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[edit] Inorganic examples

Looking at a few examples of existing articles re inorganics and OMs

Ions - We have a lot of articles e.g. sulfate, chloride as examples of generic articles on ions.
Salt sound alikes - We have some on ionic / covalent groups e.g. hydride, boride,carbide,nitride , sulfide where there is sometimes no common func. group just a common naming. The articles are generally trend articles focusing e.g. on structure and implications for properties.

The ions could be termed functional groups but entering each one would add too much to the info box and overload it with trivia. Ions could definitely have an info box which related principally to the "free ion". We should have something in the infobox to cater for ligands e.g. a line "ligand coordination modes".

The compound classes like carbide - all that is really common here is the name that that they are binary compounds. Traditionally inorganic chemists teach/write about trends in these , so they need to be in wiki. These are IMO compound classes and not functional groups - an infobox would not be much use and might even confuse..(unless we can come up with one that still looks good and can handle different structures / bonding etc!!)

We have other articles on e.g. metallocene where again these are classes and not functional groups- and agin I cannot see an infobox helping with these.

In conclusion--I like the guidelines. I would however make the infobox optional-- with words to indicate that it should be used where there is a common functional/structural entity - which would generally mean with inorganics, yes to an ion e.g. sulfate, but no to an infobox for a class e.g. boride.
--Axiosaurus (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)