 30 minutes, start -> B-Class is 2 hours, and B -> A-Class is 8 hours work. That may slow us in reaching our goal, offsetting the numbers increase. I'd be pretty pleased if we could have all those A or FA by 2008, myself. I'll hold you to that champagne, Wim! Cheers, Walkerma 05:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Martin, you obviously work much faster than I do! It is true that I can do a simple stub→start in ten minutes if I'm on form, but to get a truely good article takes longer than a single working day... To give an example, I spent an hour writing the safety section for sulfuric acid, not counting the times when I started and discarded the results, and this was with having all the relevant documents available! Sodium hydroxide is coming, I promise!
PC's prophecy is slightly different. I think we will have a coverage of chemical compounds which is equivalent to that of the Merck Index by the end of 2006, that is to say basic infomation on the 12000 or so most notable compounds. Free beer should be distributed in that event, I will see what I can arrange :). Physchim62 (talk) 12:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the time varies tremendously. I find for the terpenes I've been working on lately, one paragraph can easily take an hour. But if you have four ideal books all lined up ready on the topic, and you're familiar with the material, I think you can go faster. Also, the time depends on the importance; something like gold(III) chloride was much faster to "complete" than sulfuric acid. I'm pleased to hear about the free beer, thanks! For those of you new to the chemicals project, we don't tend to give one another barnstars, we prefer something more tangible, based on ethanol! Walkerma 19:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chemical properties

What shall i put in the "Chemical properties" section of {{OrganicBox_complete}}. I'm thinking about pK, pI, number of H-bonds (as donor and acceptor), tautomers. What else? - Boris 04:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest taking a look at Template:Chembox supplement. Beyond that, things like H-bonds and tautomers may only apply in some cases (esp. the tautomers), but we could leave an option for those things. We have pKa in the main table. Walkerma 05:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I got all this in the table, for obvious reasons i decided not to include "bond length", "bond angle" and "bond strength". -- Boris 10:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bromocresol green

Hi! I'm new to WP (I've been a wikiuser for quite a long time, but I just started writing articles last week). I created the Bromocresol green (as a side-need for the isosbestic point article I corrected). I wondered if someone could take a look at it and see if I'm going in the right direction (and also, as English is not my mother tongue, I'm a little prone to making mistakes, so if find anything wrong there, I'd appreciate a correction... ).

If you think I could be of help in WP:Chem just let me know, I'd be glad to join you.--Nevermore78 01:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Good job, man, for a "newbie" you have created a very good stub. You more than welcome to join the project. -- Boris 03:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, I would call that a "Start", not a Stub. To go further, it would need information on its synthesis and on the reasons why it is used in preference to other dyes: still, the most important info is there, and that is what is most important! Physchim62 (talk) 13:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both. I'll try to get some more information on the dye and it's synthesis. I've also done some writing on isoquinoline, as it was listed as a stub in your compound list(which it was quite indeed!).

I'll join WP:Chem with pleasure. You've all created a great workgroup! (and I'm also comfortable with the field of chemicals). I hope I can be of help. Thanks again. --Nevermore78 14:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

One more thing. PubChem 6451 shows a slightly different structure than the one you have drawn and i preffer theirs b/c it eases the steric hindrance of the three rings which would be quite big if they lie in the same plane as yours drawing suggests, or you have a good explanation for it (such as - the plane is not flat as it would normally be but it is very deformed and twisted) that you might want to put in the article. -- Boris 02:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that in the last edit you did to the article. I don't know why PubChem has that structure. I'll do some research about it. Anyway, PubChem does have some information that is definitely not right: the bromocresol green (BCG) is NOT the same as the Bacillus Calmet Guerin (also BCG) or the Bacillus Calmet Guerin Vaccine, as cited below "Depositor-Supplied Synonyms", so it should be removed from the "Synonyms" list in Bromocresol_green_(data_page). Besides, the nomenclature in the new version of the article doesn't correspond to the drawn structure (it is named including the byciclic feature of PubChem). BTW, is the {{template:NatOrganicBox}} a standard in chemical compound articles? I thought that {{template:chembox}} and it's reduced versions were preferred and recomended.--Nevermore78 17:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

  • OK, Boris - Image corrected. I looked it up into a couple of sources, including Index Merck 11th, and they have the "cyclic" (sulphur-including) version. But here comes another doubt: there are two versions for the sodium salt, one is cyclic, the other one not. Furthermore, even PubChem has two version for a closely related compound, bromocresol purple: PubChem 5286961 and PubChem 8273. Any clue? What are then the forms for bromocresol green in solution?--Nevermore78 23:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colors of the atoms

I think we should color them, it makes the diagrams look better. I have created this "Chemical elements coloring scheme" (it is based on PyMol), which uses the "rgb"-system (stands for "red green blue") - giving the "rgb"-values is one of the ways to color HTML content by using "<tag_name style="backgroundcolor/border-color/color/etc: rgb(xxx,yyy,zzz);">some_text</tag_name> - and i need your opinion. -- Boris 03:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Its a good idea - where would this be implimented, things like chemical formulas and such? Ryan Jones 10:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
It can be used when we draw images (see Bromodifluoroacetylchloride) or for styling the text (see in the same article the "Chemical formula" in the infobox). -- Boris 04:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a great idea but the article Chemical elements coloring scheme should be moved into the project space as Wikipedia:Chemical elements coloring scheme. It is not a WP article. --Bduke 11:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Mmmm, how about - Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Elements coloring scheme? This way we know it is part of the project, but then it will have its own page that we can edit independently. Do we have a "template" administrator in the project, and if we do could those of you who are put it in the "Participants" table? How about "image" and "article" administrators? -- Boris 04:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you create Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Elements coloring scheme by copying in the contents of Chemical elements coloring scheme and then ask an Administrator to delete the latter. --Bduke 07:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

As an outsider, I think the color scheme is a great idea! I took the liberty of implementing the suggested move. Please feel free to rename or move the page as appropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I am not convinced at all. Where should we be using thes colors? If it is to be in molecular model diagrams, we will still be restrained by the software that each individual editor uses. If it is to be in reaction schemes, do not forget that one often has to "change" the color of an atom to indicate where it comes from or where it ends up. My solution for images is that we accept the best that we can find (freely): if anyone wants to try to do better, they're welcome! Physchim62 (talk) 15:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
To be honest, I quite dislike the coloring scheme used in molecular formulas and diagrams. It's OK if its used in 3D models, as it adds information, but it doesn't seem to help in the reading of standard formulas (I perceive it more like a distraction).

Does anyone agree? Or is it just me? --Nevermore78 16:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I am OK with allowing it in formulae, but I agree with PC and Nevermore78 that in general color to indicate element type is redundant in formulae. I use color a lot in the (organic) classroom, and I invariably use it for things like "green for nucleophile, red for leaving group" or "red product forms from attack at alpha-position, green product forms from attack at gamma" etc. There is a tradition (from Woodward) of colouring the electron flow in mechanisms, and often we want to colour reacting atoms, as in the intro to Wittig reaction. Also see the excellent use of colour in V8rik's taxol image to indicate what pieces were used in the total synthesis. For 3D pictures and Jmol (when that comes), colour is essential, maybe we should see if there is some way to standardise on colour settings for those. The colours suggested here seem to be very good choice. Walkerma 17:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Alright, i guess i didn't specify what exactly the use of this scheme should be - in the infoboxes for the images of the structures and the chemical formulas, plus it could be used when showing structure images of proteins and other biological macromolecules, many of which are in complex with metal ions or other small molecules, so this goes beyond the WP:Chemicals as this project does not deal with them - although strictly speaking proteins and the others are chemical compounds too. Now if some of you want to use a different scheme for the reactions or the oprigin of the parts of the molecule go for it, in some of the images i have created i have done that and it makes sence as it offers different kind of information (Image:TCA reactions.png, Image:Nucleotides syn2.png, etc), but it'll be good if we set coloring rules for the reaction mechanisms, biochemical pathways, etc. -- Boris 03:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Please see my proposal for a workgroup below. Walkerma 05:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uranium

Need urgent help!! The Uranium is constantly flooded with UO3 gas! Cant revert it 3 time but somebody has to!--Stone 13:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

This case is currently under arbitration: feel free to leave comments on the arbitration pages. Physchim62 (talk) 13:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links in tables

Several folks in the last few weeks have been adding external links to the chemical infobox, mainly with the CASREF template (though others are seen too). The problem, as PC has pointed out (and others before that) is that this can cause problems when you come to print. The external link is expanded to the full URL, and this causes the table to expand to most or all of the width of the page. For this reason last year we established a policy not allowing external links in tables. I realise that the they would be nice (indeed I tried adding them last year), but until we can find some way to prevent the table or the URL expanding we should refrain from using CASREF and other external links in tables. Walkerma 02:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed workgroup on structure drawing

As a follow-on from the above discussion on colours, I think that we will need to agree on all of the settings for drawings. However that is much too big to deal with here. I have set up a temporary work-group to come up with an agreement on settings for structure drawings. I would like to hold off on actual writing at this point until we have a "quorum" of 6 people, because I think we should accumulate a group, not just have our policy be based on a consensus of 2 or 3 people. So, the workgroup is open to join, and Boris, I hope you'll be one of the first to sign up! Walkerma 05:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, we got six people straight away, enough to make what I defined as a quorum, so I've started off the discussion here, beginning with simple 2D settings. Please give your comments! Walkerma 06:52, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I added the category Category:Chemicalstructures to some pictures of the chemicals project. The variation is huhge and some are wikimedia or comons which will not show in this category!--Stone 11:49, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Good job, Stone! --Siva1979Talk to me 20:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table creep

WikiProject Chemicals/archive03
Except where noted otherwise, data are given for
materials in their standard state
(at 25 °C, 100 kPa)
Infobox disclaimer and references

Those who horror at table creep will be glad to see on the right the default version of the fully transcluded chembox; the two previous bugs have now been fixed, at the price of introducing a new bug over NFPA triangles. However, the table can be now used for any chemboxes which follow the old "simple" format, even before this final bug is sorted out. See {{chembox subst}} for the full list of possible parameters (not recommended for those of a faint heart or with a visceral hatred of table creep). Physchim62 (talk) 11:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much for working on that, PC! Just one thing, if we use the table exactly as shown on the right, maybe we could add to the disclaimer, "Go and look it up yourself, you lazy....!" A perfect solution to table creep! Thanks again, Walkerma 15:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The bug on the NFPA diamond has now been fixed. The fully transcludable chembox has arrived! all I have to do now is write the documentation.... Enjoy! Physchim62 (talk) 07:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WE-chemistry's stance on TeX?

I just had one of my pet articles modified by someone who converted the equations into TeX. The font is ugly and jarring - chemical equations have their own peculiar aesthetic- but the information content is retained and I am sure that the intention was good. What is the official ruling - is TeX considered in WE-chemistry world to be preferred? I hope not.--Smokefoot 01:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I like TeX a lot. But definitely not in the implementation that Wikipedia is currently offering. I therefore fully agree with your reverting the tetra-ethyl lead article: it was definitely ugly. Perhaps the workgroup on Chemical Drawings can also make a formal statement about Chemical Formulae? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 09:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC).
Hi! I just wanted to chanage the diborane equations to Tex because a little bit bigger font looks better than the normal equation style. But as I see know people do not like it. Maybe there is a methode to get the font from 12 to 13 or 14 without tech?--Stone 10:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes there is a way to write in a bigger font! I agree that the TeX equations look wrong in chemistry, though they are OK for maths & physics. If everyone agrees here to that, maybe we can put it into the style guide. Walkerma 16:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes I will try to use big instead. Some boron compounds have already been infected with Tex. So lets write it to the style guide.--Stone 21:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
But why would you want to use big at all: as a text such as H3O+ + OH− → 2 H2O nicely fits in-line, whereas the big variant makes havoc of nice linespacing, H3O+ + OH− → 2 H2O, and, to be complete, small give unbalancedly sized sub and sups such as H3O+ + OH− → 2 H2O. Just normal size is much better, IMHO. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC).
I agree, I see no reason to use anzthing other than the normal wiki=font for chemical equations. TeX should be limited to those phzsical chemistrz articles where it is indispensable. PC (can´t sign on this Slovak keyboard!)
Thanks for your support here, PC. At least I understand well now why Slovak people have such an un-understandable language with words with odd character sequences and z's in them: it is just the keyboard :-). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 18:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC).
Of course, Dutch is a completely simple language to pronounce and to write... Scheveningen... Physchim62 (talk) 12:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Named reactions

Is there currently a wikiproject to compile and organize named reactions? I've not seen one and I think it would be a worth while project. Jgassens 15:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

  • It is one of the goals in the Chemistry wikiproject, explicitly mentioned in our worklist. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 18:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC).
  • No, you're not misreading it: these specific reactions aren't listed. They aren't because they are chemically less interesting than those listed. But as the list isn't full and complete yet, perhaps you may suggest some additions on the talk page of the Chemistry wikiproject. Or else you may suggest the people in the list of chemists of the worklist? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC).
I've been thinking of starting WikiProject Chemical Reactions for a while, but just don't have the energy right now. You can help by filling in some entries from the page: List of organic reactions. We have articles for about 1/3 of the entries, but most articles are rather short. When you write an artice be sure to include at least a nice summary, reaction mechanism, and plenty of references. ~K 22:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC) P.S. Jgassens, I like your user page. ;^)
Heh. I found a pretty good template Jgassens 19:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, although in our (proposed) goals we list general or major classes of reactions only (we had to start somewhere!), we also need to improve many of our reactions (both named and "unnamed"). I've been wondering if we need a WikiProject on Organic Chemistry to deal with things like that - it would oversee reactions, functional groups, concepts, total syntheses and any other topics related to organic chemistry, perhaps organic chemists too. Like K, I don't have the energy/time to take the lead on another project, but if one were started I'd join - I do write some organic things already. Walkerma 01:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Missing'/'misplaced' compounds??

Hi, I may have missed part of the discussion on which compounds should be on the goals list. It does state 'reagents'. In this case I fail to see why ZrO2 is on the list, and ZrCl4 is not. Similar goes for Sc2O3 and ScCl3.

I see things get difficult here. But in an inorganic/organometallic lab, the reagent normally used is ZrCl4, ZrO2 is in general not in a lab as a reagent, but I do see it is an important chemical. Now the trouble is where to stop. For Zr I would list ZrO2, ZrCl4, and maybe ZrCl4(THF)2, but then one gets to other metals, where there are more 'common reagents', I mean, for vanadium one would use VCl4, VCl3, VBr3, VOCl3, V2O5, etc., along with quite a range of lewis-base adducts (with THF, MeCN, pyridine) as starting materials (did I miss any??). It would be reasonable I think to list the compounds that are commonly found in the general remarks in the experimental part of articles in journals where the authors state that they were bought from a chemical supplier (not synthesised according to literature procedure). Can anybody comment on this? Dirk Beetstra 12:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Omission from the worklist does not imply that the omitted compound is unimportant. Rather, as I understand it, the worklist is a fixed number of articles that are "important enough." A fixed number to focus efforts, "important enough" rather than "most important" because a precise debate over which compounds should and should not make the cut would have no end. At any rate, the worklist is being altered only in exceptional circumstances at the present time, but this should not at all discourage you from working on whatever chemical compound articles you wish. Shimmin 14:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Shimmin is right. There is another thing - the reagents section is just one of many, and is principally reagents used for organic chemistry. Although most compounds listed as reagents are inorganic, the focus there is on their use in standard organic transformations. The major section for inorganics has the goal of writing a full article on a compound of each of the non-radioactive elements (though U, Pu, Th crept in!). That is to make sure that we have a good broad coverage of compounds across the entire periodic table, not just sodium and potassium salts. ZrO2 is an important Zr compound that represents a major class of materials, it seems like a good choice. Incidentally, we make up the deficiencies in the important metals (such as Na, K, Ca) either under the non-metal (KI represents I) and in the commodities and reagents section.
I agree that there are many choices possible, and we should have a ZrCl4 page (as well as a Cp2ZrCl2 page and a CP2Zr(H)Cl page?). I wrote many of the lanthanide articles - do we choose the chloride or the oxide? Or something else? It really is a toss-up, but now at least someone doing a paper on erbium does at least have something besides the metal to talk about. The goals are to provide an idea of where we need to focus our efforts - but if you have a good knowledge of ZrCl4, please share that! Walkerma 18:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I do agree, and it will not discourage me. I must confess that I look at the list biased on synthesis. In that regard, ZrO2 is, as far as I know, not used in synthesis; it is neither a starting material for most chemists, neither used as a reagent. Still, it is a chemical, and it is indeed of no use starting to argue if ZrCl4 is or is not more important than ZrO2 (and if we put both on the list, what to do with vanadium ..).
I will see where I can be useful, and work on these pages. Dirk Beetstra 18:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
The synthetic chemistry world is dominated by organic chemists, so get used to it. Inevitably (or inexorably), WE will have articles on every reasonably useful binary TM chloride and subsumed in these articles should be some sort of overview of the corresponding hydrates, as well as leads to the Cp and THF and PR3 derivatives. These articless are crying out for content supported by good, broad citations. Somehow HfCl4 blossomed before ZrCl4. Recent or soon to grow articles include TiCl3, VCl3, VCl4, MoCl5, WCl6, and Ta2Cl10. Re and W chlorides are wide open. --Smokefoot 19:18, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Uhm .. Where did I go wrong?? Did I say anything about what one should regard as synthesis? Before posting reactions with personal feelings, maybe have a look at the persons user page (made easy: user:Beetstra). --Dirk Beetstra 20:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. I was referring to the fact that many reagents were selected from an organic perspective, which is fine. Looking forward to having you also contribute content to these pages on halides and oxides. Lots of folks worried about format and organization - fewer contributing content. --Smokefoot 21:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
It may be that the reagents were selected from an organic perspective (which I do not believe, chemistry is more than C, H, O and S alone). I DO believe that they should have been selected from a chemical perspective (or even, from the perspective of 'the man in the street'; and, if selected from an organic perspective, ZrCl4 has more organic perspective than ZrO2). The point is, there is no perspective stated on the page.
Still I feel that I did not deserve the remarks made by you, earlier. People, relatively new to the Wikimedia system, are not really encouraged by this type of remarks, and may just leave the Wikipedia for what it is and burn their fingers in a lab.
Keep up the good work (I see you have gone through quite some compounds already, and you have added quite some information to many of these). I can only hope I can find the time and will to persue all the information needed for that. I guess it is now time to get back to the more important question, which compounds are of interest for the majority of readers? --Dirk Beetstra 22:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Dear Beetstra: I respond on your talk page - let me know if I can help in anyway! I am semi-clueless myslef--Smokefoot 01:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a few complementary worklists linked from my userpage, partly to try to anticipate problems and pertly to remind me to keep an eye on some of these articles. They are of course, as arbitrary as the WP:Chem worklist, but that doesn't mean they're completely useless. Another criteria which can be used is the ready availability of information (for example, the 1500 compounds which have International Chemical Safety Cards. You're more than welcome to work on the articles you choose—all help is gratefully appreciated. Physchim62 (talk) 09:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Physchim62, your lists are surely helpful. I'll have a look around and see if I can work on some of the pages. --Dirk Beetstra 09:52, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Our focus isn't the world's focus

Relativation is a good thing. The world of Wikipedia is focussing on numerous articles and editing many they read. Taking this as some sort of measure of interest, I found the following articles in some way relevant, in the list of most edited articles.

Edits Article WikiProject Assessed
1652 Cannabis none A-Class
1270 Beer WP:BEER A-Class
1151 LSD Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants A-Class
1023 DNA none A-Class
968 Water WP:WPSci, not WP:Chem (B-Class) A-Class
940 Diamond none FA
925 Chocolate none A-Class
912 Heroin Wikipedia:WikiProject Drugs A-Class
899 Emma Watson none, but gut-feeling chemistry? B-Class
857 Wine none B-Class
805 Enzyme none, not even Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry B-Class
731 Alchemy none, not even Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry FA
731 Periodic table none, not even Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry B-Class
718 Petroleum none, not even WP:Chem A-Class
661 Hydrochloric acid WP:Chem FA

It shows that good articles about chemical compounds can get to A-Class quality, even without us participating. If that isn't relativation, how about that the fifteen most interesting articles in the world of chemistry and chemicals, include only one which is part of our wikiprojects? Just pointing out things: I don't have a deeper meaning with this, but I just liked the table. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:15, 1 May 2006 (UTC).

I think it isn't too surprising that WP:Chemistry hasn't "claimed" these, as many of them are on the border with other subjects - wine, for example, is more food & drink, while others are more molecular biology. Also, although WP:Chemicals uses the WikiProject:Chemistry template on talk pages a lot, most of the proposed WikiProject:Chemistry worklist are not tagged at all!
I think "no. of edits" isn't necessarily a guide to "no of downloads," though it's probably the best guide we have at present. I once (maybe even in 2004!?) stumbled across an extensive list of "most popular Google searches in Wikipedia" and after "Wikipedia" and "pornography" (the 2 big ones), I happened to notice several of our WP:Chem articles in the top 1000. I think hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid were both there, maybe nitric acid as well, and I'm fairly sure sodium hydroxide too. I think there were a couple of others that I can't remember. I found it interesting that these specific chemical compounds were some of the most popular chemistry searches, and also that these were surprisingly popular searches, right up there with major pieces of history or geography. I wish I could find the list again! So what we do here does matter.
Regarding priorities, I think we would all come up with different lists. My perspective as an educator is very different from someone who is working in a research lab, but I judged that we are more likely to have students (high school and college) looking things up than working professionals. A common assignment is for students to do a paper on a chemical element and so having the entire periodic table covered is important, IMHO. Also, I sought to rectify some of the traditional weaknesses in existing sources. For example, if you want a lot of detailed information on dysprosium(III) chloride you have to use Gmelin, not something I have access too. Yet I use that compound regularly! Most books basically say, "Yttrium and the lanthanides are boring, all the chlorides are the same, they're nearly all LnCl3 and water-soluble, here are their melting points, let's move on to zirconium & hafnium." This reflects the fact that 50 years ago pure DyCl3 was expensive. If you're the kid who picked dysprosium for her project, you begin to get frustrated! Funnily enough, I even found it hard to find a lot written about sodium sulfate when I worked on that last summer, but the worklist encouraged me to focus on it. I think the goals and worklist have helped to concentrate our efforts on getting a few hundred good articles rather than just thousands of stubs like this one, which tended to be the situation before. Walkerma 05:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The list as such is interesting, it shows that subjects with a link to chemistry do grow, and are of interest to the common public. Chemistry is everywhere!
But, again, regarding priorities, indeed everybody can come up with different lists, except for the statistics of how many times pages (in whichever category) have been accessed by 'the man in the street' (including scientists who are looking for data or some background). Similar goes for the page hits for the pages that 'we' have designated as Category:Chemical compounds. Crossreferencing these lists with a list of stubs should give a (ranked) list of 'pages that are not up to standard but which (apparently) are of interest to the man in the street.'
Editing pages that are in that list (and where I have some knowledge about) seems to me more useful than writing an article about redox chemistry of Sc in organometallic compounds; a subject where I do have some knowledge about, since I have been working in that field, but which is of no interest (yet, and probably never) to the common public, it is only of interest to a few academic groups (up till now about 5 articles pertaining organometallic compounds with Sc(I)), and they can find the appropriate articles themselves (using Scifinder or Gmelin). Dirk Beetstra 08:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah, so someone has got round to making scandium(I) organometallics! The joys of research :) I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that we are still at a stage where our coverage of "academic" chemistry has some glaring lacunes. The articles with lots of hits have been highly edited and are in a reasonable state because we don't have too much trouble finding editors to work on them. Articles which don't exist yet get very few hits, as for articles which are hidden away at the wrong name or which are too stubby to be of any use. Some articles are difficult to work on because of the scope and/or disagreements about what that scope should be: should I write valence for my 14-year old students, for a junior undergrad or for a member of a IUPAC nomenclature commission? I am capable of doing any of the three, but it is difficult to do all three at the same time in the same article! Similarly much of the information which is in the chemboxes is "not of interest to the general public", but we have users who read it (see Talk:Cyclohexanone) and I feel that we serve a useful purpose in bringing it together in a novel format. Physchim62 (talk) 10:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I guess that is quite close to my point. But articles which do not exist may get a lot of hits, until someone puts it on the requested article page, and someone makes a (stubby) article to start of the subject (by the way, I suggest it is written in a way that the 14-year old and my mother would understand it, but that does not disagree with the IUPAC nomenclature commission, containing as much information as one can, within reason, add; the 14-year old or my mother will select the info (s)he needs). I was just wondering if there were any statistics (number of hits) on pages that were not good enough, or do not exist, but that would need to be decent pages with lots of information (or at least stubs), since people apparently are looking for it. As an example, I would personally not have thought looking for aluminoxane in the Wikipedia (I've used the material, I (think I) know enough about it), but it was on a request page. But I will just await statistics (of which I get the feeling they do not exist), and in the meanwhile I will indeed try and add some info to articles that I think I can give a contribution to, and hope that I can be useful in that way. --Dirk Beetstra 13:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chemistry and Oenology

Take a look on the article and see that 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole is less chemical than expected (the table is new)! --Stone 17:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Great! These nuggets give me a wide grin! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Chemistry Collaboration of the Month is here!

The current Chemistry Collaboration of the Month is
Catalysis.
Every month a different chemistry-related topic, stub or non-existent article is picked.
Please improve the article any way you can.

I have constructed the Chemistry Collaboration of the Month page. I have seen interest by at least 5 wikichemists, so that seemed enough to start this collaboration. Now it's up to all of us to make this a success. Please nominate and vote for our first Collaboration of the Month which will be decided on June 1st.

I'm always open to suggestions and help. ~K 18:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

This is duplicate message. Please post comments at the WikiProject Chemistry discussion page.

[edit] New NFPA 704 fire diamond

I have re-implemented the NFPA 704 hazard symbol using SVG and CSS. Here's an example of how to use it:

{{NFPA 704 | Health=3 | Flammability=2 | Reactivity=1 | Other=<s>W</s> }}

which results in this:

2
3
1
W


To get the radiation hazard symbol, type &#x2622; (☢). --  Denelson83  09:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it's just my computer/browser, but the health and reactivity numbers are not inside their diamonds. (I'm using Safari 2.0.3 and Mac OS X.) This should be fixed before the template is widely used. --Ed (Edgar181) 12:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome to try and improve it. I designed it under Firefox 1.5.0.3 on Windows XP.  Denelson83  20:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I tinkered with it without success to try to get it to work right for me. But it's working now for me thanks to the changes you made. Thanks for creating the template - it looks good. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Internet Dumbxplorer, doesn't show the radiation symbol. I like this new template, you could use the ol' <table> tag to place the symbols, <div> annoys it out of me because it never works the same on the different browsers. -- Boris 14:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Comparison of the two templates, as rendered in Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3 on Unix
Comparison of the two templates, as rendered in Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3 on Unix
...and in Denelson83's Firefox browser.
...and in Denelson83's Firefox browser.
Comparison of the two templates, as rendered in Opera 8.52 on Unix
Comparison of the two templates, as rendered in Opera 8.52 on Unix

The new and the old:

2
3
1
W
HealthFlammabilityReactivity


It may be my browser, or whatever, but this new version comes out much coarser than the original one. And it is much more typing as well. What is the actual improvement for which this change is being proposed? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC).

In the old template, three images are used, and they don't line up perfectly, as in to the pixel. In the new template, only one image is used.
Also, what exactly do you mean by "coarser"?  Denelson83  19:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The three images system hasn't caused any problems up to now, as far as I heard. It hasn't been reported as such, has it? See my screenshot for both the new and the old one as above here on my screen: excellent lineup, down to pixel level. Did you investigate the original problem of not lining up?
Yes, I have. See Image:Nfpa defects.png.  Denelson83  21:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Coarser as in larger, bigger/bolder characters. Therefore they'll widen the chembox tables. And the new diamond can't be used in-line, as the old one can.
Why would you want to use the fire diamond in-line anyway?  Denelson83  21:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Could you adjust the template to make it more equal in size and font weight? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC).
Done.  Denelson83  21:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Much improved. Comparing those very minute pixel irregularities to this, you may want to give some attention to the number placing as well. Is this all worth it? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC).
Oh, I think it's worth it. Besides, one image instead of three is more efficient.
BTW, you must be using IE, because in my browser, Firefox, my positioning of the numbers in the diamonds is dead on.  Denelson83  23:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Wrong guess. But fonts and character rendering will always be a problem: there's no way you can tinker it so that it will be perfect on all browser platform. So, you won't convince me that a combination of characters over one image will be better than three images: at least the slight pixel imperfection isn't browser dependent. For me this discussion ends here. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:00, 10 May 2006 (UTC).

Also, the new NFPA 704 template uses improved tooltips. In the nfpa template, you get "flammability" when you hover over the white section with your mouse pointer. In the NFPA 704 template, you get "other hazards" when you do the same thing.  Denelson83  21:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Good improvement. Could easily have been added to the old template. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Templates and assessment lists

As you probably know, I have been involved with testing out a bot which automatically generates an assessment table based on information placed on article talk pages. You put up {{Chemistry|class=A}}, {{Chemistry|class=B}}, {{Chemistry|class=Start}} or {{Chemistry|class=Stub}} as appropriate. You can see the table generated here, this is automatically updated every day. The bot only adds date, assessment and version (the version of the article on the day the assessment was uploaded - code for this is still being written). The table can still be edited by "human." You can see the log here, this helps keep track of changes.

Example: If Wim improves lead(II) nitrate to A-Class, as assessed by the project, the template seen at Talk:Lead(II) nitrate would be changed to class=A. Within 24 hours the bot would find the change and it would update the assessment in the table, put that day's date in, and record the version of the article it found. The article name and the "importance" are columns that are maintained manually, though there may be an option of automating the latter.

Incidentally, this project can take pride in the fact that our grading scale is now being adopted right across Wikipedia, albeit with different colours! It has already been used for about 2000 articles, and many other projects are familiar with it (and some have worklists that use it). See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment for more details (yes, the template needs a little fix!).

I have a few questions for the project:

  1. Do people like this system? It is a pilot scheme, so we'd really appreciate feedback before it goes Wikipedia-wide, probably in a fortnight or so.
  2. Are folks willing to update assessments on talk pages like this? This system is an automated version of the assessment tracking system used at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones, and they have been recording their assessments (using our grading scheme) successfully for about 6 months now.
  3. I was only familiar with the Chemistry template, but when I looked at Talk:Molybdenum trioxide I found a WP:Chemicals template in use, though this is the ONLY time I have seen it used. Do we want to switch over to that template, or keeping everything under the Chemistry umbrella? If we decide to switch, the bot would generate two sets of lists/logs - one from the Chemicals template, and another from the Chemistry template.

Comments, anyone? Walkerma 16:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Support. It looks like a very good system to me. The advantages are clear in automated updates to the central table, especially when the assessment (we did have a good thing there, Martin!) is being rolled out to wider than our mere 378 chemical articles. Big plus. It makes keeping progress statistics easier too. Opportunities for improvement include:

  • layout of the results table (alphabetic order possible?)
  • how to keep track of a list of articles chosen to fulfil a goal, e.g., these 30 articles about Commodity Chemicals or so?
  • changing the assessment is more laborious, viz., working on a list of articles you'll have to click view the article and determine current value, click go to discussion page, click edit page, change assessment, click save, whereas ol'style I open the worklist for editing and do all editing in one go while reading the articles in another window. Just my way of working.

And the Chemicals template as not being a Chemistry template is a effort of PC's. I can only say that we intentionally made the Chemistry template to apply to all articles of Chemistry including those about chemical compounds. I still think it a correct choice. PS. I humbly only upgraded lead(II) nitrate to Start, only to see what'll happen now with your bot. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC).

Yes, the Chemicals template is an example of me being BOLD, if rather ineffectively :) The idea was to provide publicity for WP:Chem (which is, at the moment chemicals, and not chemistry).
Strong Support: I don't think that the new implementation will in any way change the editor's role in article assessment—it it merely a technological improvement in the admistration. The four point assessement scheme has proved itself to be robust and fairly easily used on WP:Chem (where arguments over assessments are very rare) and has been deemed useful by other wikiprojects. I would emphasize that it is much harder to give irreproachable definitions of the four criteria than to effectively evaluate an article! It also seems to overcome many of the arguments rallied against article assessment in the past. In particular, it is Wiki-based: anyone can make the assessment and anyone can change it; there is no "cabal" of "assessors", only discussion over the merits of an article in the rare cases where an assessment is disputed. Physchim62 (talk) 15:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Question, though: where does the list gets its Importance indication? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC).

I agree with Wim that it is a little bit of a nuisance having to click open the article discussion page to add/change the assessment, though normally you will just have read the article so you'll be close by. There may be some way of making it simpler/faster eventually. Regarding the importance, I simply put some of these in myself to test out the table - if you disagree with any of them please feel free to edit away. I tried to be objective, even though I was tempted to put dysprosium chloride as "Top-Class"! Also, please add in values where none exist at present. The "importance" will be used to help decide what goes in and what gets left out with limited-size releases. Thanks for the encouragement, we would like to see this system adopted by WikiProjects right across Wikipedia. Already Military History, Music Genres and Tropical Cyclones have been involved with the test, and are likely to adopt the system, so we probably have close to 2000 articles just there! We will start contacting other WikiProjects soon. Thanks! Walkerma 04:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I came across talk:benzimidazole which just got a {{chemicals}} by Rifleman_82. I thought to give that page a tentative assignment by adding class and importance to the chemicals template, but that did not work (so now it has a {{chemistry}} as well). But, is there a specific reason why {{chemicals}} does not have a similar indexing system, would make sorting out chemical pages much easier? --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
{{Chemicals}} seems like a good idea because there are already very many in {{Chemistry}}. Perhaps we should implement the assessment in the {{Chemicals}} template, and migrate chemicals from chemistry there? --Rifleman 82 10:40, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I strongly support that suggestion! --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] C2O

Dear chemists - is this thing a hoax? I won't check this page, so speak to me on my talk page, or better yet just edit the C2O article. Thanks. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 17:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear friend than look at C3O2, another of the famous suboxides of carbon. They appeare in flames and in Mass spectrometry sometime and have no importance for people outside chemistry.--Stone 18:10, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. If nobody asked the article would have stayed the way for ever. Now have a look at both articles and everything will be clear!--Stone 19:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Stone. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 19:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changing formula

[3] (diff) (hist) . . m Sodium benzoate; 05:24 . . MessedRobot (Talk | contribs) (substing chemical templates - see WP:SUBST using AWB)

I simply do not understand what the machine is doing and how to find out. Can anybod give me a link to a page where the substitution is described, please.--Stone 08:56, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Clearly the bot shouldn't do that. The templates are on the WP:SUBST NOT list, and the #if statement mess is avoidable anyhow. Notifying the owner. Femto 11:51, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is the distinction Chemistry/Chemicals warranting a template of its own?

There's the {{chemistry}} template being used by the Chemicals wikiproject alone, up to now. As one can see on the MathBot results page, it is now also being used by the Chemistry wikiproject. Is it important to make the distinction by using the {{chemicals}} template instead? Proposal is to use only one chemistry template for all chemistry wikiprojects. Please comment all.

  • Comment: I'm happy to go along with your views on this, Wim, as you are the main keeper of the statistics. Are you OK about doing the Chemicals statistics "by hand" still? The statistics produced by the bot will include both Chemicals and Chemistry articles all together. If you'd prefer to have the bot generate separate statistics for each, that's fine too. Walkerma 03:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chemical awareness

Recently I've been discussing the need for a substance/chemical wiki that provides summary information for employers and medical personal - simple things such as the type of warnings that should be heeded, street slang for abused drugs, pictures of various substances, dangers of inhailation (general safety info) etc.

The project as it is being worked on is subwiki - although some information will be replicated in the wikipedia, it's easier for access to have a seperate site. Let me know if you think this is a good idea. 20.133.0.14 12:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)Tim

As you say, this will duplicate a lot of Wikipedia information, but since your aim is different so the content would probably be different, too. How many compounds do you want to list? Are you focussing on illicit drugs, or household chemicals, or industrial chemicals, or what? If you want to have more than a few dozen pages, it will be a lot of work - do you have a team of chemists available to write the material? This project only reached "critical mass" about a year ago, so I know it's hard to get people. You might also be interested in the other WikiProjects on Drugs, as well as Psychedelic Drugs. Walkerma 04:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tetramethylammonium hydroxide

Proposed by someone in the worklist. Should it be included? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC).

Same user (User:Sarosh) worked on TMAH (as acronym for Tetramethylammonium hydroxide). I would say, move it to 'requested pages' .. --Dirk Beetstra 21:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm glad you see it similary to me. I moved it to out of scope documents. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Structural formulas

I was wondering, why don't we add structural formulas to the {{chembox}} template as an optional parameter? I think it would be a great addition and programs such as ChemSketch (freeware) make it very fast and simple. —Mets501talk 03:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you thinking of including a comment that suggests the use of a structure, especially for organics? We usually do include a structure for organics, but it's not explicitly mentioned - is this what you are referring to? Your suggestion sounds reasonable to me. You might also be interested in some of our recent discussions on structure drawing protocols, please join us! Thanks, Walkerma 04:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the link! —Mets501talk 20:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
The optional parameter you are looking for is ImageFile: it can only be used in the main part of {{chembox}}, not in the sections. There is also a second paraeter, ImageSize, for images where the 200px default is inappropriate. Physchim62 (talk) 06:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging anions with their conjugate acids

I'm thinking of going on a big merging spree and merging stubs about anions (e.g. Decanoate) with the articles about their conjugate acids, but before I start I want to make sure I'm not breaking some established guideline. I'll try to be conservative and not merge mature articles with lots of content (e.g. Hydroxide should obviously not be merged with Water), but the number of useless stubs is ridiculous. —Keenan Pepper 22:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. Separate articles in most cases just won't make sense. (I suspect though that many of them will return to stubs from redirects not long after you merge them.) --Ed (Edgar181) 10:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
We went round and round about a similar topic on hydrobromic acid vs HBr and decided against the merger. HBr and hydrobromic are a lot more similar than are conjugate anions and their parent acids, which are even more distinct chemical entities. A major challenge is that the mergers, e.g. Phosphite and Phosphorous acid require a highly knowledgable chemist, or the simple merge would yield a lot of redundancies. Also some anions, [BPh4]- being a one, do not have a conjugate acid. Finally, in favor of the mergers, species like phosphoric acid consist of three conjugate acids - do we want separare articles on [H2PO4]- and [HPO4]-? My recommendation would be to merge but to religiously include a subsection in each article on the conjugate anion.--Smokefoot 13:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I think those are good arguments against merging the examples you've noted. When it comes to carboxylate anions/carboxylic acids, it seems to me that as encyclopedia topics, they are quite inseparable - you really can't fully describe one without describing the other. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I concur with above thoughts. I would recommend merging stubby anions with their conjugate acid, and making the stubby anion page a redirect to the conjugate acid (or vice versa, and maybe also the other way around, acids with their conjugate base), there are many anions which do not have 'a life of their own'. I think Decanoate is a good example in favour of merging with Decanoic acid, it is not a 'common utility' or special reagent. But hydroxide, triflate, the weakly coordinating anions ([BPh4]-, [BF4]-, [B(C6F5)4]- etc.) more deserve an own page, either because of their specific relevance as an anion, or because the conjugate acid is not known or not of specific use (in these cases, a redirect from the conjugate acid to the base would be in place). Although I can not think of any specific examples at the moment, does this same discussion go for acids with their conjugate bases?
Is there a page with a full list of acids, with their conjugate base, and bases, with their conjugate acid, e.g. sorted by pH (the list could also contain some other usefull data, e.g. buffer-properties in H2O)? (I do not mean the categories, but more a list-page like 2006). The page might be handy (for chemists) anyway, and could be used in the merge-process. --Dirk Beetstra 14:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I like Dirk's middle line - we don't need (IMHO) separate articles for decanoate and decanoic acid, but we do need separate articles for HCl and chloride. Indeed, we have listed some common ions as part of the worklist at WP:Chemistry, though many articles are very short at the moment. I don't know of a listing, unfortunately. Walkerma 16:14, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The line I have usually taken is to include conjugate bases in the acid article for organic acids (exception: acetate), but to have seperate articles for inorganic anions. The logic is that salts of inorganic anions often have a distinct chemistry which can be usefully summarized in an article, whereas the relationship between the chemistry of organic anions and organic acids is fairly regular. However,I would hardly object if anyone merged selenate and selenic acid, for example, or decided to keep formate as a seperate article! Physchim62 (talk) 08:41, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


Indeed a good idea to combine the two, and I'm very surprised that what dirk suggest has not yet been implemented. However, the scope of such a job will take years; essentially it will be a copy of the CRC handbook, because then people will start a list with azeotropes and the likes, and all kinds of other highly relevant chemical data. Is it allowed to copy manually sectios form the CRC book? I think not eh? (10,000 pages of chemical data, perfect, no?) --Sikkema 01:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review of Alkane

I want to put a note here that someone requested a peer review for Alkane--Stone 06:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Downgrading Propionic acid

Hi all, the {{Chem A-Class}} priopionic acid article was recently delisted from the Good Article list, for reason of lacking references. Indeed there aren't any, only external links. But for A-Class this is also a requirement. Should we downgrade it to B-Class then? Or can somebody quickly add some useful references. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC).


[edit] property list vs datapage

The change in the Glycine article made me think. The chemical properties lis was mostly moved to the Glycine (data page) page. I liked it to have the list with the usefull informations in the article, but also a full data pages has advantages. So we should have an areement what the pages should look like! --Stone 12:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

My preference would be to have a little more data on the front page (common synonyms, abbreviations, CAS number) than what currently exists at glycine. If the infobox is not large relative to the amount of article text, there shouldn't be a need to move data to a separate data page. Although, I really like the layout of the amino acid data pages. --Ed (Edgar181) 12:36, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
This is not at all the way the data page was supposed to work! It was supposed to be an overflow because the old standard template was getting to be half a mile long. Take a look at toluene, that represents the way the system was supposed to work. I think this was someone's test of a new format for the data page that got forgotten about halfway through. I really like the format of the data page, and indeed I would support making something like this standard for data pages, but I agree strongly that the main information should be right there on the main page, in a full-sized chembox. Can someone who isn't sinking in a sea of Wikipedia 0.5 nominations (i.e., not me!) please fix this? Thanks, Walkerma 16:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
After looking around a bit, I see that Boris has made similar changes to a bunch of the amino acid articles. I've invited him here to comment. --Ed (Edgar181) 18:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Full infoboxes are cool (i'm not talking about the one i've created but in general), i love them, they provide very quick reference to the most important characteristics of the article's subject, but the big ones take too much text-space in the main article and i don't like that. Here on wiki, there are 3 things that:

1. all chemicals have;
2. have some meaning for both experts and regular readers (So doesn't)
3. it is not a good idea to have them in the main page (most of SMILES and InChI are too long, and i don't like having those that are short and can fit into the table without stretching it and not having the long ones)

and these are the name (sometimes the name can sit on 5-6 rows of text but it's the NAME), the chemical formula and the weight, so that's why i kept them and moved everything else in the "data page". Now if you really insist to have the abreviations and CAS (i'm not so convinced about the "common synonyms") go ahead, {{OrganicBox small}} can add them to the info box, when you call the template just insert the variables "abbreviations" and "CAS" and give them the values you want. I wanted to see how it would look and i chose the amino acids as a "test ground". I have also added in AminoAcids links to the data pages so now they are 1 click away. -- Boris 01:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maintenance

Here is a simple template that adds a small note at the end of the article about what projects maintain it, its class, and also adds the article to that class category of the projects. Right now the tempalte can attach the article to 5 projects but this number can be easily increased. Here is how it works. -- Boris 18:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, I don't think this should go into the article space, but on the talk pages. Femto 15:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
What part of it is the "self-reference" one? -- Boris 17:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
The WikiProjects and their talk pages are Wikipedia-related meta-information that is not part of the encyclopedic content. Femto 17:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, i can easily make two templates one for the "article" page that puts it into the article class categories of the projects, and another one for the "talk" page that says who's maintaining it and does not puts it into the categories the way the current {{Chemistry}} does. Althoug it is easier to have all this done by single template, plus this way we'll have to make 50% less edits. -- Boris 18:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort, Boris, but I must agree with Femto here: no references to WikiProjects on the article page itself. That's what the talk page is for. And for wikiproject announcement, classification and categorization we already have a template: {{chemistry}}, only to be edited once (on the talk page). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC).

Wim, first the template i've created can be used by anyone not just WP:Chemistry. Second, as i said i don't like when talk pages get added into categories - it's dumb - and that's what {{chemistry}} does when called from a talk page. And third, i'll change it so there will not be any references to the projects. But following you logic guys we have to clear all the stub and categories references b/c they are considerred "self-references" too. Funny, ain't it? -- Boris 06:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
At WP:1.0 we are coordinating a lot of these types of templates, which all use the bot, see the eclectic index of subjects covered. All of these projects put their templates and assessments on talk pages. I agree with a lot of your sentiments, I would love to see something like your template discreetly on the page, but we have to work with Wikipedia policy, which says that this info goes on talk pages. The idea of a multi-project template is very interesting, we are wrestling with similar issues at WP1.0. Meanwhile, you should take a look at Template:V0.5, which has some neat features. Oleg is soon going to adapt the bot to read "Importance" as a parameter too, if needed, though in our area the importance is a pretty static thing over time (Will HCl become less important? I doubt it.). Thanks, Boris! Walkerma 07:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need to combine the two 'property' tables in the "Amino Acid" topic

I find there are two table in the topic for 'Amino Acid' some of which are redundant. After proofchecking I was wondering if we could merge data in the two tables into a unified table listing all the properties. For those requiring 'Yes' or 'No' could we use numeric of '1' or '0'. This will greatly enable custom programming for protein sequences. 72.75.0.83 13:23, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

(moved new contribution to the bottom of the page. --Dirk Beetstra 17:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC))
  • The {{chembox}} template has been standardized after elaborate discussion. It contains exactly the right entries, and no further changes are currently considered. All WP:Chem effort is directely to improving the articles in the worklist] using that chembox. However, we understand that some chemical compounds are maintained also by other WikiProject, with their own set of infoboxes. Pragmatic approach here shows that the most appropriate infobox is adapted, based on the type of chemical. E.g., a drug compounds such as LSD is simply better served with the infobox from the Drugs wikiprojects, whereas a straightforward chemicals as gold(III) chloride with the chembox. If you care to point out where the wrong choice of infobox, or an incomplete one, is being used, we're quite willing to repair the situation. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Links to the ChemExper Chemical Directory http://www.chemexper.com

I'm the main partner of ChemExper company. One year ago I have tried to add around 10 links to the ChemExper Chemical Directory for some main product like benzene, toluene, ... because there is some interesting information like NMR spectra, IR spectra and 3D models (currently over 70000) but they were immediately removed and considered as spam.

  1. currently we import in the ChemExper Chemical Directory [[4]] all the catalogs of chemical that are submitted to our company. This is done for free and there is no selection if:
    • the products have cas number
    • the suppliers sell the chemicals with their own trademark (we don't want to copy 10 times the Acros catalog for all their resellers)
  2. we have currently over 800 suppliers (but I agree it requires some cleanup)
  3. we have other information like 10000 IR, 90000 3D models, ...
  4. you are allowed to link to a chemical but there is a much more simple link than the one proposed: http://www.chemexper.com/chemicals/supplier/cas/79-30-1.html. Using this link you will be redirected on an available server in Europe or US depending the traffic. Using this link however you will be placed into a frame will all the chemexper tools around it (I think as a PhD in organic chemistry they are useful but of course this is quite a non objective view :-) On the result page you will also see links to IR spectrum, 3D models, ...
  5. we could also link to a chemical without placing the result in the ChemExper frame like with the following link: http://www.chemexper.com/search/cas/79-30-1.html
  6. finaly we can also designed a custom version for wikipedia that would only show selected information or emphase more other information

Questions:

  • would you agree that we add links on chemicals pages to the ChemExper Chemical Directory ? In External links section ?
  • would you like to have the framed version, the non framed version of a customized page and in this later case what kind of information you would like to see on it ?

Lpatiny 05:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

No. While the polite request is appreciated, we don't do these deals. Wikipedia is about content in articles, not in links. If an independent editor used your page as reference, they may cite it. Mass additions of links, especially by a company, are not appropriate. Femto 14:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Some of the editors like myself add links to databases such as PubChem, OMIM, Entrez, Gene, UniProt, etc. anyway, why not to another database plus they are going to spoil "us" (which in this case is anyone who uses "Wikipedia") by customizing it for "Wikipedia". I'm sure some of the admins in this project will be able to guide you as how this can be done. I would hate to see "pop-up" windows after clicking the links though. -- Boris 18:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
There are already Google ads. Why not pop-ups too, if they would help to financially support Wikipedia? Wait, they wouldn't... Femto 10:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
The admins in this project will guide you just the same to the external links policies, regarding what Wikipedia is not, and to reasonings "why not" just have another link (no offense by the 'spammer' link title). The pivotal goal is to create content here, not to lead away from it elsewhere. Even customized pages are way too low a bargain to let a commercial entity add its own links and benefit from WP traffic.
Chemical supplier catalogs should be only a secondary data reference for WP in any case. If you feel that having several additional links to chemical registries is always better for the articles, we might consider a CAS#-based extension similar to the existing ISBN and PMID and include ChemExper there. Femto 20:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Who's this "We" you keep mentioning? Femto, you've ever heard of the word "colaboration"? This is just the beginning, man. Look at the bigger picture - one day ther isn't going to be "wikipedia" or "chemexper", but just one big online "database" where EVERYTHING, that Homo s. has ever created and converted into 1s and 0s, is structured, organized and easy to find. I'd be more than happy to know that it all started on this talk page. Lpatiny, you people need to go and talk to the CEO, we are just mashine operators here. -- Boris 05:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I suppose the CEO will be even more opposed to selling out to external content. Femto 10:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Selling out?!? -- Boris 00:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
WP:NOT policy: "Wikipedia does not endorse any businesses and it does not set up affiliate programs." A company asking to provide external content in exchange for links is out of the question. Femto 14:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Femto I guess that you know that ChemExper does not sell any chemicals but only compiles and provide chemical information that is submitted to us for free and that our database contains over 750000 compounds. We provide information and not only a list of chemical suppliers like bp, mp, IR (over 10000 infrared in which you can zoom in thanks to a unique applet), over 70000 3d models, 1000 NMR spectra ...) We don't make any money with this because we don't sell anything except maybe the google advertisement that is in the bottom of the pages and the fact that our company may be more known. Back in 1995 we had the first substructure search engine based on an applet on the internet. It seems to me interesting that there is a direct link to more information is interesting for Wikipedia users as you do currently for MSDS but I understand well that wikipedia is controlled by a small group of users that may not share this point of view. Lpatiny 20:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikichem Supplier Links

(the following request was copied from Portal talk:Science, I think it is more appropriate here --Dirk Beetstra 10:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)) Dear Scientist,

WikiChem, the english version of the chemistry section currently ads "Supplier links". My point of view is: this will give conflicts of interest. The following points are not clear: a) Where is a guideline for the selection of companies (there is a certain preference for aldrich) b) Are editors of WikiChem paid for the selection of certain companies? c) Is the educational, non-commercial character of wikipedia affected?

There are currently running several discussions. Please add your opinions. For me, Wikipedia is user-contributed and "WikiChem" is part of Wikipedia and not the product of two or three editors...

Currently, there are only two voices talking. Please add your opinion!

Best regards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:213.188.227.119 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#Commercial_Suppliers 213.188.227.119 01:52, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Dirk, I'm at a conference this week and it may be hard for me to do a lot, but please feel free to copy over things I've written on this topic to relevant pages (just say where you got them from) if this helps. I'll try and give my 2 cents when I get a chance. Walkerma 16:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
OK Martin, thanks. But for now I will redirect all people here where possible (I guess this is the right place for this discussion), and start to repair wrong links where 213.188.227.119 has shown there is a clear problem. There is a truth in the remarks of 213.188.227.119, though I (almost totally) disagree with his reasoning. For now I think the best thing would be to remove the header 'suppliers' and merge the links into 'external links' or even 'references', or to rename it to 'external links to suppliers'. Moving to 'references' would be my option, it is why they were there in the first place. But I will refrain from further answering and leave the discussion now to people who have not yet taken part in this discussion, I'd really like to hear more from others (the subject above is related). --Dirk Beetstra 16:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#Commercial_Suppliers. Cacycle 22:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aluminium chloride

While retouching aluminium bromide I glanced at Aluminium chloride. How should one handle the substantial literature on alumnium monochloride? One option - relabel aluminium chloride as "aluminium trichloride" (awkward since the trichloride does not exist commonly in condensed phases, its mainly the dimer). Or aluminium(III) chloride? Which is probably more appropriate. Suggestions and advice welcome.--Smokefoot 01:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I have seen more of these, and I recall that I have moved one or two vanadium compounds to a 'vanadium(#) anionide' page, making the old one a redirect. I support these type of moves, I think they are more correct, even if it is not the common name, it takes away some ambiguity (if you ask for scandiumchloride, everybody will give you ScCl3, but ScCl does exist, so the proper name of ScCl3 is scandium(III) chloride, and I would argue in favour of that even if there are no other chlorides known). --Dirk Beetstra 07:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Giving this a second thought. Scandium chloride redirects to Scandium(III) chloride, which is correct to my feeling, if someone wants to set up Scandium(I) chloride it is OK with me, but that is not common. But now for Vanadium chloride, that could redirect to Vanadium(II) chloride, Vanadium(III) chloride or Vanadium(IV) chloride (I don't know if Vanadium(I) chloride is stable), should Vanadium chloride become a disambiguation page?? It could state all 5 vanadium chlorides, saying that VCl5 does not exist, and give links to the ones that do exist. --Dirk Beetstra 07:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
If one of the chemical compounds is much more common than the others, I think it's safe to have it sit at the title with no number in parentheses. An {{otheruses}} tag can then direct interested readers to the less common compound. If the compounds are of comparable interest, a disambiguation page would be the best solution. I think Dirk's suggestion for a vanadium chloride disambiguation page is a good one, so I went ahead and created it. There shouldn't be any "metal(#) anionide" pages that exist without some kind of "metal anionide" page directing to it (either as a redirect or as a disambig page).--Ed (Edgar181) 09:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Seems OK with me, though I would just standardize, use the name "metal(#) anionide" .. I could think of moments where it would be useful, e.g. if I would try to find something about Palladium(II), I would just open up Google, and search for Palladium(II) inurl:en.wikipedia, I would miss some when they are not properly named, and I would have extra work when I would also have to go through Palladium inurl:en.wikipedia (see which ones were Pd(II)). --Dirk Beetstra 10:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
We have a few such disambiguation pages in nonmetal chemistry: nitrogen oxide springs to mind. However, I'm a little wary of going all out for Stock nomenclature:
  1. even for metal compounds, the compositional name can be by far the most commonly used, eg titanium tetrachloride.
  2. mixed oxidation numbers are rare in halides, but how would we extend this to oxides? sulfides? I'm not even sure at what title our article on magnetite is sitting at present!
  3. purists of IUPAC nomenclature will point out that Stock nomenclature is not IUPAC. I am not such a purist, but I have discussions with them from time to time ;)

We have tended to use compositional names for compounds in the highest oxidation state of the metal, and Stock nomenclature for the rest unless there are clear reasons to the contrary: this would indicate aluminium trichloride for Smokefoot's example (incidentally, the hexahydrate is not dimeric...). This reflects the fact that compounds of metals in high oxidation states tend to have more covalent nature in their bonds and to be more molecular (rather than infinite-lattice) in structure: the use of compositional nomenclature (over?)emphasizes this link with nonmetal chemistry. Physchim62 (talk) 07:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I will leave it at the choice of the creator (except when dispute arises, e.g. when someone would have made 'Vanadium chloride' the page for 'vanadium trichloride' or 'vanadium(III) chloride', then I would have moved the former to one of the latter, making the first a redirect or disambig. I will make redirect/disambig pages where I think they are appropriate and when I encounter them, pages can be renamed later when need exists. --Dirk Beetstra 08:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
My preference (and incidentally, I was the "creator" in this case) would be to leave this at aluminium chloride, since this is the established name. A quick Google search establishes that a ratio for the chloride:trichloride:Stock in this case is roughly 1000:6:1, pretty clear I think! We can add a note mentioning AlCl to this page once we get around to writing a page on aluminium(I) chloride. Incidentally, I once took a sample multiple choice quiz from a major gen chem book publisher, and they asked, "What is the correct name for Al2O3?" I answered "aluminum(III) oxide" (note that the IUPAC spelling wasn't even offered!) and got it "wrong" (the only correct answer was aluminium oxide). I phoned the book's author, saying I would accept either answer as correct, and she apologised, explaining that she didn't write those quiz problems! Now you see why I don't like "canned" quizzes too much!
Guess that a 'see also' remark on top of such pages would solve this type of ambiguity (even if the other page does not exist, yet). --Dirk Beetstra 15:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, I don't have Greenwood & Earnshaw right now, but can you folks see what happened at germanium tetrachloride it got renamed recently as germanium chloride. I thought GeCl2 was known, at least I've heard of salts like CsGeCl3. Am I right? Thanks, Walkerma 14:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Moved it back to Germanium tetrachloride, and made Germanium chloride into a disambiguation, there is info on the internet on GeCl2, could not find a supplier this fast (not in Strem, Alfa Aesar or Acros), but did not look very hard. Some of the suppliers do sell GeI2. Guess this is the right solution. --Dirk Beetstra 15:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Definitely the right thing to do. Germanium dichloride is listed by WebElements as a white crystalline solid which decomposes (disproportionates) on heating, CAS# [10060-11-4]. Physchim62 (talk) 15:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pyrowiki.com

Jamesy (talk • contribs) adds links to http://www.pyrowiki.com, a site based on the Wikimedia software, but not part of Wikimedia.org. Is there consensus or support? Any reason why it shouldn't be considered linkspam? Femto 13:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think any link that points just to the main page of that site needs to be removed (I've reverted a few of them, and I'll go back and help revert more if there is consensus to do so). If links can be provided to individual articles, though, that might be different. For chemicals that have notable uses in pyrotechnics, I don't think it is inappropriate to link to a pyrowiki article specific to those uses. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
There is additional discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia-data based on other resources (open xml-repository)

Hello

I am an active contributor to the Blueobelisk-project (blueobelisk.org). We are trying to gather free (as in GPL or FreeBSD-licence) data about the elements and already compiled a very big database of *verified* data (as in with scientific source). The data is available as CML-xml or plaintext. Currently we are discussing a database of the 2d- and 3d- information about compounts. We compiled a database of about 230 molecules (mostly organic) in the CML-format. We would love to share that data with the Wikipedia but need to discuss this with you, of course. If some of your are interested in sharing data with us, please reply to this thread or contact me on cniehaus AT kde DOT org. Lumbar 19:03, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it also possible to upload .cml files.--Kupirijo 06:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

wow, will investigate this! Lumbar 18:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images in {{OrganicBox small}}

This template uses a small skinny image (1X179px) to set the height of the image's td cell if the height of the image is too short (in case of Glycine's images the bigest height is the one of the middle image - 110px, still very short) or just for simple style purpose which is to make all the "image" cells have the same height. The width of the info box is 320px, so if you want to use the "height setter" (which is the default for the template), you have to make sure that the total width of the images is less than 315px for Opera and 317px for FF and NE otherwise these browsers will put the images on the top of each other. -- Boris 00:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bridge

Do we have an article about what "bridge" means in chemistry, and if we do, why is it missing from Bridge (disambiguation)? -- Boris 14:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I did a small search (not thorough, maybe) on 'bridge chemistry', and could not find the term bridge as a page-name in chemistry, though I saw some pages where 'bridge' or 'ansa' was used (unlinked to a page, see e.g. Metallocene, Cyclodecapentaene). May be a good page to set up. In the meanwhile, I did find two 'chemical bridges' that were not placed on the bridge (disambiguation) page, I added these (i.e. Salt bridge and Salt bridge (protein), but I guess these are not the bridges you meant). --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
created some links to (non existent) bridge (chemical), hope someone will pick it up. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NFPA 704 Images Deletion

I think that the images for the NFPA 704 diamonds should be deleted and replaced with the NFPA 704 template. They are simply a waste of memory and Wikipedia needs to be as fast as possible. Unless at least 3 people disagree with me in the next 7-10 days, I will be adding them to images for deletion. Using the template uses much less memory, which can be seen here:

Image:Nfpa h4.pngImage:Nfpa f2.pngImage:Nfpa r2.png

Uses 3 images, takes up approx. 6,550 bytes.


2
4
2
 


Uses only 1 image, takes up much less.

--Evan Robidoux 15:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Strongly disagree the SVG picture of the template you advocate is 6kByte itself. And it gives alignment problems in various browsers, so I'm not in favour of that template. And as the three-picture diamond is used in tens of articles, deletion of the images is uncalled for. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC).

Disagree I'm with Wim on this one. Walkerma 03:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely disagree. Wikipedia is not short of 6K of memory, thank God! The server use involved in any change would be a little more significant, but still nothing more than we're used to. The SVG images seem to have a little teething trouble, but nothing that can't be fixed. Let's not change things just for the sake of changing them! Physchim62 (talk) 11:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC) (admin, for what concerns comments about WP administration)
Overruled. I have take it upon myself to remove all remaining transclusions of the old three-picture diamond template. --  Denelson83  08:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Per Wimvandorst, Walkerma and Physchim62, I will not add them to IMD. Sorry about that.

--Evan Robidoux 19:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Developers

Do they have their own peoject or place they visit where people can drop questions or ideas? -- Boris 06:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

You can always try Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) which is where this kind of thing gets discussed. Physchim62 (talk) 12:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ChemSources

Dear all, There has been a dispute on several pages (mainly here) about the suppliers which appear on some chemical pages (basically, some people do believe that they do serve a purpose, but most agree that the choice of which is biased). A solution has been raised (originally by the anonymous user that also started the discussion, User:213.188.227.119), being the creation of a page like the Special:Booksources page, linking to all possible external sources that have something to tell about chemicals. Currently people are discussing if and how we could make such a page, I guess this is the right place to have the basis of this discussion.

What about the following solution (for front/search page and for the actual/result page):

[edit] Front page

Like the Special:Booksources page, but with more searchboxes, I would suggest to divide them into two, exact ones (InChI, CAS), and less exact ones (e.g. molecular formula, compound name). Pressing the search button gives the actual page (next subject), with InChI and CAS resulting in effective URL's that really take you to the compound page whereever (the link will give you the exact compound when you search), for the other (less exact) ones the links will give you all compounds with the appropriate formula.

I know that linking to CAS has been disputed, I suggest for now we leave it in, it is easily removed if Wikipedia gets into 'trouble' with it.

[edit] The actual page

This one should have groups of links, having (where possible) deeplinks directly into the compound-page (can be accompanied with the home-page of the linked company). On a chemical page one can directly link to this, like for a booksource Special:Booksources&isbn=3527281657 this could be [[Special:ChemicalSource&CAS=64-17-5]], [[Special:ChemicalSource&InChI='1/C2H6O/c1-2-3/h3H,2H2,1H3']] (both for ethanol) or [[Special:ChemicalSource&Formula='C2H6O']] (the latter giving both ethanol and dimethylether). Note that the external links do not have to give a result, many links on Special:Booksources&isbn=3527281657 do not give a result as well, some retailers don't sell this book, unfortunately you have to do some work to find a page that gives you results, sometimes. So if a company does not sell ethanol, you will maybe get a '404' or something else.

A shortlist of external links, I guess it should be by subject, my suggestion:

  • List of (URL's of) pages like ChemExper, NIST
    • ChemExper
    • NIST
    • CAS
    • AIST
  • List of pages with MSDS
    • Acros
    • Aldrich
    • Lancaster
    • Strem
    • Alfa Aesar
  • List of pages with suppliers
    • Acros
    • Aldrich
    • Lancaster
    • Strem
    • Alfa Aesar
  • List of pages with ...

(please expand this list (not the one just above this sentence), we can discuss the order of the groups later, I guess within the group links should be alphabetical order, or by ASCII-order) --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks great to me! I wouldn't know how to set it up, though. Walkerma 16:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Me neither (that is, I can probably pick up how to write the php-script for it, but implementing ..). I have been looking around on the developers forum, but it seems not too easy to get things hardcoded into Wikipedia, except when there is someone within chemistry who is already capable of doing that. Where would be a good place to post a request to find a chemist that would have that capability (or does someone know someone who could help here)? --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Getting a bit further, the page Special:Booksources has a master copy at Wikipedia:Book sources, that page contains a code 'MAGICNUMBER'. The Special:Booksources loads the page Wikipedia:Book sources, replacing every occasion of MAGICNUMBER with the ISBN that it is fed. So all we need is a 'copy' (or maybe .. more than one, depending how these things are coded) of Special:Booksources that does not load Book sources, but Wikipedia:Chemical sources (I have been so free to make a page that could contain the full list in time, please add things there). --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
We've got to get hold of a developer who implements us a SpecialChemicalsources.php similar to the existing SpecialBooksources.php which will get executed each time Special:Chemicalsources is accessed. (er, the php gets executed, not the developer... no idea where to find one either) It should be technically straightforward expanding it to replace several variables instead of one, then the page can be invoked like [[Special:ChemicalSources&CAS=64-17-5&InChI='1/C2H6O/c1-2-3/h3H,2H2,1H3'&Formula='C2H6O']] and links can pick what data they need from a set of MAGICNUMBERCAS MAGICNUMBERINCHI MAGICNUMBERFORMULA. Femto 12:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I posted a message on Wikipedia Talk:ISBN, I hope one of the programmers of the ISBN pages is willing to help us. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I have posted a patch to the Mediawiki site, proposing implementation of a Special:Chemicalsources page. I have it running locally, works as a charm (and I already find it useful to myself). The patch can be found here. I hope it gets implemented soon. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A little clash with the way the drugs are named

Beclomethasone and Beclomethasone dipropionate are two different chemicals, that used to have their own pages (or at least i thought that the last one had its own and i hadn't payed any attention that it was actually a redirect to Beclometasone, no th. So this "Beclome{t/th}asone dipropionate" mess could be my fault). Now they have been merged again - i have separeted them once, but i'm not gonna do it again - i simply left a note on the last merger's talk page. Could any of you, and i'm talking about those who have already completed their chemical graduation, to find some time and explain to this "Organic chemistry expert" why these two need to stay on their own. -- Boris 02:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Never mind - problem solved. -- Boris 00:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CAS Information Usage Policy

Hi, at the german Wikipdia, we just stumbled across this policies for the usage of CAS Numbers. According to section III.h one is only allowed to use 10.000 numbers for website without paying for them. Do you know anything about this and whether there could be any legal threats to Wikimedia concerning this policy? I mean, what happens, if the compund-database for en or de (or maybe all languages together?) exceeds this number. Thx for your help. --TaxmandeTalk (de) 22:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer, but these policies appear to represent an agreement between the American Chemical Society and authorized users of the CAS database, which Wikimedia is not. Wikimedia's use of intellectual property is governed by statutes, not by contracts. Shimmin 22:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I would be suprised if CAS managed to argue that they have copyright of the CAS number of a compound: it seems to fall into the "pure scientific or mathematical information" exception to copyright (imagine if you could copyright the fact that the boiling point of water was 100 °C...). Collections of CAS numbers are subject to copyright under certain conditions, but we don't seem to be breaching this one either as we are not publishing long lists of numbers from external sources. Users in the European Union are subject to the EU Database Directive, but I don't see any individual user breaching that one either. Finally, I very rarely see CAS databases cited as the source of CAS numbers: we usually get them from Aldrich or NIST or WebElements, all of which have the advantage of being free! In short, I don't see any reson to worry about this, even when we exceed 10000 compounds: I expect en-wiki will reach this figure early next year, and we are probably about there already (10000 articles on chemical compounds) across all languages. Physchim62 (talk) 11:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

---

Among the relevant sections from the CAS policy statement are

These Policies apply to all forms of CAS information unless the licenses for CAS products provide otherwise. These Policies are subject to change at the discretion of CAS. CAS information is copyrighted by the American Chemical Society (ACS). All rights reserved. CAS' mission is to be the world leader in disseminating chemical and related scientific information. These Policies define appropriate and inappropriate uses of information and apply to all forms of distribution (printed, electronic, CD, and other media). These Policies are meant to be read in their entirety, not taken individually out of the context of the other points. Search results delivered in computer-readable form remain the property of CAS. Recipient shall obtain CAS' specific written permission for any uses of computer-readable search results other than those listed under Authorized Use of CAS Information. These Policies apply to scientists, engineers, librarians, information professionals, and others working in their organization that either search and retrieve information or ultimately consume the information.

My own experience is that this policy is actively policed. CAS numbers are not facts in the same category as melting points and are copyrighted by CAS (they are also trademarked:

CASRN or CAS Registry Number®: a unique numerical identifier created and assigned to a chemical substance by CAS. and A User or Organization may include, without a license and without paying a fee, up to 10,000 CAS Registry Numbers or CASRNs in a catalog, website, or other product for which there is no charge. The following attribution should be referenced or appear with the use of each CASRN: CAS Registry Number® is a Registered Trademark of the American Chemical Society. CAS recommends the verification of the CASRNs through CAS Client ServicesSM.

It is clear that CAS claims copyright and trademark over the CAS numbers and IMO WP should be very careful not to violate this if it wishes to remain within "the law" (presumably US civil law). Note that CAS numbers cannot be verified without a license (almost certainly for money) and that one may not refer to the information gained in this way without an agreement with CAS. Although I do not know how CAS views volunteer non-profit organisations like WP it has taken strong political action against PubChem. If WP compiled a resource of the same size as PubChem then I suspect it could be seen as a threat by CAS. See, for example, http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb050606-1.shtml Petermr 18:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

All this overlooks this part of the introduction of the policy document:

"These Policies apply to scientists, engineers, librarians, information professionals, and others working in their organization that either search and retrieve information or ultimately consume the information. They do not apply to vendors of CAS licensed databases, marketing agents, gateway service operators, web search operators, publishers, software developers, or other commercial redistributors of information, whose use of this information must be covered by separate agreements."

This only underscores what I said above: the Wikimedia foundation, having made no agreement with ACS regarding the use of CAS numbers, may use CAS numbers only insofar as that use is legal according to the relevant statutes. ACS has not granted us any further license, but cannot prohibit us from doing what the statutes permit.

But furthermore, Wikipedia is doing something that this policy docuument says of itself that it does not cover. We have no rights other than to do what is legal. But if what we are doing is permissible under the statutes, nothing ACS says can prohibit us from doing that.

Shimmin 19:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Round-bottom flask

Today, I've written a new article called Round-bottom flask. A few Wikipedians have been under the impression that a Round-bottom flask is the same thing as a Florence flask. I think this is a misconception, which has been in Wikipedia for some time now, and has been copied in Wikipedia mirror sites on the net. I think these two flasks have similarities, but they are not the same thing. An AOL search of images on the net of both "round-bottom flask" and "Florence flask" supports this difference. I've corrected the Laboratory glassware article (which I've mostly written) and the Flask article to take both types of flasks into account. I have Yet to be fixed is the "LaboratoryEquipment" template, which has an entry for "Florence flask" but not and now "Round-bottom flask". Does anybody have any thoughts on the matter? Does anybody want to fix the template? H Padleckas 22:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Henry! Amazing that we didn't have an article on this before! Walkerma 04:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ammonia

There might be a new featured article for our list. Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Ammonia --Stone 09:52, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Not yet! This neatly illustrates why I sometimes feel that putting articles up for FA status is a bloody waste of time... Physchim62 (talk) 14:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phosphoric acid expanded

Yes, I know. I volunteered I would fix up the chemistry section of Phosphoric acid a long time ago. Well, I finally did it. I expanded the chemistry section for orthophosphoric acid, combining the previous "Appearance" section and the "Chemical properties" section into a new "Orthophosphoric acid Chemistry" section right after the introductory section. Also, I added a short "Phosphoric acid as a chemical/reagent" section and made some uses sections into subsections under it. Does anybody care to review this new version or re-evaluate it from a start status? H Padleckas 11:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

  • There's some good improvement there, Henry. Well done. I gave it a B-Class rating, assuming that you'll also take care of some of the straightforward compliance issues I reported on its talk page. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC).

[edit] In my other hobby, I have an article as FA candidate

Hi all, as one of my other interests, I have contributed the Baden-Powell House article to the Scouting wikiproject, which has already reached A-Class status. Now I have put it up on WP:FAC, open for preferably positive comments. I know it has nothing to do with chemicals, but perhaps people who know me can show a bit of support? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC).

[edit] PT Phase diagram

Cant we add a PT Phase diagram for common chemicals? like ammonia, water and such?

yes, sure. Go ahead. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC).
greate :D now does anyone know any good site for that?

[edit] Spelling

The style guide says that the IUPAC standard is to use the British spelling in preference to the American spelling for element names. After looking through the document, I can't find any support for this. There is a table with the element names, and it does say, for example "aluminium" rather than "aluminum". But that table is to be used for the element names, not their spellings. Like using "tungsten" instead of "wolfram." It's a British document, so it's not surprising that it uses British spellings internally. But I can't find any support for this international "standard" spelling." eaolson 00:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not a purely British recommendation, the American sulfur is used as well. http://www.iupac.org/reports/provisional/abstract04/connelly_310804.html Table I lists the IUPAC-approved names for use in the English language. Note here that alternative spellings in common use are explicitly designated as such, in the same way as alternative names are. It's necessarily a mishmash because it tries to fit all needs, but it's a recommendation for one internationally standardized English spelling nonetheless. Femto 13:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Not sure I agree. It seems to me that table is saying that the name for atomic element 13 is "aluminium" and another acceptable spelling is "aluminum." It doesn't explicitly say one is preferred over the other. I did a search over at J Phys Chem A (picked at random), and aluminum beats aluminium more than ten to one. I tried searching at ScienceDirect, but that search engine corrects for the spelling and returns the same article count each time.
My point is that going around changing articles to reflect this "international spelling" is contradictory to what WP's guidelines have always reflected. When there is more than one legitimate spelling, leave the original one in place. eaolson 16:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
What a surprise, that most authors in an American journal are using the usual American spelling! No doubt you could find older issues using columbium, preferred 10:1? The chemistry community on Wikipedia has had a clear policy on this since before I began editing, based on megabytes of discussion (now archived), and all of the active chemistry folks stick to it whatever their nationality. We don't want to spend hours revisiting this divisive issue, we want to write articles. The rules are simple, let's just stick with them:
  • Sulfur for S
  • Aluminium for Al
  • Caesium for Cs Walkerma 17:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I did try to search European journals, as I said, but had no luck. And I have no doubt that there are older artices referring to columbium and wolfram. That's why this IUPAC document says these should be referred to as niobium and tungsten, instead. It does not say that the "aluminium" spelling is preferred to the "aluminum" spelling. I have no problem with a standard spelling (and, frankly, think WP should just pick a standard spelling for multi-spelled words, but it doesn't). My point is that this policy is attempting to use the IUPAC document to support a "standard international spelling" when that's not what the document says.
This is hardly a settled issue. There is a lot of vitriol over at Talk:Aluminium/Spelling, but no resolution. There is a poll going on right now about whether to move the article. eaolson 21:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I admit I'm not a chemist, don't have access to original publications, or know offhand where to find more concrete recommendations online. For some circumstantial evidence see this document http://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/1997/july/provisional.pdf stating that IUPAC (1990), as well as the (British) Royal Society of Chemistry (1992), adpoted "sulfur" as 'the' correct spelling for that element. Femto 12:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hyaline oxide

Google scolar, ISI and Google find nothing like that! Is it real or is it a miss spelling or what?--Stone 09:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

No clue, gave it a wikipedia:chemical sources link, maybe more data turns up in time. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Now its on for deletion.Stone 14:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Periodic Table

I think that we should add the periodic table to the bottom of all element pages. What does everyone think? It would be as follows:

[Big table removed. Refer to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements#Periodic Table.] Femto 10:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

—Mets501 (talk) 15:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I should ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements, who look after these pages. I would think it is more important to have periodic tables on the articles which describe the properties of elements (see valency (chemistry) for an example). Physchim62 (talk) 18:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, I posted it there. —Mets501 (talk) 01:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Titanic acid

Titanic acid (talk) needs some context and clarification. Anybody know whether it's a real substance or a theoretical construct of geochemists? Femto 11:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Maybe it should be moved to Titanium(IV) hydroxide. Shimmin 11:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
    • It doesn't exist as either H2TiO3 or as Ti(OH)4, as the TiIV centre is far to polarising. There is a hydrated version of TiO2, but I don't know if it is stoichiometric or not (I would be willing to bet that it isn't). I would suggest making titanic acid a redirect to titanate (which certainly do exist). Physchim62 (talk) 15:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Analytical Chemistry

I wonder if it would somehow be possible to establish a collective of wikipedians who are in the loop with their analytical chemistry? I've been having a quick look at some of the articles on analytical methods in chemistry and some of them are just plain baffling. For some reason the Combustion Analysis page redirects to the Combustion train article, surely, it should be the other way round because train method is just one combustion analysis method (dynamic flash, O2 by pyrolysis, etc). The spectrophotometry page seems to have been hijacked by physicists and mentions only UV-Vis and IR, while completely forgetting Fluorescence, Phosphorescence, IES (which we don't have a page for, although, I know it's more obscure) although some of that content is referenced on the Spectroscopy page. I know there are wikipedians out there who can help fix these articles but one has to wonder if they know they're needed?GreatMizuti 13:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing ot help but as is the case with many of these articles the knowledge required is very specialized to do a good job. There is a related project page you may be interested in at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spectroscopy. I have organized the spectroscopy articles on the talk page but need more input. Any mass spectrometry issues I can definately help with. Some spectroscopy issues I can help. General analytical too if I remember it.--Nick Y. 18:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chemical Sources

I have now gone through many chemical substances (adding the template:ChemicalSources to it, apparently 2325 pages), I decided to make a list available to everyone on Wikiproject:Chemicals/AlphabeticalList. I guess all the compounds on this list can be described as 'defined' substances, they have either a CAS-number, or other unique identifiers (so no mixtures etc. I hope). I will update this list regularly if there are new compounds available on this list (but feel free to add substances I missed). I will now put some time in Wikipedia:Chemical sources, though not too much, since I am still looking for someone who can help me creating the code that will recognise CAS-numbers (and some other unique identifiers) on a page, and link them into a special page (working like Special:Booksources and ISBN 90-367-2306-X. If I know how the Chemical sources page is going to be coded, I will go on and put more time in that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aluminium battery

I would like to get rid of the future-product tag on Aluminium battery. Can anyone find peer-reviewed references to aluminum cells, please? LossIsNotMore 18:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organic compound stubs split

This type is oversized, and I've proposed that it be split. Please comment, make suggestions, help out with the heavy lifting, etc. Alai 17:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Bluebot is at the moment running a run where it removes stub-marks on a massive scale, I am not sure how 'he' decides, but I am up till now agreeing on all the edits I checked. But it may thwart your figures. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
If it depopulates the category below 800, then better still, it thwarts the need. If not, I can re-run after the next db dump and update the numbers. Alai 18:18, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Though given that there's over half a million stubs in total, I can give you a fairly statistically sound estimate of the likely effect of this right now (unless organic compound stubs are more prone to non-stubby stub tags than is the norm). Alai 18:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
You are right, did not see it that way. And no, I don't think that substances will be more prone to non-stubby-behaviour, the opposite, I think.
I guess we will have to come up with a way of splitting the organic compound stubs (I counted 881), I have seen your proposal, and I have made another one on that page now. Can you tell me what you think of it (and maybe some other chemists as well). --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chemistry templates

See this. These templates allow easy entry of chemical formulas. Basically, you put {{elementname|number of atoms|charge|atomic mass}}. All of the parameters are optional (you do not have to type in atomic mass, for example), and the templates are easier to type in the the HTML code and give you a link to the element. Try using them (with full functionality, not just for the symbol, and you will probably find them useful typing in chem fromulas (I do). Polonium 01:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Cheers, looks good! May I add a suggestion. Now when one uses the template, it will make all the occurences of C in a page be a link to carbon, this is against the wikipedia regulations. Would it be possible to code somethings like a 'nolink' parameter, that switches between a linked and not linked version? By the way, I would love a {{ChemicalFormula}} template, which would convert {{subst:ChemicalFormula|CH3CH2CH2CH3}} into "CH3CH2CH2CH3" (in stead of having to type {{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|3}}{{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|2}}{{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|2}}{{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|3}}), but that may be quite a difficult task (I don't know if templates can take string-handling and programming). This is at least better than having to insert all the sub and /sub's. Cheers again! --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
This is a nice template, but I've never been a fan of links to elements from formulae - partly for the reason Dirk mentions, but also because I think the example above should normally like to butane, not to carbon and hydrogen. If you have a page like Baden-Powell House, you don't keep linking to brick! I think the only appropriate place for such links is in the intro to the compound itself, on its own page: "Butane is a compound of carbon and hydrogen" of formula {{{CF}}}. All other links from formulae should be to compounds, not elements: "burning to give CO2 and H2O." If someone reading an article generally doesn't understand the formulae after the intro (except with obscure elements), the formulae are meaningless anyway. Walkerma 14:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Makes sense, I concur with Martin. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Utterly. We have an article chemical formula which explains what these symbols mean, I really do not see the need to link elements in formula except in exceptional cases (modified isotopes, maybe). I have been known to remove these links when I'm in a really bad mood, I do not wish to encourage them. Physchim62 (talk) 13:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, easily solved, make sure the result of the template is not a link, tadaa! --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging elements with the template

So far we have tended to steer clear of tagging or assessing elements, since they are considered the domain of the Elements WikiProject. Since I am looking over these for Version 0.5, does anyone mind if I add in the {{Chemistry}} template and (if time) an assessment? I will also contact Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements. Walkerma 20:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I also proposed a possible unified Elements/Chemistry/V0.5 template as one option, as a way of minimising clutter on 115 or so talk pages. Please comment here. Thanks, Walkerma 21:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Addition to Info Box

I know there may be some people who will wonder why in the world I would suggest this but I would really like to see a monoisotopic mass box below the molecular weight box. To clarify the difference the molecular weight is the average mass of the assembly of molecules found in a bottle of the pure substance based upon the normal distribution of isotopes locally here on earth. This is generally an innacurate number because isotopic distributions vary even locally due to isotope effects etc. (e.g. deep well water has a different actual MW than surface water due to 18O concentration differences). Additionally in a sample of water there are no molecules that actually weigh the MW (g/mol) in atomic mass units. So for weighing out a certian number of moles of a substance the molecular weight is best and generally we can not weigh accurately enough that the lack of accuracy in the MW matters. This is what many chemists use the MW for. When dealing with anything on the single molecule level or anything where the various isotopic species are dicernable it is totally useless. The monoisotopic mass at least is relevant and the most prominant species. It is more and more common today to deal with these situations. For those who think it might confuse the student's I would say that it will be educational for them to understand the difference. My main argument for inclusion however is that the monoisotopic mass is a fundamental property of the chemical whereas the molecular weight is a tool that is only relevant in unique situations such as if you happen to be on earth. (Ha, Ha)--Nick Y. 00:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I can see why this appeals, but I think as a piece of information that people would want to look up I think it's limited. First, when doing chemistry in the lab it is of little value - my students always want the molar mass for their calculations. Also, for a molecule like tri-n-Butylstannane, tin has ten common isotopes, carbon has two, even ignoring deuterium that would give 10 x (12 x 2) = 240 monoisotopic masses, of which at least 20 or so would be common. If you want to add this into the compounds data pages for some compounds, though, I think that might be helpful for some simple molecules. Walkerma 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Always worth considering the contents of the ChemBox. But like Walkerma, I work in the real world (the earthly one that is) of mixed isotopes. Also from the PR point of view, WE would lose credibility. However, for those species that are popular for single molecule analysis, one could still insert such data in the "related compounds" slot.--Smokefoot 03:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Would it be worth considering to put in the 'main isotope'-MW .. that is, the peak that is 100% in a mass-spec? By the way, I saw there is a {{chembox new}}? --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry I guess I could have been more clear. I was simply suggesting more what Dirk Beetstra suggested. I was not suggesting an isotopic distribution of all possible isotopic combinations, simply the mass based on the most common isotopes (This actually differs from what Dirk Beetstra suggests). In other words C==12 always, H=1.0079 always etc. I know there are some ~50:50 isotopic ratios out there in which case you choose the lighter isotope. I know this isn't very useful to undergrads in a practical sense but it is very useful to chemists who always observe isotopes separately such as in spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. I think it is important for students to understand that isotopes are fully resolvable and do indeed have different behaviors and activities. One of the most important features of the MW is the number of significant figures. This comes directly from the variation in isotopic distributions found on earth not from inaccuracies in measruing any particular quantity. Different elements have greater variablity in their isotopic distributions than others.--Nick Y. 16:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't a better approach be to place a simulated molecular ion cluster as an image in the article with a text explanation for those cases where such things are interesting (bromoform, for example, or choroform for that matter). With all respect, I cannot think of a single instance where I have wanted to know "hell, what is the monoisotopic mass of this molecule?", even having worked with labelled compounds... Physchim62 (talk) 13:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess that I am not finding support for this. That's okay. After several years of only thinking in terms of monoisotopic masses I guess it's easy to forget that although the monoisotopic mass is more of a fundamental constant of the molecule, it simply isn't useful to as many people as I might imagine.--Nick Y. 16:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caffeine

Caffeine is FA now!--Stone 13:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coenzyme A

I am worried about the stereochemistry of the alcohol group - have added this to talk page - could someone have a look? Thanks. FWIW I blogged the value of WP in: http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust. Also I have reiterated the value of WP on the CHMINF-L list (see address in blog)

Petermr 17:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Improvement tags

I've seen articles that have way less information than Bimatoprost yet they don't get tagged. I was going to but i decided not to be too sarcastic with that poor "random" fella Skapur who put the tags in there, so i'm just going to say - the infobox and the template at the end say quite a bit about Bimatoprost. Now if anyone feels that the article doesn't follow some standarts or lacks this and that, just put some effort to make it look better, don't just walk around like some supervisor putting annoying "banners" on the top of it literally (i moved those tags at the end so my eyes don't get itchy, but Beetstra had to put them back on top - good job), i have enough of them at work, but at least they pay there. Just my 5 "bitch" cents here. -- Boris 19:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is for the general public and it has to be accessible to the general public. The only tagging I did was to mark it as uncategorized, which it was, marked it as a stub, which it was and marked it for wikification which it needed. If templates are doing all the work, then there is no need for the article stub, jsut redirect the article to an article with a set of chemical diagrams of all the chemicals in the template! All the other tagging was done by others. --- Skapur 19:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
The purpose of marking the articles is to invite others to add and improve. It is NOT an act of supervision but a request for help! --- Skapur 19:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed BorisTM, first of all, the tags are there for quite some time, and they have their reason. I could live with the removal of the wikify-tag, which does not realy add, there is not much to wikify in the article, but the importance tag is there with the reason that the page does not state why it is important (why should people care about Bimatoprost?), and yes, it is a stub, there is just next-to-nothing in the article (it does not state much of properties, no importance, no uses). And people add those tags because they don't have the knowledge to further improve the article, and hope that others will. Apparently you use the page quite often (seen it makes your eyes itch), I have the feeling you know more about the compound, that you could share. Oh, I moved them back to the top, sorry, policy-thing. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
No, i don't use it quite offen. -- Boris 10:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Often it seems that one article could be significantly improved (with content) for about the same energy requred to tag 10 articles, and the result would be more lasting and more beneficial to WE and its readership, it seems.--Smokefoot 20:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. -- Boris 10:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New stub categories

Recently Alaibot (talk · contribs) has been moving organic compound stubs into stub categories. For the most part, this is a good thing. But I've noticed that there are quite a few miscategorizations. I've reverted a dozen or so, but I just wanted to ask everyone to keep an eye out so we can catch any other mistakes. Thanks. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stile Guide for creating 3D graphics

I would like to know if there is somewhere a style-guide for creating the 3D molecule images. I contributed to the Talk:Caffeine#Structure_images discussion and I think that a guide giving practical hints (programs, settings, etc) on a common style of the represented molecules could help to give a more uniform and professional look to the various entries. ALoopingIcon 07:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I have added on my page a simple guide on how to create (hopefully) professional looking 3D images of molecules using QuteMol.
The guide is available at MakingMoleculeImages, and it explains step by step how i created the images in the below styles:
If someone will find the guide useful i will expand it, trying to better explain when and how to customize the high quality rendering effects of QuteMol to further improve the produced images.
ALoopingIcon 09:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Nfpa

Template:Nfpa has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you.  Denelson83  08:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for deletion

FYI: There are a few chemical stubs are up for deletion. See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_September_25#1-Methylindole.2C_2-Bromo-1-chloropropane_and_5-Methylindole Olin 15:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Someone running a local wikipedia?

Hi people! Does anyone in the chemicals-department on wikipedia run an own wiki that is accessible from the outside world, or does someone have a wikipedia with a good handful of chemical compounds in there, where I could borrow a (small) data-dump from? I would like to test some new extensions that I wrote (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chemistry here] and the core dev. are a bit busy. It might need some extra tweaking, and I would like to have people to have a look at it, but I can't open my webserver to the outside world right now. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Why not ask the Jmol Wiki folks? They might be interested. --Bduke 13:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Did not know Jmol, but don't think it is the same. I am doing this for the wikipedia (and well, others that might be interested, like Jmol). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a wiki set up on campus, using Wikimedia software, with limited password-only access. I hope to open this up to the general public once it is fully set up (probably next year), but I'd be happy to let you use it, Dirk. The wiki is at [www.wikichem.org www.wikichem.org], and I set it up to (a) create a chemistry community around specific topics, and (b) create educational material that does not fit into Wikipedia. I'll let folks here know once it's open to all. Walkerma 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Not sure if this will help, but you can also look at the wikipedia test site. Walkerma 17:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Re:testsite: there are some pages there already (water, silenafil and toluene), but the test.wikipedia.org is a server which runs a version just in front of the en.wikipedia.org. I am trying to get things enabled there, now. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Water (data page) and worklist listing

Water (data page) is currently unrated. I have recently expanded it by an order of magnitude. It certainly deserves at least "Start" rating, and in my opinion at least a B rating. Karlhahn 04:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! We certainly need to put in a lot of work on our data pages, these have all-too-often been neglected. Walkerma 01:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Good work, Karl. You have also been adding data pages to the worklist, which I duly have reverted each time. Up to now the worklist is purely for assessment work of the chosen articles themselves. As you can see on the statistics above, there is progress which is measured from that worklist. To prevent your additions being reverted each time by me, I would like to discuss the use of the worklist:

  1. we add the datapages to the worklist, effectively doubling the list (with lots of red links)
  2. we create a separate datapages worklist, with a new and separate list to maintain.
  3. we ignore progress on the datepages altogether as we have done sofar (it's an option, alright ;-)

My preference is option 2. All, please comment. (Note that the assessment of articles using the {{chemistry}} template can of course go on: that is a separate process, covering all chemistry subjects, not merely chemicals. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 08:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC).

I like option 2. Walkerma 20:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming policies

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the articles for chemicals are named for the IUPAC prefered name. However, all the articles on hydrogencarbonates are called 'such-and-such' bicarbonate (Sodium bicarbonate, Ammonium bicarbonate, Calcium bicarbonate etc), despite the bi- nomenclature being obsolete. Are the bicarbonates exceptions (like Ethylene oxide), or should they be moved? Laïka 15:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the policy here at wikipedia but I would assume that these are likely exceptions. These older names are still nearly universally used for these very common salts. Similar to the formates (e.g. sodium formate) and acetates they are just too common and ubiquitous to change name quickly.--Nick Y. 20:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Formate and acetate are easier because those are the preferred IUPAC names. The bicarb example is more difficult to judge, I think, I could go along with either. For our naming policies, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines. Walkerma 21:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Regardless of what the policies are, a quick look at the organic compounds listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/AlphabeticalList will show that most Wikipedia articles use non-IUPAC names. So the bicarbonate names aren't out of place.--Ed (Edgar181) 22:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
bicarbonate and other similar names are non-IUPAC because they cause problems in French (and possibly other languages as well) and IUPAC names should be simply translatable. Their use on English Wikipedia should be a question of consensus (they are, of course, very widely used). My vote is Keep, but I would like to see the comments of other chemists. Physchim62 (talk) 12:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Keep bicarbonates. In the english language it is near universally used. We shouldn't be a trend setter there.--Nick Y. 18:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Keep for now as deeply entrenched traditional names: in both the Aldrich and Acros catalogs, sodium bicarbonate is used as the keyword, with sodium hydrogen carbonate listed as a synonym. Shimmin 23:57, 1 November 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 23:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special:Chemicalsources

Hi all, someone on IRC #Wikimedia has given me an account to test/show the special:chemicalsources I have been programming in the last couple of weeks. The site will be there for about a month. I have installed my extensions there, could you please have a look:

  • main page (don't ask about the URL, I don't know either).

The specialpage is called Special:Chemicalsources. I also installed a tag 'chemform'. Try to edit a page, and add <chemform>H2O</chemform> to it. For more information, see here (also for options of the chemform tag). I will be creating some pages in the next days on that site to show more functionality.

Please comment on my talkpage on the chemistry site, if there are enough positive comments, I will try again to bug Brion and Tim again to enable these on wikipedia as well. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image request

Hi there. Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I would like to request an image for a chemical article. I would like a molecular diagram for the chemical methylmercury, which I would also like to use on the Minamata disease page that I am working on. Unfortunately I'm unfamiliar with chemical image-producing software and therefore I'd like to ask somebody from the Chemicals WikiProject to assist. A 2D representation like that for methane (see right) would be perfect! I'd be most grateful if anyone could put it together for me. Bobo12345 12:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I've prepared one as image:methylmercury.png. If you have certain preferences, I can tweak them as necessary. Other image requests, for pictures, spectra, structures, can be directed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry/Image Request. Rifleman 82 15:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much! That's perfect! Many thanks. Bobo12345 23:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wikEd formula formatter

The wikEdlogo

wikEd is a Wikipedia editing extension that has an integrated tool to wikify chemical formulas with one click:

Before After
h2o H2O
C8H10N4O2 C8H10N4O2
2 Na+ + OH- + H2SO4 --> 2 H2O + Na2SO4 2Na+ + OH- +H2SO4 →2H2O +Na2SO4

Other features include: • pasting formatted text, e.g. from MS-Word (including tables) • converting the formatted text to wikicode • wikicode syntax highlighting • regular expression search and replace • server-independent Show preview and Show changes • fullscreen editing mode • single-click fixing of common mistakes • history for summary, search, and replace fields • and much, much more.

For a full feature list and installation instructions see thewikEd homepage and thewikEd help page. wikEd worksonly for Mozilla Firefox and other Mozilla browsers and isinstalled simply by pasting a single line to your WikipediaUser:Username/monobook.js page.

Cacycle 16:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iodide or Iodate in Edible salt

The article states that sodium or potasium iodide I- is used for the table salt. For Germany sodium or potassium iodate IO4- is used because it is not oxidized to iodine in acidic conditions in the stomach. Could somebody look at the incredient list of US table salt? I will ad the fluorination and folination of table salt in germany to the article.--Stone 13:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Alimentary iodine is usually added as sodium or potassium iodate, that is IO3−, not periodate IO4− as you quote the formula. The problem with stocking iodide is aerial oxidation in the presence of water, if I remember correctly, rather than oxidation in the stomach (the quantities involved are so small as to make the risk of molecular iodine in the stomach negligeable). This also goes for "iodine tablets" which are stored in case of nuclear accidents. I will try to find some references for all this, promise! Physchim62 (talk) 15:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
In the US, where I am in exile, they do indeed use potassium iodide; see this article, which includes the statement "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves both potassium iodide and cuprous iodide for use in table salt." It goes on to explain that iodate is used in some other countries. Also see this piece by a major US salt manufacturer. I'll try to confirm this at home with our salt container. Walkerma 16:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry you are right iodate IO3-! Typed 4 instead of 3! So I will introduce into the article that USA is the land where arial oxidation of I- does not happen, but we others have to eat iodate.--Stone 16:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the info and refs, Martin! This makes me wonder what the U.S. uses in its iodine tablets: anyone feel like a glance at the USP? Physchim62 (talk) 08:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Internet sells potassium iodide radiation pills!--Stone 15:11, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chemical templates

Hi there. One of my latest projects on Wikipedia involves the idea of merging the chemical templates like {{oxygen}} and {{carbon}} into a single multipurpose template. As of the latest talk on Category_talk:Chemical_element_symbol_templates#Standard, the idea revolves around a single template {{e}} which would be used in the form {{e|oxygen|2}} to produce the equivalent of {{oxygen|2}}, O2 (with of course, all the features that the templates currently in use have, not just the subscript elements after.). An option suggested by Polonium would allow for non-linking of the element if only the element's symbol is used, e.g.: {{e|O|2}} would produce O2 rather than O2. Since this proposal is so relevant to this project, if you have suggestions, requests, or comments, please send them to the talk at Category_talk:Chemical_element_symbol_templates#Standard. Thanks, Nihiltres 00:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this method seems even more roundabout than <sub></sub> tags. --Rifleman 82 10:41, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of chemical compounds with unusual names

Is up for AfD. I don't have much of an opinion either way, though here's a heads up. Femto 18:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★TWO YEARS OF MESSEDROCKER★ 03:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] Atomnaya Energiya article from 1974?

In Levinskii, Y.V. (1974) "p-versus-T Phase Diagram of the Uranium-Oxygen System" Atomic Energy 37(4):1075-6, as translated by Springer, there is a question about whether "UO3G" should actually be "UO3,G":

Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg

Please see this discussion for more information.

Does anyone have access to the original Russian journal Atomnaya Energiya[5][6]? Here is its editorial board if that helps any. Do any of your local libraries have volume 37 from 1974? If so, please post on Talk:Uranium trioxide whether the original Russian version has a comma on that top-left label or not. Thank you. LossIsNotMore 23:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special:chemicalsources, template:ChemicalSources and external links

Dear all, a month ago I asked people to comment on the the implementation of a special:chemicalsources. The page is running on this test site. I still would like to hear if this finds consensus in implementation. The mediawiki developers have, understandable, reservations on the implementation of this, but if there is a reasonable consensus from a group of wikipedia users I think they can be convinced. If not, I think it is prudent to remove the {{ChemicalSources}} tags from the external links, or to rebuild the template in another way, since it is, actually, not an external link. I hope to hear someting about this, soon. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Named reactions' Template

I thought it might be nice to do one of those templates for named reactions. However, sadly I don't know how to do it!


Fields could include (please add/discuss other options) e.g.:


  • Name of reaction: Stephen aldehyde synthesis
  • Inventor(s): H. Stephen
  • Photo of inventor: Image:Picture_Needed.svg
  • Primary reference: H. Stephen, J. Chem, Soc. 127, 1874 (1925)
  • Staring material: R-Nitriles
  • Product: R-Aldehydes
  • Similar reactions:


Your thoughts please --Quantockgoblin 21:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Copper(II) fluoride

I would actually propose a somewhat simple solution: any chemical that is commercially availably should be in ! Why not? There is ample space, no? Or is this a bit naive? I would not say that the number of google hits is very relevant, since that would be kind of a circular reasoning, no? Sikkema 01:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

People may want to take a look here as they are debating what makes a chemical notable. The article also needs expanding. --Bduke 07:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Just came here to leave the same message! Added a chembox, but can't find much information on it. Riana 07:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I advocated a keep. There is enough to tell about the compound: 4 scientific references (searching on "CuF2", 2 in dental plaque/caries, 2 in polymerisation chemistry), 388 google hits (on "copper(II) fluoride", maybe many on "Copper fluoride" also pertain CuF2). Strange, if an article has no importance stated yet, deletionists are very keen on putting AfD's on a subject. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Expanded it. Somebody has to read it!--Stone
Although I'm not nearly advanced enough in my study of chemistry to contribute to this article, I can see its notability. On the other hand, the fact that Wikipedia does not have a notability guide for chemical compounds is interesting - It might be a good idea for one to be created. Since coverage of chemical compounds can be extensive (Wikipedia is not paper), but on the other hand, Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information or a publisher of original research, either. I propose a standard for notability of chemical compounds, mainly encompassing that a compound is not original or unverified, and that the compound has a use or is the product of a notable reaction or class of reactions. Anyone else think similarly? Nihiltres 15:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I would add some additional criteria. Some compounds are notable because of academic interest, even if they have no use - they are studied because of unique chemical properties, unusual structure, etc. But in any case, I don't know if we really need guidelines that are separate from the general wikipedia guidelines. Chemistry articles show up on AFD on occasion, but not often enough, in my opinion, to worry about crafting specific guidelines - they can be dealt with individually and subjectively when they show up. As long as chemistry-related AFDs continue to get reported here, chemists will have their say and make sure nothing gets deleted inappropriately. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I would like to make a different point, which I have made before to someone who deleted notability tags from articles while not contributing to the article. That person convinced me at that moment that my idea was not a good one, but I have changed my mind again. I feel more and more like making a template "importance-chemistry|date=whenever". Many of the AfD's or tag-changes are done by people (deletionists?) who are not known in the subject, and, IMHO, are not capable of deciding if a chemical is notable enough. They change the tag because they want to make the category with articles which lack notability smaller. This would of course go perfectly together with a notability standard.
For now it seems that putting an AfD up does result in a sudden interest in the compound, so apparently that works as well. Don't know if that is a good thing, though. Hope to hear more about this. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Glad to see this was saved from deletion - I was using it in my research this summer! I'm using it (or at least trying to!) for fluoride additions to perfluorocarbonyl compounds. I'll try to get a picture and some more details put in after grades are all done. Walkerma 16:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

← I think Dirk's idea is excellent - if there was a specific 'importance' template related to chemical compounds, maybe placing it in a category of its own, it could be quickly brought to this WikiProject's attention. riana_dzasta 18:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prismane

Upgraded from stub to start might be even more! Have a look please.--Stone 09:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I gave it a class=start, importance=mid. A bit more about why this chemical is interesting/important, and maybe some reactivity, and I guess it will be a B-class. Good work, Stone! --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Nice work, Stone. And correct rating by Dirk too! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] diputed or acuracy

Ammonium lauryl sulfate, Americium(II) oxide, Image:DNAbasePairing.jpg and Image:DNAbasePairing.png, Sodium bicarbonate

  • Wikipedia articles needing factual verification:

Methyl lithium, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, Salicylaldoxime, Superoxide

Have a look--Stone 22:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Acidity of sulfuric acid

There is a query at Talk:Sulfuric acid about the correct value for the first dissociation constant of sulfuric acid: does any want to join in? (preferably with figures) Physchim62 (talk) 23:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)