Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Archive 2007

archive discussion of WT:CHEMS for 2007

New page

2-chloropropanoic acid needs some help to get a stub!--Stone 14:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Importance

There are quite some chemicals in the wikipedia which have an {{importance}} tag. Personally, I believe that this is a right tag at the moment, besides being a stub, the articles state no importance whatsoever (the importance template states: "This article lacks information on the notability (importance) of the subject matter."), and some may indeed not be notable. A couple of days ago the tags were replaced by a {{expand}} (and something similar has happened earlier, months ago). This expand-tag is in my eyes an almost superfluous tag anyway, expansion is inherent to the wikipedia. Moreover, the articles are stubs, hence are already tagged for expansion and changing the tags does not make the backlog smaller. I have reverted those. Now this afternoon someone has replaced three importance tags with {{mergeto}} (see talk page of samarium, relating to samarium(III) fluoride, samarium(II) chloride and samarium(III) oxide), which also does not make sense. Now I do concur, these articles are notable (so most are not ready for an AfD, and the non-notability is maybe not a good category) and they have been tagged quite long (months, and people want to get rid of the back-log on the non-notability).

Do we consider other options? I can make three suggestions:

1. Remove the {{importance}}, ignoring the fact that the articles don't tell anything.
2. Replacing the {{importance}} with a new tag, {{importance-chemistry}}, where the articles get pulled out of the normal non-notability cat, but put into a non-notability in chemistry tag.
3. Replacing the {{importance}} with an {{expert}}-tag, which can also be supplied to a chemistry related subject.

I'd like to hear some thoughts on this. Cheers. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think we need option 3. It would take all of us many, many hours of our time to research each of these compounds to provide citable information on their importance. For any one of the compounds you mention, I know that a CAS search would give you a list of papers on these compounds, but these all take valuable time and effort. Option 3 would send the right message, IMHO, that these compounds are notable, but they are obscure enough to require a chemist and some powerful resources to show that. Incidentally, my ever edit was to create a samarium halide page, since I use it in my research (as shown in the picture) and Sm is my favourite element - so I'm not impartial with these examples! Walkerma 18:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Also see an old suggestion of mine, which seems relevant in this case. Walkerma 18:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess we are talking about hundreds of compounds, indeed (I saw approx hundred in the NN-cat for June, and we are January now). I did not state my personal favourite, I'd like option 2 (or leaving as is). Needing and expert and needing importance are not the same, I guess we should use the first for articles where there is something really wrong. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

In some ways, yes, option 2 is best for the reasons you state. My concern with it is that it would simply put the articles in a subcategory of the main {{importance}} one, which might still be hit by the deletionists. But maybe if the template were written so as to say "The importance needs to be verified by an expert in chemistry" or some such thing, then I would support it. Walkerma 18:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Why should a deletionist who doesn't participate in this project be alowed to "hit" these articles? These people have no clue. If a chemical article has - a structure image, the name, few "database" id-s and have been added to any of the chemistry categories - then it should not be labeled at all because this is the minimum information it must have to exist here. The "importance" tag is something that is so subjective. -- Boris 11:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The articles don't state any importance, hence, they have an importance tag. They may be non-notable if they do not state why they are important, but probably are notable enough. We just haven't come around to do something about it (there is a lot of work to be done, anyway). But indeed the question is, should people not participating in a chemicals/chemistry project be assessing these articles/changing maintenance tags. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Here we go again, a whole set of articles has been prodded. I am reverting, but I'd like some more input on the above proposals. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Belay that, I am not reverting, but checking. Still, proposals? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Protecting all articles

By the way, why haven't all aricles been put in a semi-protected "unregistered-vandal"-save mode by the sysops we have here? Aren't you guys tired of doing reverts instead of spending more time with editing and improving? Don't you feel like we gotta do something about it? I mean, if all the participants in a project decide to protect its pages they should be allowed to do that with the help of their sysops, shouldn't they?

• Oppose. Protecting is not a solution, I vote strongly against that, I may be tired of reverts, but the power of a wikipedia is that everybody can edit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"Everybody"" means vandals too, or a bunch of high-school kids who don't know jack about the matter anyway.?!? If that's not a good solution maybe you have a better one, well let us hear it then or you have none. "Everybody" for me are those that have the knowledge and are willing to help, and these are the "everybody"s that are going to come over here and some small a$$ registration/"log in" proces isn't goint to stop them from editing, actually it is going to have the oposite effect - when people are asked to log in so they can edit they feel secure that their work will not be damaged and it's protected. How are we suposed to attract good editors? How many people in their right mind after working for hours in the lab, the office, the production floor dealing with all kinds of sh1t are going to sit here and enjoy putting some work in a hope that they are contributing to the comunity only to see later that some bozo has "f"-ed it up. Well one can say - How hard is to revert? - just click on the link for the last good revision in the edition history then save it and it's done. Yeah that was easy in those days, when Wikipedia popularity was skyrocketing, because there were so many people working here. Now so many of them are gone and only the hardcore editors, many of them anti-vandal patrol troops are left plus few "lost" enthusiastic souls and it's so hard to keep everything in order - articles that before were reverted in matter of minutes now it takes hours even days to get them back fixed. Meanwhile a bot passes by (adds a link or category, fixes some spelling), or it could be a good unregistered user unaware for the damage, and their revisions override the vandal act in "my watchlist" history so now its no more a click away and we have to backtrack. And the result is - most of the edits don't improve anything (because we don't have time actually to do that) they are just vandal-antivandal ping-pong.
If some articles can be "semi-" or even "fully" protected why others can't be? How hypocritical is this "everybody can edit" then?
Beetstra, you are a hard working man i didn't post becasue i want to argue with you or any of the regulars. All i want is that we find a solution to improve the current situation in our Project, which if it works can be used by the other projects. Now i'm going back to work. If you don't have anything to say that can make that happen then don't waste your breath. Peace. -- Boris 13:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, I am not going to go into a fight. I just don't believe it will help. semi-protection means that only registered users can edit, the trouble here is, that I see more and more registered vandals coming up lately. People apparently already know that IP's will be blocked too quick. Full protection blocks editing from everybody, which results in me not being able to improve articles anymore (ok, at least I don't have to revert anything as well). So then wikipedia would have to define usergroups, people within a usergroup have to be allowed to edit a certain group of articles, others will have to apply for access, and in that case, the whole system of wikipedia does not work anymore. I am regularly seeing conversations by Tim, Brion, Rob, and others on #mediawiki, and they are very much against that type of control. So, although basically a good idea, it simply is very hard to control or to run properly. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"said that cows eat it on a regular basis for dessert." This was today's edit on pyrite. On the pages that I watch, this is the most common kind of contribution from unregistered users. And the so-called well-intentioned edits from unregistered users are usually semi-useless anecdotes. I dont have any solution, but I suspect that other dedicated contributors ceased editing or were turned off by this pervasive childishness--Smokefoot 15:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this article, Who Writes Wikipedia, should be helpful. A quote, somewhere 1/3 down:

Wales seems to think that the vast majority of users are just doing the first two (vandalizing or contributing small fixes) while the core group of Wikipedians writes the actual bulk of the article. But that's not at all what I found. Almost every time I saw a substantive edit, I found the user who had contributed it was not an active user of the site. They generally had made less than 50 edits (typically around 10), usually on related pages. Most never even bothered to create an account.

--Rifleman 82 15:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

There are many problems with this idea, see Wikipedia:Editors should be logged in users for a rather PoV ;P rebuttal. I would also note that about four months ago, I was shouting over the roof-tops that WP had more registered users than articles: since then, it has been much harder to get the stats on registered users... My own view is that the idea would make life any easier: aons do good edits and registered users vandalise (or simply make "bad" edits, which also need correcting). On a pragmatic point of view, no restriction will pass the powers-that-be for the forseeavble future. The best defence against bad editing, and the best help for the people who combat outright vandalism without necessarily being chemists, is to write good articles which are understandable to non-specialists. Physchim62 (talk) 16:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Chemical articles inaccessible for the general public

Isn’t Wikipedia a general encyclopedia? I find many articles about chemical substances written with a technical jargon that makes them hard to access for readers who are not specialists in chemistry.

In particular, I find it inappropriate to use technical language such as the formal chemical name in the Introduction section. I also think that chemicals with a wide usage that consumers often come in direct contact with should be written with special care. For examples the Food Additives. For example: E_numbers

Are the “professionalism” among editors in this part of Wikipedia contra productive for the larger goals of Wikipedia? MaxPont 19:23, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I do agree that articles should be easily accessible, though not at the expense of accuracy. Certainly not dumbing down or simplifying articles for the sake of being more easily understood. The formal chemical names, especially those IUPAC names and/or common trivial names should be listed in the lead paragraph. Other names commonly encountered should also be mentioned there as well. For example, look at the parabens article. Parabens are esters - how else should they be described? Ester is wikilinked; if the reader does not understand what they are, he can find out there. The discussion on parabens should not be a discussion on esters or on benzoic acid. If you can point out which articles in particular you are not satisfied with, why not list them here and we can take a closer look? --Rifleman 82 19:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

That is what I wanted to suggest as well, could you give us two or three examples, and then we could try and work through them together. I am very willing to participate in that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding MaxPont's comment "I find many articles about chemical substances written with a technical jargon". Well we could begin each article with "there are tiny particles that we call nuclei surrounded by itsy bitsy things we call e-l-e-c-t-r-o-n-s and collections of these tiny bits are what scientists call atoms..." More seriously, the broad articles like chemistry should be highly accessible in terms of being jargon-less or at least explaining/defining jargon. When a reader looks up peroxynitrite, one expects technical detail, not a re-explanation of atomic structure. A practical reason for rejecting MaxPont's suggestion - all our articles would be 10x longer if we had to re-redefine all terminology. BTW, I can barely understand most of the math articles, e.g. the apparently elementary concept K-theory, but I do not blame the article - I just dont know enough math. It's my problem, not Wikipedia's. We live in a complicated world that is difficult to explain.--Smokefoot 20:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

That is true, but still I think it is a good thing to listen to our customers, and see if there is something that we indeed could improve without indeed having to re-explain every single subject over and over (that's what we have those nice blue links for). Hence, I'd like some example pages which MaxPont thinks are too difficult, s/he is after all talking about general subjects (food-additives, E numbers). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, K-theory does not make sense, it may be that I don't know enough math, but it is IMHO a good example of an article that is too difficult to start of with. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

My point was not that the articles should be lowered to kindergarten level but that educated readers with a general knowledge of science and technology outside chemistry should be able to understand maybe 40% of the articles.

My point is that the articles should be expanded with text about the practical usage of a substance and the features that make it suitable for different applications. Probably 9 out 10 readers who search for chemical names that are used outside the labs are non-chemists.

An example of a suitable level for the non-chemists is the texts found in for example “A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives” (by Ruth Winter). Also note WP:lead which clearly states that the intro section should give an overview for the first-time reader.

A few examples: When describing a substance, the term water-soluble is almost as precise as the term Hydrophile but water-soluble is immediately understandable for most readers. The article about amino acid doesn’t start with the obvious: that there are 20 amino acids and that they are the building blocks for all proteins in the body. In the same way could the article about peptide start with the simplification that a peptide is built of amino acids and usually is an intermediate building block for proteins. All the qualifications and special cases can be added after the basics are established. MaxPont 09:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Good points, I think we have to work on that. Slight addition on an earlier remark on peroxynitrite, it is true, the general public will probably not look onto this compound, until some chemical transport (e.g. for synthesis reasons) gets an accident, and it is appearing in the news. So it should also be done there (though that is probably not a priority case). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that aiming to make 40% of the articles mostly intelligible to most generally educated readers is high, but we can argue about this point later. The important point that Maxpont makes is that WE writers be sensitive to the possibility that an article has visibility outside of chem-chemE-biochem arena. In general this sensitivity already seems to exist. Hydrochloric acid, hydrogen are two such broadly written pieces. The amino acids and many health-related chemicals, amygdalin, nitrous oxide, are uneven, partly because these get edited by enthusiasts who know little chemistry but are passionate to share their perspective. I have never seen the term Hydrophile used, my default is water-soluble (even though the English seems awful - and the alternative is what - organic soluble?). Maxpont's advice is certainly welcome. I recommend that Maxpont identify other examples like "hydrophile."--Smokefoot 14:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Organic soluble? That's a terrible choice of words even though it's so often used. Organic compounds can range from very polar such as methanol or acetic acid to next to non-polar like c-hexane. That's why lipophilic is so much more precise... --Rifleman 82 16:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[[amino acid] doesn't nopt start with "there are 20 of them", because there are about several hundred of them - "amino acid" is a more general term than "amino acid used for the synthesis of proteins", alright? Some articles can be written in a general

General chemistry articles

I think this debate touches on a problem which we identified a long time ago, which is that our general chemistry articles are not always as good as they could be. In many cases, the article on a chemical links through to an article on a wider calss of chemicals, but the wider article has less information. While I sympathise with users of certain articles, and support (obviously) a move to simplify some of the language, we should remember that Wikipedia is by its nature pyramidal: unless we have the base of the pyramid, we should not be surprised if some users are lost by more technical articles. Physchim62 (talk) 10:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Should we then comprehensively review those articles at the base first? Perhaps make an effort to sort out Category:Chemistry, restubbing those which are obviously not at the base, and improving the rest? Perhaps a Chem COTM for the next 2 months? --Rifleman 82 10:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Ther have been some moves in that direction on WikiProject Chemistry but there is a lot of work to do. Any suggestions (and, especially, help) welcome :) Physchim62 (talk) 10:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, my suggestion as an outsider to the chemical Wikipedian community would be: There are chemical terms and concepts that are known by most educated non-chemists. I think they should be used when they are releavant in the intro sections. Examples: basic – acidic, water-soluble – fat-soluble, small molecule – large molecule, stable – unstable, positively charged – negatively charged, organic – inorganic, reactive with oxygen – stable in oxygen, etc. If there is a synonym such as hydrophilic it can be put in parenthesis after the word. The loss in precision is a price to pay for increased readability and the exact terms and elaboration over details can be done in the main article text. MaxPont 11:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

As chemist we have developed neologisms (new words) to explain quite complicated concepts in chemistry. The use of a single word avoids having to explain the whole concept all over again each time you mention it. However, I think it is true that we need to have in mind a less sophisticated reader (whilst we might think we are pretty jolly clever now, we were once also all pretty jolly clever 12-year olds too!). One of them main problem lies in what level of detail the article is directed to, e.g. what is an acid to what is a stable carbene.

The later require much more sophisticated language otherwise starting to explain what a Stable carbene is from first principles would make the article unreadable.

It is almost like article should be ranked "basic" (e.g school level ), "intermediate" (High-school level) and "advance" (university level) and tone of the article and language directed likewise.

Either way, it can't hurt to use more simple language when we can, and if appropriate.

Finally there is always www.simple.wikipedia.org - maybe we can help more in improving this resource, even if it would appear to be less glamorous!? Quantockgoblin 12:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree in here. Every science field (and not only in science) uses neologisms and abbreviations, and the deeper we go into studying the objects the more of them we are going to create. Certain things cannot be explained with words for the general readers (GR), they just can't. And i don't see any logic when a GR tries to understand material that is taught during the last years in college and later. There are parts in many of the articles, even whole articles, where the events, the mechanisms, etc. that covere this kind of material and they cannot be explained with words for the GR, so why bother reading them? It's like reading for the first time a book about "Organic chemistry" by skipping the first several chapters where they talk about basic stuff and jumping straight into the "Classes of Organic chemical and reactions", if they don't know that initial material how are they going to learn the later one that is based on the first one. They aren't going to learn anything and simplifying it isn't going to help. We shouldn't get carried away with the terminology though as some things can be really explained with simpler words.
P.S. And in Amino acid, the talk should be about the amino acids in general (several hundreds of them) not just the ones that are used to build proteins. The same goes for peptide. -- Boris 10:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Intro paragraphs need to be the most readable. Anyone reading further than a general introduction is likely to be willing to look up technical terms and/or can use the contents box to skip to what there interested in, e.g. uses or hazards the most likely things a lay reader is going 2 want to know. in the. In the same way a chemist etc. is likely only to skim an intro but want the technical detail discussed further down. This means that you can conveniently provide for both groups making the headings clear will also be important in making articles accessible to a non expert. --Nate1481 12:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

No objections to User:Nate1481 or User:MaxPont. That said, it's not that productive to discuss these ideas in general. For example, while a vitamin may be described as fat-soluble, I would hesitate to use it to describe hexane or toluene. I think most if not all here accept these general criticisms. Would you like to nominate a few articles in particular, and join us in improving them? --Rifleman 82 12:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

User:MaxPont: I've tried to take your comments into account while rewriting lipophilic. Let's start with this article. Why don't you take a look at it and post your comments here? --Rifleman 82 12:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Lipophilic is well written and clearly understandable for an "outsider". MaxPont 14:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

It's good but could do with a few more intrawiki links to help a lay reader, I've added some in. --Nate1481 14:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Uhm, right. Okay, next one. I've nominated the last, User:MaxPont, you have to nominate the next. --Rifleman 82 15:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Carboxylic acid, a big worry when we were getting acetic acid up to FA standard. Physchim62 (talk) 15:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've done a bit to copyedit. How's it? --Rifleman 82 16:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Aren't colourless liquids automatically "clear"

For those looking to relax and ponder the finer points of describing chemicals: a couple of us have debated the use of the term "clear" when describing colourless liquids, such as toluene. I argue that "clear" is redundant and, worse, implies that non-clear (read: cloudy, murky), colourless liquids exist, which they do not for pure compounds, so far as I know. IMHO, adding use of the adjective "clear," implies a lack of understanding of the term "colourless liquid" and the implications of purity. This issue is not exactly a hot one, but views are welcome. To slightly over-push my point, what's next: "clear, colourless gas" for hydrogen.--Smokefoot 18:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "clear" is unnecessary. Itub 18:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I was originally arguing, that a colourless liquid could be opaque, and I wrote a whole essay on colourless/clear/opaque .. but now I cannot think of any pure, opaque compound for the moment. I guess I will have to concur in that in a liquid colourless is clear .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Pure compounds should not be suspensions. I suppose the description "clear" is a carry-over from descriptions of reaction mixtures which need not be clear liquids. I would agree to removing them from chemboxes etc descriptions of pure compounds. As for opaque liquids - milk is one example, but that's an emulsion, not a pure compound. I have had certain reaction mixtures (solutions) which are so intensely colored to be opaque, but once again not pure compounds. Mercury? I'd say that's opaque. Or any other liquid metal. --Rifleman 82 18:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I think purity is a red-herring in this debate and should be put aside - e.g. a mixture of hexane and toluene gives an impure clear and colourless liquid.

Clear means not opaque.

Colourless means without colour (pure or not pure). As far as I'm concerned white is colourless. Red, yellow, blue are colours.

Liquids:

Toluene is a clear colourless liquid.

Liquid oxygen is a clear coloured (blue) liquid.

Milk is a opaque colourless liquid. (I admit I can't think of a pure example, but that does not mean one does not exist - e.g. some molten salt or ionic liquid perhaps?)

Solids (maybe solids are more obvious to understand):

White phosphorous is an opaque colourless solid.

Copper sulphate is a clear coloured (blue) solid.

Sodium chloride is a clear colourless solid.

However, saying all the above, for practical purpose I think most people understand colourless to mean without colour including white. So I guess as long as we understand colourless to exclude white then colourless does not require clear also. Obviously clear can be coloured. In summary I think you can use "colourless" in isolation but never "clear" in isolation without a colour - Quantockgoblin 22:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I was always taught that the term "colourless" alone was a little ambiguous, at least for liquids, and that's why I have usually seen liquids described as "clear, colourless liquid". I note that that entire exact phrase (including the colorless variant) gives 140,000 Google hits - though of course the phrase without "clear" gives more. In other words, this is a standard description for liquids, rather like the other classic, "colourless, odourless gas". So although I can see the point that there is a certain amount of redundancy, on balance I think our forebears were probably right to avoid any ambiguity by giving us this boilerplate term.

I also understand the comment that "I can't think of any pure liquid that is opaque", but unfortunately (a) we may need to describe mixtures in Wikipedia and anyway (b) the typical reader (perhaps a high school student?) will not know this (presumed) fact about pure liquids. For example, one could equally well say, "I can't think of a group 18 element that isn't a gas" - and there is a good chemical explanation for this - yet we don't omit the word "gas" from the descriptions of He, Ne, etc. Walkerma 02:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

(unindenting) On further thought, although I feel it is not strictly necessary to say "clear, colorless", I don't think it hurts either, and it may even help in some cases. Itub 12:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

"Colourless" might imply "clear", but "clear" does not imply "colourless": think of (very) dilute potassium permanganate solution. I think this is the paedagogic origin of the link, and I don't think it does any harm to continue the tradition. Physchim62 (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

NFPA 704 template

Looking at the niacinamide article, it appears that the image needed by the template {{NFPA 704}} for Flammability 4 and special OX is not available. See also here. Am I correct, or am I missing something? --Ed (Edgar181) 16:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The article doesn't use the template anymore, but the question remains. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I cleared the NFPA/R/S-sentences fields in niacinamide and in the chembox new, they get incorrectly set when someone like me, who is paying no attention, simply copies the chembox new from the template page (can that be done differently, e.g. by substing a master template that results in the chembox new?). But about the picture, that indeed seems to go wrong, I see the same. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What I missed is that the image is on commons as Image:Nfpa f4 ox.png. And clearly the template can handle F4 OX without problems (see benzoyl peroxide). So I don't know what went wrong at the niacinamide article. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

{{NFPA 704}} doesn't use separate images. It's just a background image, Image:NFPA 704.svg, and text. I think it is far superior to using a combination of PNGs. Can we implement it in the various chemboxes in use?

Ben 17:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem is with the {{chembox new}}, the images in that are not handled correctly. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Can that be fixed? It would be nice. It is this sort of glitch that makes me avoid the transcluded chembox.

Ben 18:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the chembox new, you don't have to transclude, just use it as the template with all the parameters, and it just shows up correct (though I would like the subheaders to be invisible when there is no data in it). Better than the old one, to which you had to add a line, which makes it inconsistent. I indeed hope it can be fixed, I'll have a look into that part of the code (though I am not a picture expert). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)\

Good points. Thanks for your enthusiasm! I don't know much about code at all, so maybe I'll learn a bit and try out some solutions.

Cheers

Ben 19:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I used the old NFPA-code in the transclusion of the transclusion of the transclusion of .. well .. of the NFPA that is built into the chembox new. I am going to run AWB to update the pages, some now have a distorted page. At least it works now .. I hope I don't break things in this way, otherwise I will have to revert all 50 pages that have the chembox new transcluded ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I seem to have it repaired now, and checked all pages carrying this template. The chembox new has a new parameter now, 'NFPA-O', trouble there is, if it is not there, it is OK, if it has a value, it is OK, but if it is there, but has no value, it goes mayhem. Maybe a specialist in templates has to look into that (4 levels of transclusion is fun!).

To my earlier question: an easy way of getting a full {{chembox new}} on a page is to save a page with {{subst:chembox subst}}, you will have a new chembox in that round. Hope this solves the problem for now. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Use of worklist template

Hi all, I have taken on the ol' {{chemicals}} template, as originally designed by PC. To that I added classification, and gave it with more precise text a practical applicability: it now is the WP:CHEMS worklist template, reading that the article is on the worklist of WP:CHEMS, and the classification is non-optional: there is just a limited set of 381 articles, and my personal goal is to have them all listed and rated to start with. Give me a few days. Additional to using this WP:CHEMS worklist template, I also created the pertaining categories, which enables the mathbot to do automatic wikiproject article assessment statistics. As you can see above, the statistics administration had a slight backlog, but that was in general line with the limited progress noted in the articles. And that we didn't have automatic statistics was a shame, as we invented assessment here in WP:CHEMS! (How many recall that?) With all this, I hope to give the WP:CHEMS wikiproject a slight boost into getting at least the target ' >=Start' complete. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

Scope of WP:CHEMS

The current scope of the Chemicals WikiProject is practically limited to 381 articles, chosen nearly two years ago. This fixed group is monitored in the worklist, and should be an active target of the particants. As pointed out above, I have defined the worklist template to automate the statistics for these worklist articles. However, it is estimated that there may well be up to 4 or 5000 articles about chemicals in Wikipedia nowadays. Although these cannot be part of a usable worklist scheme, perhaps somebody has a nice idea? Do we want to include them all in WP:CHEMS? If so, how? Or are they to be part the Chemistry wikiproject (they are now), possibly with a separate importance rating or so? Or ... Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

Well the worklist seems to have lived a useful but possibly finite life. Some of us, however, would like to see data on say the top 200 chemical (not chemistry) articles in terms of views/day. --Smokefoot 04:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

That list was designed to make sure that we had (a) coverage of most important compounds and (b) broad coverage across all areas of chemistry. I think the list is still valid, though we could consider expanding it, particularly now that we can use Mathbot to automate the tedious work.

I don't think there are lists of chemical article views/day available - though if you find such lists, please let us know! I have seen an old list of the 2000 most viewed articles - I think many of the top compounds often tend to be illicit drugs, though! (Not as popular as "List of gay porn stars" though) At WP:1.0 we are testing out a bot (MathBotII) that will generate lists of importance based on the number of internal links to that article (as well as WikiProject importance assignments). We are hoping to weight this based on the importance of those internal links - so an article linked from the chemistry article would score higher than one linked from praseodymium(III) chloride. Would that list of ranking be useful? Walkerma 06:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I started this 'argument' with Wim yesterday, when he was putting classifications on the {{chemicals}}, and asked why he did not add the importance. That started a bit of discussion on this. My thoughts on this have not thoroughly crystallised, but I could envisage the following:

• 'Remove' all chemical compounds from the chemistry-wikiproject and put them into the chemicals wikiproject. That makes especially the chemistry wikiproject a bit easier to grasp. The link between chemistry and chemicals should be made very clear, though. And I guess that all participants in the chemicals-wikiproject are all also in the chemistry-wikiproject. That also takes away the 'problem' of discussions in chemistry that involve chemicals, where a physical chemist may think, 'why should I care about samarium(II) fluoride?'.
• Assess all chemicals by their 'importance to life and chemistry', that will put many compounds into 'top' (e.g. caffeine is a important chemical to life, though not so much to chemistry, but LiAlH₄ is very important to chemistry, but not so much to life. Benzene as a concept is important to both, but (I hope I don't insult someone) Holmium(III) oxide is neither important to life, nor to chemistry (in general).
• Assess them all by quality, same system as in chemistry.
• Give the chemicals template an extra parameter that gives a line 'this article is considered a core-article in the chemicals wikiproject'.

About that worklist (and here the crystallisation is far from complete). We have that list, and many of the chemicals in that are still 'start'-class. If we now would say that we remove everything above B-class to 'done' (as in, they may still improve, but we are not actively working on improving them, more maintaining), and add an appropriate number of new compounds to our list, some of the new compounds will rapidly go to A/FA/GA-class again, but some of the starts will still remain stubs/starts (in some of the compounds none of us is really interested, and, IMHO, some will never get above B, there is just not enough data to get them there). Wim, do you have any clue how much work there is being done on an avarage start-class article at the moment, in contrast to how much time it cost to get e.g. ethanol or toluene to A-class? Any ideas? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It won't cost much effort to move both ethanol and toluene to A-Class: they're both on the worklist, and have already for a long time been A-Class ;-). Current effort on the worklist articles is just as much on high-classified as well as low-classified, and with not much focus such as an Article of the Month, or someone putting an article up for FAC, there is not much of it anyway. Hence my emphasis on focus. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

"Or are they to be part the Chemistry wikiproject" Of course they are, you guys don't expect the pharmacologists to write the "Synthesis" section in the "Drug" articles, do you? Dirk, i had to fix the layout of your post i hope you don't mind. -- Boris 12:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind. Forgot to indent properly there. What I mean to suggest, Boris, is that the chemicals wikiproject is a subproject from the chemistry wikiproject, and that the chemicals wikiproject takes care of all chemicals, they are then also part of chemistry, because chemistry is the motherproject. With a bit of clever categorising that should then follow easily (category chemistry has a subcategory chemicals, which then contains the branch of chemical compounds? Certain subbranches of that chemicals-category will also be a subcategory of pharmaceutical compounds. Hope this clarifies a bit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd very much agree with Dirk, in that *all* chemicals should be in Chemicals, and assessed by importance there rather than anywhere else. That includes drugs etc which are well-defined molecules, though I hesitate to include enzymes and long proteins which may have a CAS #. If the pharmacologist doesn't know the synthesis, I'm sure we'll be able to find one or two examples. --Rifleman 82 15:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

1. I'm not sure I'm seeing it so much differently (am I?): all chemicals are already in the Chemistry wikiproject and rated according to Class as well as Importance in that wikiproject. Thus pharmacologists as well as physical chemist and chemical engineers, chemistry historians and whoever can contribute to all chemistry related articles (including ones on chemicals) and work on all Start or Stub articles in the Chemistry categories. I understand that Dirk thinks this list may be long, but then there's the bot doing all the admin work. I think this is a Good Thing^TM.
2. Out of that long list of chemistry articles, close to fourhunderd articles have been selected with good argumentations and serious attention as being about the most important chemicals in several sections (inorganic chemicals, commodity chemicals, etc): These and these alone are the scope of the original Chemicals wikiproject, and need the high focus, just because they are decided to be important, aka importance=Top. We might discuss adding and/or deleting a few articles form the worklist, as we are some two years down the line, but essentially I think this is good too.
3. PS. This special focus of the WP:CHEMS worklist is the method I'm currently setting the new {{chemicals}} template implementation scheme for, so that the bot takes over counting also for the WPChem worklist. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

Yes, all chemicals are in the chemsitry wikiproject, together with all the other chemistry subjects (some of them not even thinking in terms of chemicals). That's why I would suggest to putt all chemicals in the chemicals wikiproject, so that they get focussed attention. I'm sorry to say Wim, but I edit/improve more chemicals in the chemistry wikiproject than in the chemicals wikiproject. The list is probably close to 4000 chemicals (as far as I have seen them, I'll update a list soonish), the core of 400 is a list that give a core of chemicals that should be covered, but there are many other important chemicals out there that are not in the list, though I still edit them in the spirit of the chemicals wikiproject, and I think that layout and necessary information on chemicals in wikipedia should be steered by the chemicals wikiproject, not only those 400 selected ones. What am I to do with the other 90%? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have worklists of chlorides, oxides and organics which are there for the taking (although the ratings are well over a year old). Comparing the old ratings with the new bluelinks gives a qualitative view as to how the project has developed—when I developed the lists, all articles which existed were rated... Physchim62 (talk) 15:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

A not-too-new list can be found here Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/AlphabeticalList, it contains at the moment 2887 chemical compounds, but I am working on an updated version of that (which has close to 3800 on them, I just have to remove some rubbish). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

A few points:

• I don't think that our worklist necessarily gives the most important chemical compounds (though many clearly are); in many cases we chose representative compounds. For example, we have holmium(III) oxide and dysprosium(III) chloride, but we could equally well have chosen holmium(III) chloride and dysprosium(III) oxide. The point is, both elements now have at least one compound represented. So please don't tag everything on the list as top importance; most projects of our size will only tag around 10-20 articles as "top".
• I do like the idea of separating chemicals from chemistry for assessment (but see next point); both projects are big enough to do this. Even giant projects like WP:MILHIST, that traditionally had everything in together, are now splitting up their assessments somewhat, so that they can see separate lists for World War II articles, for example.
• We could use a hybrid template to add articles to both the chemistry and the chemicals listing. For a simple example see {{Chemical Element}}, which adds articles both to Chemistry and Version 0.5, but the importance rating is only added to the former.
• In late 2004, the chemistry pages were typically much stronger than most chemical compound pages, so much of the work in 2005 - when this project took off - was focussed on fixing that problem. I think in 2006 many of us either got involved elsewhere (in my case, WP1.0), but the most active chemists saw that there were many big holes in our broader chemistry coverage, so much of the work was done at WP:Chemistry rather than here. The result has been some loss of momentum here - speaking personally, I was reluctant to spend lots of time on improving chemical Starts when I saw the dire state of articles like chemical substance or Dow Chemical Company (two I worked on) - others have done much more than I, and our broader chemistry articles are much better as a result. Another effect of this slowdown is that articles on our worklist have not been assessed recently, and I suspect that at least some of those Starts have improved. Wim, could you & I (+others welcome to help) aim to re-assess the whole list in the next two weeks?
• It is certainly much easier to take an article from Start to B, than from B to A. In fact, I suspect that some of our current As may not make it as A using modern criteria (inline cites, etc). It may be good to focus on getting remaining Starts, at least on the key articles and the High importance ones, up to B-Class standard.
• It is also worth reflecting how far we have come. At the start of 2005, we didn't even have an article on aluminium chloride, and even where we did, look at the improvement since Nov 2004 in pyridine (currently assessed as "Start". Much still needs to be done, though, and some articles like sodium bicarbonate cry out for help!

Overall, I agree that all chemicals should come under the remit of this project. That ensures that outsiders will direct their questions here, which is the right place. The worklist can channel our efforts, though, to make sure we have a good range of compounds covered well. Walkerma 16:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

(undent)I have just updated the list of compounds in wikipedia after going through my watchlist and the transclusion-list of {{ChemicalSources}}. I have checked the list twice for terms that should not be there, but I am sure I have missed some. It contains an impressive 3711 substances. I must say, that is including data pages, redirects, pages that do not exist anymore, and pages that have been requested. But I think that will get rid of some 100-150 of them. It also contains a number of substances which are there because they rely strongly on chemical properties, though the majority of the article will probably be not strictly chemical (e.g. steel). Hope this helps a bit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If I understand the new scope then:

• we'll keep on tagging all chemicals articles and all other chemistry articles for WikiProject Chemistry and assess them for class and importance, using the {{chemistry}} template
• we'll start tagging all 4000 chemicals articles for WikiProject Chemicals, and asses them for class and importance. I'll enhance the current {{chemicals}} template in the next few days.
• we'll start tagging all 380 WP:CHEMS worklist articles with a new {{wpchem worklist}} template, and assess them for class only: this is merely for counting statistics on the worklist. I'll create a new template for this in the next few days.

Any support for this scope change? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 00:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

I'd suggest to remove the {{chemistry}} from the chemicals, and add {{chemicals}}, for the rest, yes, that would be OK. You could consider adding a parameter 'core' to the chemicals-template, that displays a 'This chemical is on the core chemicals list of the wikiproject' (or something like that). If that gives a unique category, bots can count them and assess them. The classification should not be different between the two templates anyway. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• As now in talk:Hydrochloric acid?? Or do you really mean {chemicals} INSTEAD of {chemistry}? Simply change that example talk page to what you mean. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 00:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

Yes, I mean {{chemicals}} instead of {{chemistry}}. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I have made some changes, hydrochloric acid now only carries the {{chemicals}}, with options core=1|class=FA|importance=top, which seems to categorise it correctly (or we must also want to add them to the categories in chemistry, but that seems to me a bit superfluous, that can be done by making the categories a subcategory of the chemistry categories). Only problem, can I program this in such a way, that I can only add the parameter 'core' (without a contents, so 'core' i.s.o. 'core=1', where 1 is anything but a nothing?). That seems for me now a bit to high to understand. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Now I understand the double wikiproject template as Martin above points out! Nice. I hope you'll get it to work. If not, I'll look at it tomorrow: it is bedtime here in the Netherlands. Welterusten. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 00:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

It's bedtime for me too, and I can't get it fully to work, but this about does it for now. I think the sentence that tells it is a core-subject might be a bit more prominent, and it would be nice if that parameter could just be used as a switch, now it gets a dummy value. I hope some template-specialist will help us out, here. See yáll tomorrow, and a 'welterusten' from me too. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• I think I found the wrong bracket in the template. Have a look. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 10:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

New page of important chiral auxiliary

Prolinol comes as a stub and this should change!--Stone 20:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Chlorine trifluoride

I can neither check the two statments in the article: It was first prepared in 1912 by the electrolysis of molten NaCl/HF but is now generally made by reacting fluorine gas with 3% aqueous sodium hypochlorite solution The Hollemann Wiberg states discovery 1930 by Ruff synthesis from the elements. Has there anybody a better source? --Stone 16:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide link for yours? -- Boris 21:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The Hollemann Wiberg is a standart iorganic chemistry book and in there is a table of all interhalogenes and it says Ruff 1930. The Ruff paper cited in the article itself does not give any previous synthesis. The Russian Review of Shishkov and that of Booth also states Ruff es discoverer. I will change that part of the article after the weekend.--Stone 08:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:NatOrganicBox

I have made some changes to this template. Which are explained (in short) [here] (i work most of the time on this project ). As this template is used by articles that are maintained by this project as well, I need your opinion on what needs to be improved. -- Boris 21:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the infobox, but I'm concerned that using it causes some inconsistency. In my opinion, it would be best if all chemical articles had infoboxes that are consitent in appearance, content, etc. Which is why we have the chembox templates. I don't mean to be confrontational, but why should some chemical articles, such as coniine, get NatOrganicBox, and other chemical articles such as 2,2,6,6-Tetramethylpiperidine get a LabOrganicBox, while most of the other chemical articles get regular chemboxes - all three of these infobox styles have different appearances. What value is there in having three separate infoboxes? --Ed (Edgar181) 14:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I too disagree with the use of this box, and the laborganic box, the chembox simple, etc. I think chembox new is a good way to combine the pharma and explosive natures of various compounds into an article. But I think there are some outstanding issues the last time I checked. --Rifleman 82 16:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

There are at least 4 big groups of organic chemicals that have different values for us and have different origin.

1. those that are natural to our bodies - aminoacids, sugars, lipids, etc. They have their standart chemical properties (molecular weight, melting point, PubChem number, etc) but they also have a complex biochemical pathways that metabolize them and a complex system that regulated these pathways.
2. the natural drugs they have their own value for the organism (plants, microorganisms, etc) that produces them but for us humans their value is as drugs, or insecticides, etc - they have the standart properties, plus the metabolic ones, but they also have drug specific ones - half life, legal status, interactions with other drugs, etc - these are vitamins, natural opioids, antibiotics, etc.
3. the synthetic drugs - these also have a drug value for us but only humans can synthesize them in lab - examples would be all modified antibiotics that have no equivalent in nature. this group have all the properties the natural drugs have except they don't have complex biochemical pathways associated with their synthesis.
4. and the last group is of those that have no essential value for our bodies, nor can't be used as drugs, their value is as "lab" or purelly industrial chemicals - hexane, benzene, etc.

Now this is all organic talk here if we are to include the inorganics we can get 2 more groups, at least.
I would love to get rid of all the different infoboxes and have only one infobox that has the same consistent layot for all the groups (with multiple IFs for the specific properties) but applies different coloring - the same way the taxobox is designed. Would that be chembox_new or another one, it doesn't matter, but it has got to be one and before the number of the articles about chemicals hits the 5 digits (~3700 now).
About LabOrganicBox and NatOrganicBox. Relax. There is no need to sound the fire alarm as they can be easily deleted, i just wanted to see how this is going to look.
P.S. Coniine should be considered as natural drug, so it gets the light blue style not the natural one that i have wronlgy tested, although i don't know if anyone has used it as such yet. -- Boris 00:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that it is instructive for WE-chem communicate that chemicals are chemicals, regardless of whether they are biosynthetic, factory-produced, or found in a meteorite. Otherwise, I fear, we encourage the dangerous concept that natural chemical are distinct and endowed with special powers. The triumphs and pervasiveness of chemical biology reinforces this view - it's (it = biology, materials, etc) all just chemistry. Thus, I recommend that we stick to a fairly uniform Chembox for virtually all chemicals.--Smokefoot 01:25, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Whether you like it or not but they have "special powers". And i don't think that "chemical biology", "biochemistry", "molecular biology" or whatever you want to call it is pervesive. What happens with a compound when it becomes a cosntituent of an organism (temporarily or permanently), and its role in there, cannot be fully explain by chemistry alone. The biology world is a three dimentional one and what is needed most of the time, for the effects of the chemicals to occur, is that they bind (no covalent bonds formed, or metabolized to speak) to a biological surface which is a part of a complex regulatory network and the studying of the latter one and how it is affected by the chemical, are outside of the scope of your beloved classic chemistry and here is where bilogy and its "abominations" - the chemical biology, etc. - come to play (i'm being sarcastic here). I was looking for a cooperation between our two projects Wikipedia:WikiProject_Drugs and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals (i participate in both but happen to edit only the "special" sorry i can't help it, this is how far my competence will let me go) - chembox_new and drugbox are slightly different and they reflect that special importance, and i don't see anyone using chembox_new in drug articles, so we gotta find a good solution here. Plus i'm tired of seeing the inconsistnacy all over the place - there are tons of articles that have been around for years and still have the same old grey, or other color, tables; they don't even use templates - Ethylene glycol. Then judjing by the topic started earlier and by my own observations it is here in this project the reason that some articles (300 or so) get special treatment while the rest kinda "screw them". So are we gonna discuss how to solve this or what? -- Boris 04:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say the solution should not be using another infobox, but to make use of the existing ones. So, is ethanol a natural organic compound, bearing in mind its biosynthesis? Or is it an industrial solvent? Or is it considered a drug, a hypnotic? Same goes for acetic acid which is sometimes used as a reaction solvent. Or as a precursor to metal acetates. Naturally occurring compounds are not necessarily "special" either - strychnine is natural and usually lethal. I personally feel that such distinctions shouldn't be drawn. My approach to those gray boxes and old boxes have been to replace them with the existing chembox, while waiting for chembox new to take over. Fortunately Beetstra should be able able to AWB to the chembox new as and when required them quite easily. --Rifleman 82 05:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ethanol and acetic acid will be group 1, as our bodies have the enzymes to synthesize them, so their articles and drugboxes will have sections explaining their biological role as well. If the acetic acid derivatives have no analogues in the "bio" world, they would be group 4 chemicals. Strychnine is a naturally occuring alkaloid - Strychnos nux vomica has a bunch of enzymes for its synthesis, aparently it has some role for the plant, most probably protective - and is used as pesticide, so it belongs to group 2. The synthetic analogs of strychnine, designed to act stronger on roddents and to be less harmfull for other animals (say scavenging birds), go in group 3. See, the categorisation process is very simple.
P.S. For group 4 this color - #82D9CA might be more appropriate. -- Boris 06:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

(undent)I indeed once started programming AWB to do a transfer to {{chembox new}}. That would be a great improvement, and I am willing to do that run (though the total work is going to take time). I am not too sure about colouring of the boxes, though. It is going to get us into disputes, grouping is far from strict, and there will always be borderline things (one could program a parameter into the chemobx, that is defining its group, giving every group an own color, and the box has a 'standard' color when the parameter is empty, if any dispute about grouping is raised on the talkpage, empty the tag). Though I think it would be better to color the subboxes, and keep the chembox itself in one color. Mw == Mw, whatever the chemical, and that is in the top, if there is drug-info, than that box should be a sub-item in the chembox, and that box could have it's own color.

A problem is, there are many fields in some boxes that are not yet implemented in the chembox new, some work has to be done on that first. I would also suggest to make empty subboxes in the chembox invisible, now you see the header, but there is no data. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The colours do look nice, but I agree that there is no useful purpose to be served by introducing more chemboxes - this would just lead to more inconsistencies. It wouldn't help clear up articles like ethylene glycol - indeed the backlog would just get longer. Thanks for letting us know about this. Walkerma 02:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Subdiscussion - chembox new

The discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox (chembox new has been updated, I'd like add their 2c/2p to it). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Diamondina

Can WPChemicals verify the existence of this? I wasn't especially sure. Thanks, RHB ^{Talk - Edits} 21:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Can't find any results in the general databases. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The synonym given in the article, beta-methyl-phenethylamine, is certainly a real compound with CAS# 582-22-9. There are hundreds of references to it in Chemical Abstracts. Diamondina may be slang for it, but is not listed by Chem Abst as a synonym. --Ed (Edgar181) 22:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I found results for the b-m-p name but not for Diamondina. RHB ^{Talk - Edits} 22:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Moved the page to beta-methyl-phenethylamine, is surely a better name (but maybe IUPAC-name is even better?). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

New pages for Jan-Feb

Propanoic anhydride Dipropanoylmorphine Isonicotinamide These pages need a look.--Stone 09:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Another new page: Oxamide --Stone 19:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Another that needs a look and redirects, especially from a p-chemist: Ruthenium tris(bipyridine) chloride--Smokefoot 14:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Another few Pivalamide, Carbothioamide, Monocalcium aluminate, Lauryl methyl gluceth-10 hydroxypropyl dimonium chloride, (sorry these three are a little oftopic) Abul Hussam, Sono arsenic filter, Mayo–Lewis equation, Synthesis Reaction--Stone 23:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

And by the way I think dimonium should be diamonium?--Stone 23:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Magnesium citrate is another new one!--Stone 07:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

New DEFAULTSORT magic word

I just wanted to let everyone know about the new "magic word" DEFAULTSORT, if you haven't already heard about it. Recently I've gone through most of the chemical articles that start with a prefix (such as a number or "alpha-" or "N-", etc.) and changed the categories so that they sort based on the first letter after the prefix. This required manually adding a sort key to each category. Now that this job is mostly done, I've found out there is an easier way (d'oh!). If you add {{DEFAULTSORT|sort key}} before the categories, each category will automatically use that sort key. For an example of its use, see the edit I just made to 1,4,7-Trithiacyclononane. For more details about how to use it, see Wikipedia:Categorization#Category_sorting. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia articles with topics of unclear importance from June 2006

Hi, if you take a look at this category, you will see it has a huge backlog of chemical components. These articles are mostly stubs that weren't expanded. What do you think of them? Should we try to merge some, or if someone has a sufficient background and wants to expand them to show in which area they can be important... I hope someone will be able to take a look at it :) -- lucasbfr ^talk 17:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Some of us are working on it. Merging is not really possible, they are all individual compounds, all notable (although they do not state that at the moment, hence the {{importance}} tag. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

References in chembox

I'm copying this conversation over from Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox in order to bring it to a wider audience:

I'd like to request an additional field for chembox new. When I get the majority of data that I use to fill a chemical infobox from a single source, I like to put a reference at the top of the box. See o-Phenylenediamine for an example. Can a simple field for adding a ref at the top like this be added? Thanks. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought that was easy, but Cite.php does not work inside a template. Any other place where I can add that? Maybe a plain line in the footer? (stating 'source' or something like that?) --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Kind of solved. Not the nicest way .. it's not clear where you go to with that external link .. but o-Phenylenediamine has now that functionality .. the parameter is 'Reference', to be added in the header of {{chembox new}}. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I'm happy with the way it turned out (not your fault, of course.) I'm copying this conversation over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals so others can give input. --Ed (Edgar181) 17:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to ask members of this project what you think is the best way to handle references for data in a chembox. Lately, I've been putting a reference next to the title (see a historical version of o-Phenylenediamine). Is this a proper thing to do? It works well with substituted infoboxes, but unfortunately, as Dirk has noted above, <ref> tags don't work in a transcluded template, so there doesn't appear to be a clean solution to be used with {{chembox new}} (see current version of o-Phenylenediamine). Any ideas, suggestions, or comments? --Ed (Edgar181) 17:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In a way, the data in the chemboxes gets referenced by the CASNo (link to eMolecules), PubChem (link to PubChem), and other identifiers. And the data is not unique to a single reference, it can be obtained from many sources. Is there need for an extra reference field? In principle that could fit in the list with the these identifiers (see {{chembox Identifiers}}. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe it's too ambiguous to put a ref for the whole infobox. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

(copy from my talkpage) I was just curious if there were other non-substituted infoboxes that used references, and I found that {{taxobox}} has field for a reference (used in Yellow-shouldered Blackbird). I don't know enough about the inner workings of chembox new to know if this has any relevance or not though. Just thought you might be interested. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant! I have solved the problem. You can now add, in the top-level of the {{chembox new}} a parameter 'Reference' (I am not making it a standard reference). If you give that parameter the value <ref name=example>www.example.org</ref>, all works out OK. So all formatting haas to be done in that parameter, and then it works. See o-Phenylenediamine! Thanks, I've learned something new! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not a big fan of this reference, but there is a way, so there is no problem in having the support available in the {{chembox new}}. For this reason, I have programmed an extra field 'Reference', but that field has to be added by hand, a copy of the chembox from the example on {{chembox new}}, nor substing {{chembox subst}} gives this field as a standard. A wide range of other fields is already available, but since I don't want to encourage overuse of all the fields (create a datapage, chembox new automagically finds the data page, and shows an extra box), you will have to search for it, and see how to enable them. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There's still one problem in the o-Phenylenediamine, the external link off the CAS# - we saw the same problem we had with the old chembox - look at printing it to see! We had a strict policy of not allowing external links in chemboxes for that reason (CAS#, PubChem, etc). Is the new reference field a way to solve this? I don't want to barge into something where I'm unsure - but we should get rid of that external link. Remember - most of us editors only look at our articles online, but many people reading the article will want to print it. Could someone more knowledgable look at that? Thanks for all the work on this, Dirk and others, Walkerma 00:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Can editors check o-Phenylenediamine to verify that this problem is now fixed. If my solution has really worked, we can modify the other chembox fields which use external links (only Template:Chembox CASNo modified for the moment). Physchim62 (talk) 10:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that is a good solution, I did not know this trick. There are some other fields that use external links, they are all, AFAIK, in {{Chembox Identifiers}}) (some other templates still are able to call out to the same identifiers, but I have defined that as deprecated).

Is this the only reason why we did not want external links? I know they are biased (but all to non-commercial sites), people might want them to link to other external sites (I could easily program support for that, though, using non-standard fields). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The "print bug" was the main reason why external links were excluded from the chembox, yes. There had also been problems with whole sets of links going dead when an external database changed its structure, but this is solved much more easily with a transcluded template like {{chembox new}}. I can't remember the question of bias being discussed as such, although I have never been keen on links to MSDS from the chembox for that kind of a reason. Physchim62 (talk) 10:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Linking to the proper databases removes the necessity of a direct link to an MSDS, should I hide that field in the {{Chembox Hazards}}? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Chembox new

I have totally reprogrammed {{chembox new}}, and I think it is a good and full replacement of the old chembox. Chembox new has the same functions as {{chembox}}, and more. Some features are:

• completely transcluded, if we want to change the format, colours, we change the template, and all documents transcluding this template will show the new format;
• simple input, in the document you see 'parameter = ', and you just give it a value;
• modular approach: is the compound an explosive? Copy in the explosive module. For other fields new modules can be created, though most are available;
• empty fields are not shown;
• empty sections are not shown;
• capability of handling multiple images;
• when no image is provided, autocategorisation for the image request;
• advanced fields for molecular formula, boiling/melting points,
• when a "pagename (data page) exists, it will show an appropriate section.
• Identifiers link into a number of online databases, to make it easier to find more information on chemicals (they also print properly, now).

The standard chembox new can be created by typing {{chembox subst}} and pressing save. This gives a short list of the most common fields. Larger lists can be found in {{chembox new}}. When you want to add data for which the field is not supplied, just add the field in the appropriate section, and it will show in the chembox (when the field is known by the section, at least). Do not subst chembox new, it will result in a not-working, unintelligeble gibberish of code.

The chembox new can handle many, many fields (and more can easily be added if they are needed). All can be found via {{chembox new}}, or in its sections, which are linked from that document. The large number of possible fields gives the risk that the table becomes very long. I think we should all keep an eye on these, and when the table on a certain document gets to long, move data to a data page. When that datapage is properly named ("pagename (data page)"), chembox new will show a new section with links into the datapage.

One of the examples using the advanced features and showing some other features is isobutane, have a look at the melting point/boiling point, the molecular formula, let your mousepointer hover over the numbers in the NFPA-diamond.

For more information, see {{chembox new}}. I have started writing a bit of a manual there, but I think that still needs some expansion (and I think I can use some help with that, for me most of it is too obvious already and I might explain things too complicated, please feel free to rewrite).

I need some testing to see if everything really works with formatting, fields showing up properly etc. although I think most of the functions have been tested (I am sorry if I just demolished your fresh document by replacing an old chembox by a new chembox, but these are the documents I see in my watchlist). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Dirk, you're a hero! That's an amazing piece of work, thank you very much for all your work! Walkerma 01:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you've a script for AWB to convert the old chemboxes to the new. Perhaps you can share them, and we can spread the load? --Rifleman 82 02:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I have indeed started with an AWB script for that, but it is not free of errors, and is far from complete (the main problem is that the old boxes that are around are all different, so it is not a simple find and replace, anymore). I'll have a look at that later. Cheers!

A bit of discussion, do we want to replace all boxes by the new chembox new? I have already felt some 'resistance' from some people who use the {{drugbox}} for the about 1500 drugs in the Wikipedia. I indeed believe that having one chembox throughout makes life easier in all fields, but I also see that having a drugbox instead of a chembox increases recognisability (type-colouring in the chembox may proof very difficult, I don't think this system allows that). AFAIK all fields of the drugbox are also abailable in the chembox new, so that should not be a problem.

If we want to stop using the old {{chembox}} or other boxes, can we replace the contents of the old chemboxes that get substed with the contents of e.g. {{chembox subst}} (which creates an empty chembox new in a document)? That would save us the work of later having to migrate it to the new chembox. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

We should not replace drugboxes with chemboxes - we had this discussion a year or two back with Wikipedia:WikiProject Drugs. We agreed that with things like paracetamol the principal reason for the article is because of its use as a drug (not its chemical properties), so the drug box is more applicable. If there are any borderline cases, we could discuss them with WP:Drugs on a case-by-case basis. Walkerma 08:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, that is clear. I will make AWB ignore drugboxes. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

New pages

Lotaustralin, Cobalt nitrate, Magnesium benzoate, Calcium chlorate and Émile Henriot--Stone 16:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC) ]]

Ammonium cerium(IV) sulfate, Timeline of Discoveries in Chemistry, Chemesthesis and Polytype--Stone 19:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice work, Stone. I rated them, either for WP:CHEMS (the chemical compounds) or for WP:CHEM (the others). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

Sorry, but these are not mine, but new ones I found! --Stone 08:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

NONOate, Neurine, Carthamin some new ones.--Stone 22:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Atomic carbon--Stone 20:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Bromoanisole, Barium chlorate, 3,3'-Diiodothyronine, Lead(IV) sulfide, N-butylamine, Disodium hydrogen phosphate --Stone 07:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for assistance

I would very much appreciate if someone from this WikiProject could look in on the Juice Plus article, to try and head off some edit wars. There is considerable dispute about how technical the article should be, and whether or not it should do such things as listing all of the ingredients on the product label, and all of the potential side effects. For example, there is currently a question at Talk:Juice Plus about whether or not "potential harm to an unborn fetus" is a reasonable thing to include in the Wikipedia article, considering that such language is included on a university survey's consent form. I'm not one of the main article editors, but have been trying to help out as a third party. However, I have to admit that I'm not that familiar with Wikipedia standards in terms of chemicals, drugs, or nutritional supplements, so I'd really like some more experienced editors to pop in. Thanks in advance for any assistance, Elonka 07:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional info requested for Strontium Compounds

I know a good deal about the uses of Strontium Carbonate, Sulfate, and Nitrate because I work with them frequently, but I don't many useful sources. The links are as follows.

Strontium carbonate Strontium sulfate Strontium nitrate

So far the carbonate article has made the most progress. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LoyalSoldier (talk • contribs) 07:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

Well done, LoyalSoldier. I've classified them as Chem Start. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

A small note about using variables in the template names

In Template:NFPA-chembox each template member (NFPA-F1, NFPA-F2, etc)of the NFPA-F/H/O/R families of templates is called with the help of a variable - {{{F}}}, {{{H}}}, {{{O}}}, {{{R}}} - respectively. For NFPA-F/H/R this is done with {{#if}}, while NFPA-O uses {{#switch}}. I think we should use switch for the other 3 as well so we don't send the servers on a search for a nonexistent template as it was happening here. -- Boris 22:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that to our attention. I solved it. Good point, did not think about the problem that invalid input gets parsed as well (the non-breaking spaces were necessary in an earlier version). Stupid me .. ;-) It now only listens to 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4; all other input results in a non-breaking space. Hope this solved the problem. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't be hard on yourself, you have just re-designed chembox new (Very nice!!!) so it's totally O.K. that you have missed something. -- Boris 01:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not. There is a smiley after that comment. Thanks again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Uranium peer review

The uranium article, rated with High Importance and a WP:VITAL article, is up for peer review in order to get it ready for FAC. Please leave suggestions for improvement at WP:PR#Uranium. Thanks. --mav 01:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

TeX/MathML

The issue from here has come up again here. I checked the archive and there was support for html only; I support it too with reasons on my talk. Should we put it in the styleguide? --Rifleman 82 03:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Did not comment on this last time, I believe html is better, looks better, it works OK, and is easier to understand for people who are not used to mathml. IMHO, mathml should only be used when there is no clear alternative, which probably boils down to all but the simplest mathematical equations. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Joining

I would like to join this wikiproject. I was wondering, do I have to check with the current members first? J Hill 01:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope, just sign yourself up (or just make contributions without signing up). Welcome! --Ed (Edgar181) 13:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

even more data?

I was wondering if we should add azeotrope data to liquid chemicals. This, however, would be a vast amount of information, but still useful. (for example the boiling point of a mixture of toluene and pyridine or the well-known H2O.toluene azeotrope. Difficult. Sikkema 01:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

• It would be reasonable to add for chemicals where this is relevant. E.g., in the hydrochloric acid article this kind of data is presented. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 01:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC).

• I think that if the data is worth presenting then it is worth a sentence of explanation: some azeotropes are important, but most aren't. Among the important ones, I would include "constant boiling" hydrochloric acid, and the azeotropes of ethanol with both water and benzene... Physchim62 (talk) 13:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Uranium is now a featured

Gratulations! Might happen to some other article as well!--Stone 18:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

New pages

Khellin, Cromone, Sulfosalicylic acid and Bitterant need some work!--Stone

I think cromone is a misspelling and should be merged into chromone. I'll merge them in a few days if nobody disagrees. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Rust

There are some disparaging remarks on the talk page for rust about the quality of that article - particularly the chemical processes that cause rusting. It seems to be an article frequently referred to by schoolchildren, so it would be good if an expert could sort it out. I've added the expert template to the article, but thought it was important enough to draw your attention here, too. My interest? I just came across the page while vandal-fighting. Hope this is OK. --Smalljim 11:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Sure is ok. I gave the article a cleanup copy-edit focussing on the indeed subquality chemistry in the article. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC).
• Thanks Wim. It's certainly simpler now. --Smalljim 21:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A bunch of compounds tagged for deletion

See Category:Proposed deletion as of 7 March 2007 and Special:Contributions/Diez2. --NE2 20:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I noted this also. I have contested that many times (they are tagged with {{importance}}, not with {{notability}}, but the deletionists still will delete them on sight. I am giving up on them, I have contested prods, deletions, and other (re)tagging often enough. I am sorry. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like User:Parker007 removed all the remaining prods. Also, if anyone is interested, there is also an AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Caesium perchlorate. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I took one article, nitrosyl fluoride, and added as much relevant information as I could. Hopefully its notability is now apparent. Why are people deletionists? I don't understand their logic!

Ben 21:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I contested the AfD. Re:Ben: I have been trying to explain wikipedia:WikiProject Notability the difference between {{importance}} and {{notability}} (reiterated that at the AfD), but in the deletionist eyes these two tags are the same, and everything that has an importance tag since June 2006 has to go (beware, July 2006 is next!). The result is now, that the prod ánd the importance tags have been removed, which now results in these articles staying unnoticed, instead of being in a backlog for addition of importance (which may in the end result in importance actually being added ...). So be it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Could we create a special importance tag for WP:CHEMS that deletionists wouldn't know or care about?

Ben 22:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

That's what I suggested once, and I still am in favour of that. Deletionists don't get that they should leave that assesment to an appropriate wikiproject, so that would be a good solution. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I have for now reinstated the importance tags, the articles still don't state any importance, so that tag is in place (sorry for the backlog). Hope to hear more on the plan of our own importance/notability-tags. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• the {{chemicals}} template has the optional importance with ratings as Top, High, Mid and Low. Read on our Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Assessment page the origin of all articles ratings on Wikipedia: the May 2005 (!) version has been the original to all those now widely used assessments. The importance thing has indeed only been in use since mid 2006, created originally for being able to choose articles for WP on CD (later WP:1). And I'm afraid it gets used for (against) deletionist more and more. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

Terpene/terpenoid merge?

I would like to suggest a merge of the articles terpene and terpenoid. I don't think either topic can be discussed without significant overlap with the other. In many contexts they are even considered synonymous (or at least the terms are used interchangeably.) It doesn't make sense to me to have separate articles. That's probably the reason we have the category Category:Terpenes and terpenoids, rather than separate categories. Currently, almost the entire contents of the terpenoid article is redundant with terpene, non-mevalonate pathway, and mevalonate pathway so there isn't much value to that article as it stands. The technical distinction between the two terms (terpenoids are functionalized/modified terpenes) can be fully explained and exemplified in the joint article, perhaps better than it could be in separate articles. What do you think? --Ed (Edgar181) 01:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I worked a bit on some of the specific terpene articles, but not on these two general articles. I agree there is a lot of overlap. I don't have strong views on it either way, but I certainly wouldn't object to a merge, with terpene being the new home for the combined article. Seems reasonable. Walkerma 02:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Borane

I have maybe got a bit over excited and changed the scope of this article to be about the family of boranes rather than the transient BH₃. Check it out --revert if you like and create an article boranes maybe. I have tweaked the other borane articles to put in the IUPAC names and also redefined organoboranes to apply only to BH₃ derivatives, rather than anything with a boron carbon bond. I have also rewritten boride article because it was short and needed improvement. Axiosaurus 15:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Cheminfo boxes and atomic mass/atomic weight

I noticed in the chem info boxes the listing of the "atomic mass" rather than the "atomic weight". This at first appears to be a progressive move away from the now somewhat deprecated "atomic weight"; however atomic weight has been replaced by "relative atomic mass" not "atomic mass". Atomic mass means something different I am not even aware of widespread misuse of the term atomic mass in this manner, although I could imagine it given the shorter term being the less frequently intended. As long as there isn't a long and widespread precedent of misuse and confusion I strongly suggest that we stick to using the terms according to their IUPAC definitions.

Please see the following if you are unaware of the meanings of these terms:

• The IUPAC definition of "relative atomic mass (atomic weight)"
• The IUPAC definition of "atomic mass"
• An IUPAC article in Pure and Applied Chemistry detailing the the reason for this schism and the motivations for the definitions

To summarize: "Atomic weight" was replaced by "relative atomic mass" and "atomic mass" was reserved for individual atoms or nuclides (i.e. not isotopically weighted).

Just trying to make wikipedia more accurate. --Nick Y. 22:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• I found the more relevant place to bring this up: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements But I would encourage those that read this here to comment on it nonetheless. I just is a little irrelevant since the chem infoboxes use molar mass which is totally correct. I just didn't realize the distinction until now.--Nick Y. 23:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Styling State Subscripts

I am wondering how it is best to display state symbols in equations. I have seen them mostly on wikipedia as just normal text - but it is common in other places to use <sub> tags - to make them state subscripts. My preferred method is to just use <small> tags. Does anyone have a preference about this - or is it just up to the author on a case by case basis?

With <small>:

H₂O(l) ⇌ H₃O⁺(aq) + OH⁻(aq)

As normal text:

H₂O(l) ⇌ H₃O⁺(aq) + OH⁻(aq)

With <sub> tags

H₂O_(l) ⇌ H₃O⁺_(aq) + OH⁻_(aq)

Conrad.Irwin 23:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• Interesting question. It isn't in the WP:CHEMS styleguide (just checked), so currently it is up to editor's preferences. The subscript are IMHO wrong, so it would be with or without <small>. But there is more: sometimes all (states) are wikilinked:

H₂O(l) + NaCl(s) → Na⁺(aq) + Cl₂(g)^{Not chemically correct: just for example}

Certainly not my preference. I would go for straight in-line. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 08:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

It's probably good to have a consistent style throughout chemistry articles. If we can come to a consensus, it should be incorporated into the styleguide. I prefer italics and either small or subscript, like this:

H₂O(l) ⇌ H₃O⁺(aq) + OH⁻(aq)

I like the way italics sets the text apart a bit more. Wikilinking the text is nice idea too. --Ed (Edgar181) 22:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I have created a template in my user space for the moment that allows the state subscripts to be put in easily and standardly. I have opted for a style that is halfway between the full size and small options that have been discussed here. Please feel free to edit it Here

NaCO₃User:Conrad.Irwin/State + HClUser:Conrad.Irwin/State → CO₂User:Conrad.Irwin/State + H₂OUser:Conrad.Irwin/State + NaClUser:Conrad.Irwin/State

Conrad.Irwin 16:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I prefer straight inline state symbols, along with Wim.

Ben 18:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

My stand is per Wim and Ben. I dislike links in chemical reactions, especially those which link every single atom. Rationale is that the user expects adjacent blue letters/words in a phrase to be a single link, not individual ones. --Rifleman 82 18:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Keep life simple - I say straight inline state symbols (without wiki-links). -- Quantockgoblin 18:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't really mind whether we use straight text or italics, though I think inline is better, at least. Regarding links to explain states, I usually put these in the first time they occur (only) - I don't think that's overkill. I have had often seen questions on talk pages like "What does the I mean in the name silver(I) fluoride?" Many of our readers are schoolkids, with an extremely basic understanding of chemistry, and when they first see an equation with (s) or (aq) in it they may be baffled. I usually hate wikilinks to elements, but I think a wikilink to the actual compound can be helpful. Walkerma 01:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

As a non-chemist, I strongly support efforts to link everything in chemical equations. Link the compounds and link the state abbreviations whenever they occur, please. It's not just "schoolkids"; even smart adults from other fields don't remember all the abbreviations. Including them doesn't hurt anything, does it?

Is there a guideline for how to use templates like {{oxygen}}?

For instance, I'm trying to replace this:

• ${\mbox{Overall reaction: }}2H_{2}O(l)\rightarrow 2H_{2}(g)+O_{2}(g)\,$

But there are a number of ways to format it:

• Overall reaction: 2H₂O(l) → 2H₂(g) + O₂(g)
• Overall reaction: 2H₂O (l) → 2H₂(g) + O₂(g)
• Overall reaction: 2H₂OUser:Conrad.Irwin/State → 2H₂User:Conrad.Irwin/State + O₂User:Conrad.Irwin/State

The last is best in my opinion, but a consistent style should be decided on and recommended for use everywhere. — Omegatron 14:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

With regards to formatting equations, I recommend that we follow the guideliness used in professional journals, monographs, and reviews and keep the annotation only when required for some sort of thermodynamic discussion. WE-chem does not really want to deviate from standards agreed upon by the most chemical societies as expressed in their publications, right? WE is an encyclopedia, and we should resist the temptation to turn it into a textbook. Other wiki projects exist explicitly for that very admirable goal, such as the Wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page) and Wikiuniversity (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page). Many of those interested in this formatting issue could do wonders for these important projects (and leave the equation formatting in WE-chem alone!). A practical problem with indicating the state of the components in a chemical reaction is that it imposes a constraint that complicates editing:

• first, many reactions occur in multiple solvents and multiple phases, e.g. gas-solid, gas-gas, and solid-solution.
• second, the (l), (g) thing places a burden on contributors of content, such as me, who might not know whether, say a reactant is a gas, a dissolved gas (which is no longer a gas), etc.
• third, annotating the state of reactants and products will lead to debates that will be less productive than other means of contributing to WE-chem, such as content.

Again, I invite those who are concerned about formatting of equations to consider contributing to the educational wings of WE-chem, which are needful of the help that many of the WE-Chem folks could provide.--Smokefoot 16:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't implying that state information should be included in every equation. Just asking that we settle on a consistent style for when it does. — Omegatron 17:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Chemical compound stubs

Wikipedia has hundreds, if not thousands, of articles on chemical compounds, generally found in the many subcategories of Category:Chemical compounds by element. Unfortunately, many of these are permanent stubs and low on content, such as those listed here. Wikipedia:Chemical compounds has been created to discuss what to do with all this. Deletion is arguably a waste, but perhaps some articles can be combined into lists for greater comprehensiveness. Please join the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Chemical compounds. >Radiant< 16:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Since this wikiproject is about chemicals compounds, I'd rather discuss it here. The answer to your question is to just start working on an article or group of articles of your personal interest, and be bold. It mostly is about laborious work to gather the data to make an article flesh out into a full blown article. The WP:CHEMS styleguide gives good guideline, while using a chemical infobox gives an easy start to data presentation. So, the only thing you need is time to do all that. Success. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

• the one article per compound does not always work, too little content. An alternative is to describe compound classes with comparisons for example xylenol (no point having 6 pages) although xylene exists but also its three isomer pages or boronic acid which intends to group together a bunch of compounds. V8rik 20:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I see terbium(III) oxide has been put up for deletion, I have given it a quick search on the internet, which yields that it is actually used (I have described that in the keep vote). Maybe worth a look. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'd be happy to help with this although my chemistry knowledge is somewhat rusty. I've put a suggestion on the Chemistry COTM to add a few lines of background to those "significance-not-explained" chemistry stubs. I'm not sure how active the Chem COTM is at the moment. >Radiant< 15:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd be a strong supporter of "mergism" in regard to long-term stubs (of any sort) where it's feasible. It's likely to make more sense for the reader in a lot of cases, and it might also avoid having these articles "churned" by stub-sorters, putting them into ever-narrower stub types just to try and deal with the pile-up, which if the articles aren't seeing substantiative edits, isn't ultimately doing much good. And it's easily reversed if there is subsequent expansion to merit re-splitting. Alai 03:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• As the instigator of some family pages I support the principle of merging. Family pages allow for chemical trends, reactivity, structure etc to be discussed. This is as useful as the chemical compound infosheet style. After all the majority of chemical compounds while interesting one liners in a discussion have no uses commercially, and many are not well characterised so an info box could only be partially completed. I would start with merging all the stubs that just say X_mY_n is a chemical compound of X and Y. I would also question the classification of some articles as stubs (what a nasty emotive word that is!). For example zinc iodide -not a bad article, a bit short perhaps--whereas zinc nitride deserves the category IMHO - once created noone has been able to add to it significantly, although it has had 10 or more administrative interventions--the nitride article probably is a stub--it is short, accurate as far as it goes at a cursory glance - but it should be expanded e.g. nitride ion is isoelectronic with O^2-....also the so-called diamond like nitrides (III/V) GaN, InN etc etc. I think I have just talked myself into expanding this page! Axiosaurus 11:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

As I said elsewhere, I still haven't found any article about a chemical on wikipedia that is not expandable, and zinc nitride is no exception. Two minutes of searching google books show that this compound has real known and published properties and possible uses, such as in lithium batteries. [1]. --Itub 12:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems to profit us little to argue that if they're in theory expansible, all is well even if they're not actually being expanded. If current amounts of material is suggestive of merging, and that amount of material has been essentially stable for several months, merging looks better and better as an option. Alai 01:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason why. I think merging articles about different topics hurts rather than helps navigation and usability. Merging should be reserved for topics that are clearly redundant (such as synonyms or other accidental duplicates), or topics that are not notable enough to be able to have an article on their own. Notice that notability depends on the topic, not on the length of the current version of the Wikipedia article about it. --Itub 05:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I am against merging. Where would you merge the article into? Zinc nitride has no overlap with titanium nitride (the first, I would guess, used in electronics, the latter being a hard material). Most, if not all, chemical compounds are unique. IMHO, articles that do not state their importance or are stubs just have a right to be there if the subject is important. Most of these subjects have an importance, are unique compounds, but seen the huge amount of work that has to be done in this project, indeed noone comes to them. There is no reason to delete, there is no reason to merge. I am sorry, but we have a backlog, and yes, maybe that will stay like that for some time (I like the initiative to make them 'chemistry colloboration of the month). In the last months several of the articles have been expanded and the importance tag has been removed, but there are still quite some left. Now I see (again) that they go up for deletion or other drastic measures, but, as Itub and I already showed, a simple google search already gives some information, where even a non-chemist could write something. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Dirk here. Merging makes sense in principle, but the work involved in writing a properly organised combined article may be just as much as expanding the separate articles. And often I've looked at a compound and thought, "How come such an obscure compound has a page" I see later that the same compound is really important in nonlinear optics, magnetic materials, battery design, or something else outside my field. There are very few compounds on WP that truly rank as obscure (to a chemist, at least), and I'm sure a determined editor could wade through Chem Abs and write a Featured Article on even holmium(III) oxide (for which Chemexper has two pages of suppliers listed - someone is buying this!). There are clearly too many for us to be able to expand every one, we should focus on articles we consider more valuable and closer to our interests. Walkerma 08:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think merging of chemistry stubbed articles serves any real purpose.

It would be too much like removing sprouting weeds from a garden, and in the end if these weeds are not plucked, then they have a change to turn into a beautiful flower - ok sickening analogy over.

However, I also think that whilst some pages are short, this does not mean that they are not complete (or complete enough). For example methyl is not a long article, but it says enough. I know the methyl article is not marked as stub but it is certainly not the definitive statement about all things methyl either! Indeed it could be made longer without much trouble ... but not for the sake of it.

I'm strongly against merging article just for the sake of pruning the number of stubs - deletion at least would be cleaner and does not make false distinctions or tenuous links

Also as said by Walkerma, the effort made in merging could be better used to expand stubbed-articles. -- Quantockgoblin 14:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

To follow up on the above, I'm sure there are lots of short articles which are complete enough that could be dis-listed as stubs. -- Quantockgoblin 14:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

A while back, a proposal of mine to merge stubs on long-chain alkanes was defeated here. Apart from this specific case (and a very few similar ones), I cannot see the benefits from stub-merging. Some articles about chemicals are always going to be short: when I did Radium chloride in 2005, I went back to Gmelin to write the longest encyclopedic article I could (10k) about this best known of radium compounds... Where would you merge it and why? Physchim62 (talk) 15:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have been bold, and started to retag the articles in the Category:Wikipedia articles with topics of unclear importance to Category:Chemistry articles with topics of unclear importance by replacing the template {{importance}} with a new template {{chemical-importance}}. Although I do understand that wikipedians want to clear the backlog in the category Category:Wikipedia articles with topics of unclear importance, the only solution I actually see happening is that they get put up for merge, retagged, prodded, or AfDed (most of the time by people outside of the chemical field). While many of these compounds are important, they only don't state that (otherwise they would be tagged with {{notability}}).

I do firmly believe that this is not a good solution, but, I am sorry to say, I just don't feel like arguing anymore with people who are not involved in chemistry about these articles ('they have been in the category for too long, they are apparently not important'), resulting in some chemists having to salvage them and being forced to work on them (they are being worked on, there have been some that have been expanded to show importance, and which now have been detagged). We all are volunteers, and I have seen this happening now too often (sorry, Radiant, that you are the catalyst of this, but I guess you have been for some of these articles at least the fifth contributor trying to clear the backlog in this or similar ways, and I am happy with you trying to find solutions here, I am sorry that I partially ignore that).

This does mean, that we now have an own category with a backlog, which probably does not get noticed by non-chemist wikipedians (who would also be capable of actually improving articles in the backlog).

I hope you all forgive me my somewhat cynical and annoyed tone in this, have a nice day (and have a look at some of the articles in Category:Chemistry articles with topics of unclear importance from June 2006. Regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That looks like a good call, Dirk. Thanks for setting this up. Walkerma 03:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

This may have been said before - if an article has not been rated for over year (perhaps 2 years) - isn't there an arguement that that compound is not notable and show be mark low or perhaps "presumed-low". Clealry if a later editor wishes to change this rating it can be! -- Quantockgoblin 12:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Support. Could be done with a quick bot-run. If we haven't got round to changing its status it is of low importance, up to editors to rectify the inevitable mistakes. Physchim62 (talk) 13:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a follow up to the above - and if an article is notable it is likely that the article will be in someone’s watch list and be flagged up at that point! -- Quantockgoblin 14:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines for defining a chemical reaction

Are there any guidelines for waht to include when you are adding a chemical reaction. Several of mine have been highlighted as not having enough information (I have asked the editor who flagged them as to what he thought (here)- but I think he is a schoolboy and so probably has no idea of what they should include). I have been including a picture of the overall reaction and a brief description, as well as selected journal references, which I assumed would be sufficient.
Many Thanks
Curious Gregor - Synthesis for all 12:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide some specific examples of articles? --Itub 13:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

From looking at the logs, I found Bechamp reaction, Bechamp Reduction, and Baudisch reaction. I think I understand why they were tagged. They only have a reaction scheme and references. While this is a great start, it is also customary to include a short paragraph to put the topic in context and link to related articles. Always assume that the reader might get there via Special:Random and should be able to figure out what the article is about. An example for the Bechamp reaction could be (I'm making this up because I don't really know it):

In organic synthesis, the Bechamp reaction is used for producing arsonic acids from activated aromatic rings such as aniline. It was first described by A. J. Bechamp in 1863. The reaction is an electrophilic aromatic substitution, using arsenic acid as a reactant.

Also, all the information currently in the article is basically copied from http://www.chempensoftware.com. Some would object to that due to copyright concerns. However, if you expand the article based on this information it could stand on its own as an original article. Hope this helps. --Itub 13:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that most of the tagging is done by computer-savvy children - it's initially annoying but I got over it. I view the tagging as part of their process of learning WE so that when they grow up and learn content they will be able to more meaningfully contribute. You will notice that the most ardent taggers rarely contribute content, except to topics like Britaney Spears. --Smokefoot 13:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• your current articles have a copyright problem. Try to provide an alternative to chempensoftware not copy it. For inspiration take any article started by our friend User:~K for example Algar-Flynn-Oyamada reaction or Claisen rearrangement. For image quality and guidelines try Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry/Structure drawing V8rik 18:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't understand the copyright issue here. I drew the reactions out myself and so they are all my own work. They were not copied from anywhere. - Curious Gregor - Synthesis for all 08:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I am not a lawyer, but... the possible problem IMO is not with the figure, which is re-drawn (you can't copyright a reaction, but just a particular drawing of it), but with copying the exact list of references together with the same reaction scheme. Again, you obviously can't copyright a reference, but maybe a particular selection of them. Now that you expanded the article and added other references, there should be no problem IMO. It is often said that "you can't copyright a fact", but when exactly does a selection of facts become an original work? I have no idea. :) One other thing: I suspect that the scheme may be wrong (even in the original); I would expect the formula of the acid to be H3AsO4, rather than H2AsO4. --Itub 09:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Request

Hi there WP:CHEMS members. I have just drawn a structure for pentosan polysulfate as requested on that article's Talk page, and would greatly appreciate it if someone could check it for accuracy. It's a bit out of my league, and I wasn't able to find a really authoritative source for the structure, so here is my version: If there are any inaccuracies, please let me know. Thanks in advance, Fvasconcellos 18:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Can I quickly ask, what software do you draw these molecules with? --pizza1512 ^{Talk Autograph} 11:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

ISIS-Draw (MDL) (free for privat use) or ChemDraw or .... many others.--Stone 12:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemistry/Structure drawing might help also.--Stone 12:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC) fixed link --Rifleman 82 13:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Good freeware - Chemsketch (version 10) google for it! -- Quantockgoblin 12:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I use Chemsketch and Inkscape, and recommend both (I really should be watching this page) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

New barnstar for Chemistry/Chemicals

Following a previous discussion, I created a new barnstar to be awarded to contributors to the Chemistry and Chemicals wikiproject (or anywhere else. Read about it on the wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry page. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

Fishing

Once in a while I go fishing: Isobutylamine, Sec-butylamine, Tert-butylamine, Gentisic acid, Masking agent, Oligonucleotide synthesis, Group 2 organometallic chemistry, Trimethylarsine, Anilinium chloride, Ketosamine, Aminothiazole, Sodium salicylate, Dimethylbenzylamine, Benzilic acid, Methyl isopropyl ketone, Adipamide, Aminoethylpiperazine, Azo formation, Syringaldehyde, Hydrogenase mimic, Rhodium(II) acetate, Spinosad and most of it needs work!--Stone 15:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• I took the bait and rated them all, mostly Stub-Class, mid/low importance. Just two Start-class, and a few High-importance. No gems in your catch this time, Stone. Thanks for throwing the hook, line and sinker. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

• Sorry to disappoint you Wim, maybe I should retract the group 2 organometallic chemistry article then V8rik 20:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • On the contrary, Rik. Rifleman stepped in too, and therefore I re-rated it promptly to a Start-class. Comparing it with some other articles in the chemistry group, I think that's fair. I'll leave some recommandations for improvements on its talkpage. And PLEASE keep up the good work, Rik and all others: all contributions to Chemistry and Chemicals subjects are highly appreciated. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Metrazine

I'm very suspicious about the article metrazine. At first glance it seems reasonable (except for the last sentence), but the links provided do nothing to support the content of the article. Pubchem and other chemical databases do not list metrazine as a synonym for heptafluorobutanoic acid. Google searches turn up nothing, too. The big red flag for me is that the article originally started out as being about "tetra-cyclo-butanoic acid" but evolved into something different as the sole author edited the article. I've marked it with a {{hoax}} tag for now, but if someone can verify the article, please remove it. If nothing supportive turns up, I'll nominate at AFD in day or two. --Ed (Edgar181) 23:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Phenmetrazine is a drug. I found a few references in google books to "metrazine" in the context of drugs as well, but I'm not sure if it's the same as phenmetrazine or a completely different thing. In any case, I'm pretty sure the metrazine article as it stands is a hoax. --Itub 08:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Good catch, Ed! The article is a hoax, undoubtedly. The two sources quoted were plausible, but did not corroborate the information in the article. Metrazine does not appear as a chemical name on the large, free-access databases such as PubChem or ChemSpieder. The last sentence showed a poor knowledge of the chemistry of fluorocarbons, claiming that they decompose into methane under high temperature and pressure. I have speedied the article and blocked the user. Physchim62 (talk) 11:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Itub and Physchim62 for looking into it, and thanks Physchim for deleting and blocking. --Ed (Edgar181) 11:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Some stubs worked on

I have added a lot to the nitride article and destubbed it. I have also added content to lithium nitride, calcium nitride, thallium iodide, gallium trichloride. Could someone take a look please, perhaps some could be destubbed after some editing. Cheers Axiosaurus 12:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Aluminium boride and indium monobromide

The original aluminium boride article mixed info relating to two different compounds, aluminium diboride and aluminium dodecaboride, that are referred to as aluminium boride. I have made the original page a disambiguation page and added two new articles that contain the original content appropriately split out along with some new stuff. I am not sure if this is the best solution to the problem, maybe somebody could take a look.
Regarding indium monobromide, could somebody help? The article was started as stub and I have added to it but it probably should be renamed indium(I) bromide, however I am not sure how to do that. Also a disambiguation page for indium bromide was added previously - I am not sure whether that is correct, perhaps that page should be removed. Axiosaurus 14:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at it, so should other inorganic chemists because the chemistry of these compounds is fascinating, and as such deserves WP coverage. Thank-you Axiosaurus for bringing this to our attention. The current stubs seem fine, on a quick look, and I have fixed any problems with the disambiguation. We really must have a page on thallium triiodide, perhaps the most interesting of the lot; I take this opportunity to ask editors who have access to inorganic databases to find some original references concerning this compound. It is discussed in both Greenwood&Earnshaw and Cotton&Wilkinson, but without references for the claims. Physchim62 (talk) 12:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

List of elements whose name is not directly related to its symbol

Would it be useful to create such a list of a List of Elements by Name. I thought it would be interesting for a student starting to learn chemistry. An example is K for potassium, and then add what the symbol represents (Kalium). Evilclown93 20:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

You mean a list of elements whose symbols are not directly related to their english names?--Nick Y. 23:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Evilclown93 01:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

This aspect is already covered at List of elements by symbol, right next to the element name. I don't think it meeds a separate list. Walkerma 05:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Rename request

Could an admin rename the article cobalt nitrate as cobalt(II) nitrate?

Cheers

Ben 22:27, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Why can't you? — Omegatron 00:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin.

Ben 09:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

In many cases, non-admins can rename an article by clicking the "move" tab at the top: this doesn't always work, and when it doesn't work users have to find an admin (here is a good place to look for chemistry-related moves). Anyway Rifleman 82 has done the move without having to use any super-powers, so all is good. Physchim62 (talk) 09:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realise that.

Thanks everyone

Ben 09:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Sodium Nitrous Atreyuithol

Newly-created article and most likely a hoax. Nothing on PubChem or Google for the article name. "Adaflaxaline" gets two ghits to this conversation on Flickr (check the Comments), so, again, probably a hoax (although some pharmaceutical company should definitely use this name :)

Comments appreciated. I won't list for AfD yet, on the off chance there is actually something here. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, check out the image's uploader and this gentleman on Flickr. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Just as a note, the same user created Adaflaxaline as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Now at AfD. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Both articles are now listed there. :) --Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Both do not show up at SciFinder/ChemAbstracts. Hoaxes, most likely. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Both deleted. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Polyalkylimide

On a random article click, I came across this article. I just added the {{advert}} tag, as it seems to go into too much depth on Bio-Alcamid®. Anyone want to take a look at it? —Brien Clark^Talk 22:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Similar project proposed

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Chemical compounds and mixtures. I think the compounds are already well covered by WikiProject Chemicals, but I don't know about the mixtures. Examples given include glass, salt, and alloys. --Itub 10:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Heading towards FAC, hopefully with your help

A few of us have begun work on X-ray crystallography, which is the Science Collaboration of the Month. This article will become a Featured Article. Won't you join in? I'm sure that we'd all benefit from your insights. Willow 06:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

• The month will be long, so I put in a little hand. Interesting topic! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Boron trifluoride

I have added some details regarding pi bonding and anomalous lewis acid strength of the BX₃ series. The reason for BF₃ being the weakest lewis acid is a common question at high school and above. However I have not just stated the conventional wisdom that "its all due to relative pi bond strength" but have added the reservations expressed by greenwood and added the possibility that donor-B bond strength (which is lowest in BF₃ complexes could be a reason. Axiosaurus 18:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

SMILES and InChI in Chembox

{{Chembox new}} contains valuable machine-readable descriptions such as SMILES and InChI. These are critical for people trying to locate compounds, and since Google now supports InChI I think the latter will become a very important route for people to find our articles on the semantic web, especially once ChemDraw et al allow Google/InChI searches direct from the structure (recent versions of ChemSketch allow this). Note that SMILES is proprietary and can be ambiguous, though it's shorter and well established; InChI is newer and longer but unambiguous, public, and supported by IUPAC.

However, these same machine-readable structure representations are a pain when trying to make nice chemboxes. For example, the InChI for quassin is
InChI=1/C22H28O6/c1-10-7-14(26-5)20(25)22(4)12(10)8-15-21(3)13(9-16(23)28-15)11(2)18(27-6)17(24)19(21)22/h7,10,12-13,15,19H,8-9H2,1-6H3/t10-,12+,13+,15-,19+,21-,22+/s2

If you take a look at one of my recent efforts, phytane, you'll see that the medium-sized InChI spoils the chembox and therefore the whole page (even though I tried to make it small). OK, you say, just stick some <br/>s in there to make it fit better - well that defeats the whole point, because then Google misses them:

If you look at articles with the InChI properly placed in the Chembox, such as

• Anthrone (InChI search failed for WP, SMILES search worked) Both in the Chembox for over a year; SMILES is complete, InChI contains <br/>.
• Nicotinamide (InChI search worked, SMILES search worked, both in ChemBox since Jan as complete strings.

If you look at other articles where a long InChI is present in the article, and therefore as a complete string with no breaks, these do seem to be found by Google:

• Mauveine (search worked)

So, I think we need to modify Chembox new a little to (a) make sure the SMILES and InChI (esp. the latter) don't spoil the pages and (b) Google et al can find the InChI. The main purpose (IMHO) for including the InChI is to help machines find our pages, and if the InChI is corrupted by line breaks then it is useless. At the same time, I don't think we actually need to display the InChI - you'd have to be a pretty perverse human to actually want to read the InChI routinely. I'd like to propose something like:

• The InChI is hidden from view in a normal ChemBox, but the reader can click to see it (and copy into their clipboard) if desired. (This hide/view option is done on some pages like WP:V0.5, can it be done here?)
• We make sure that Google et al can find the article via the InChI. We need to make sure there are no characters such as < fused onto the InChI that may affect the string recognition.
• We do the same for SMILES, if people think this is worthwhile.

Is this possible? Thanks, Walkerma 04:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, why don't we just place the InChI & SMILES inside an HTML comment? Physchim62 (talk) 08:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of something where the person could click on something labeled InChI to see it - is there some way to do that? In the meantime, I'll try amending phytane that way. Walkerma 17:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

If you mean the <!-- -->, I suspect this won't work - a Google search on "Other solvents e.g. ethanol, acetone" gave almost no hits, despite being often left in our chemboxes (as in sodium chloride). Any other ideas? Walkerma 17:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Beetsra has created {{InChI}}, although I can't see how it's meant to work... I can't get {{abbr}} to work with InChIs either :( Physchim62 (talk) 09:22, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you try with - <span style="display: none;">1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1</span>. 1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 -- Boris 09:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

This seems to hide the InChI, and you have to click on the edit tab to see the InChI, is that right? Ideally I'd really like something that avoids using the edit tab, if possible. Thanks, Walkerma 07:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I must apologise, when I posted this I was unaware of a recent, related post at WP:CHEMISTRY. Please look at that too. Sorry! Walkerma 07:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Some navigation boxes, templates, etc have a "show" button that expands text in the box which is otherwise unseen. Can something like this be done for InChi and SMILES, so that the reader only sees "show" unless he clicks on it? --Ed (Edgar181) 10:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

No that wasn't my idea. I don't know how the search engines wotk but i could assume that they ignore the comments that are part of a page which is any text between <!-- and --> HTML comment tags. So even if the InChI is without any <br /> but it's withing these comment tags the page that has it will not be seen by the search engines. And i think it makes sence as why would the comments of a page be searched for a string? So what i proposed was to enclose the InChI (with no breaks or whatever) with a <span> tag appropriately styled as to prevent the display of the text enlosed by it but still as being a normal content tag to be visible (i assumed) to the search engines like Google, etc. Now i was and i'm still not sure if this is going to work it was just an idea to have a InChI string with breaks, spaces, etc. visible for the viewer but not being able to get a match from Google and another one that's hidden to the viewer but available for Goggle. -- Boris 13:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping there would be something for the reader to click on to see the InChI intact if they wanted it. My pal from WP:1.0, User:Titoxd, has got User:Walkerma/Sandbox3 this working for me, see User:Walkerma/Sandbox4 for an example. We still need to amend the Chembox to remove the extra "InChI=", but you get the idea. What do you think? We could combine it with the SMILES into one single hide/show box, too. Walkerma 04:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I did some minor changes in Sandbox3. The problem is not that we see it at all, the problem is that Netscape and Firefox can't brake long words, the way Opera and Dumbxplorer do, so boxes that display long InChI get distorted, if you have either NE or FF open User:Walkerma/Sandbox4 and you'll see that the box still looks like sh!t, pardon my Youtube accent, and it's not your fault nor it's mine - it's the Netscape and Firefox makers fault as this annoyance has been around for years and for some unknown reason it seems to be at the very end of their "Let's fix them bugs" list. So to get around this problem we have to insert <br /> tags and this screws the InChI word and it can no longer be used for correct Google/InChI searches, as you pointed it out. -- Boris 12:51, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh by the way i had tested it on my own page - Google for 1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 and you'll see that my page is the second search result after the one for Mauveine. So i guess my logic was corect. I did it as soon as i realized that this Talk page isn't going to show at all in a Goggle search results, despite the fact that the full string is here. The problem that i had back then with my page is that i tested it as soon as i did the change and it didn't show again - i'm not familiar how Google keeps track on the content and all, but i asssumed that it takes time for Google to update its search database or whatever they call it and i really hoped that Google treats the user pages and the talk pages differently, so i decided to give it a few days and check it out later but i forgot untill today and it works, so i guess that's the way to do it. -- Boris 13:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I tried the google link above, and these are my results:

Mauveine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ... B is InChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauveine - 27k - Cached - Similar pages Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals - Wikipedia, the free ... 1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 -- Boris 09:46, ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals - 176k - Cached - Similar pages mauveine: Information from Answers.com ... B is InChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ... www.answers.com/topic/mauveine - 48k - Cached - Similar pages Mauveine InChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ... www.ch.ic.ac.uk/motm/perkin.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

I guess talk pages are reflected, and I don't see your page. --Rifleman 82 14:22, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I see the same as Rifleman. I have also done other searches previously, and this discussion has shown up consistently, so I'm not sure why Boris didn't see it. Thanks for cleaning up my Sandbox3, Boris, and for trying this. Walkerma 16:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

After getting enough sleep i don't see it either. Well, this is what happens when someone works 11 hours night shift at their company and then tries to reply to a message at 8:00am instead of going to bed. "Last night" i didn't even bother to click on the link to see where it was going to get me to. I just saw my name and i was like "Woohoo. That's gotta be my talk page. It works." Anyway, back on the issue - we could use overflow: auto; as display: hidden; doesn't do the job.

1/C41H64O14/c1-19-36(47)28(42)15-34(50-19)54-38-21(3)52-35(17-30(38)44)55-37-20(2)51-33(16-29(37)43)53-24-8-10-39(4)23(13-24)6-7-26-27(39)14-31(45)40(5)25(9-11-41(26,40)48)22-12-32(46)49-18-22/h12,19-21,23-31,33-38,42-45,47-48H,6-11,13-18H2,1-5H3/t19-,20-,21-,23-,24+,25u,26-,27+,28+,29+,30+,31-,33+,34+,35+,36-,37-,38-,39+,40+,41+/m1/s1

This is Digoxin's InChI. But even if it works for searches, it looks ugly to me because of the default scroll-bar's settings. -- Boris 21:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Bah, here it is :

Mauveine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia... B is InChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22- 7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauveine - 27k - Cached - Similar pages

User:BorisTM - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4-6-8-22) 25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BorisTM - 90k - Cached - Similar pages

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals - Wikipedia, the free ...B is InChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7- 5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_ talk:WikiProject_Chemicals - 200k - Cached - Similar pages

mauveine: Information from Answers.com... B is InChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22- 7-5-4-6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ... www.answers.com/topic/mauveine - 48k - Cached - Similar pages

MauveineInChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20(12-10-17)29-21-13-19(3)27-26(15-21)31(22-7-5-4- 6-8-22)25-16-23(28)18(2)14-24(25)30-27/h4-16H,1-3H3,(H2,28,29)/p+1 ... www.ch.ic.ac.uk/motm/perkin.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

Mauveine - [ Translate this page ]el identificador de InChI para el mauveine B es InChI=1/C27H24N4/c1-17-9-11-20 (12-10-17) 29-21-13-19 (3) 27-26 (15-21) 31 (22-7-5-4-6-8-22) 25-16-23 (28) ... camara123.com/?u=/wiki/Mauveine - 8k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages.

I could swear back then that i saw "User:BorisTM". Oh well. -- Boris 22:07, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Volatile compounds project

Greetings. Over the past 4 weeks I have made a project of creating and/or filling out supplemental data pages for various organic solvents. See my sandbox page for a list of supplemental data pages I've worked on so far (there are about half a dozen more volatile compounds I still have plans to do). Besides physical and thermo numbers, I have also been adding vapor pressure tables and plots as well as distillation data for various binary mixtures. What I have neglected to do so far is fill in the IR spectrum data. So to anybody who thinks what I've been doing is a worthwhile endeavor, I'd like to invite you to help out by filling in spectrum data for these data pages. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 01:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll help with that when I get back home, later this week. You've been doing great work - those data pages have been neglected. Now they're becoming really useful! Walkerma 02:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Trivia and amyl nitrite

One gets the sense that amyl nitrite is an often consulted article. The article is in okay condition except that somehow a subsection was started on "Popular culture," which has attracted a steadily growing list of where this drug is cited in various novels and films. The pop section has now been tagged for Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles. This is a case where the tag may actually be useful - i.e. its recommendation that we either delete the pop culture content or incorporate it into the main body. The contents of the list would make it difficult to incorporate unless one thinks, for example, that Hannibal Lecter's use of amyl nitrite is noteworthy. So.... I am checking with folks in the event that others see some way around deleting this content, trivial as it is.--Smokefoot 18:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps all that trivia stuff can be moved to poppers, where it would seem to be more appropriate. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 18:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Protonated molecular hydrogen

Just came across what looks like a great article that's gone largely unnoticed… youngvalter 22:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, with a bit of minor cleanup that could be A-Class, I think! Thanks, I'd never seen it before! Walkerma 15:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Outriggr's assessment tool

A picture. 1000 words.

For people doing assessments, this javascript tool has now been configured to work with this WikiProject and with the Chemistry WikiProject. It allows you

1. To add an assessment tag directly from the article-space
2. To see any existing assessments

You can hide the scrollbar easily, and then you just see something like "A B-Class article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" with no extra lines needed on the screen. Even if you don't actively do assessments, I think it's nice to see the ratings of the articles you're looking at. Walkerma 17:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing this out. An excellent tool, very helpful with all the assessing I'm doing (still 1700 or so to do). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC).

Calcium carbide

I have added some content to this page as CaC₂ as it is now such an important industrial chemical worldwide. I have referenced everything I could, however there are a few interesting snippets, e.g. Carbidschieten (Shooting Carbide) still unreferenced. If anyone has a reference that would be great.Axiosaurus 13:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Ammonium sulfate precipitation

This page is about a procedure, not a chemical but has a WP Chem tag on it - can someone remove it? Aaadddaaammm 04:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I switched it to {{chemistry}}, which is more appropriate. Walkerma 04:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

And rated Stub/Mid, which is also appropriate, but more subjective of course. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC).

Poppers and Alkyl nitrites

I've proposed a merge, in line with standard practice on combining chemistry, pharmacology, history, and sociology into single articles. Outside input is welcome. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Erbium(III) chloride

I added that it is used as a catalyst (and linked to source), and also the boiling point. chem_tom 13:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Stearamidopropyl climethylanine

Can anyone help out with stearamidopropyl climethylanine? I can't find any verification of it. Details are the in {{prod}} tag I added (please remove it if my concerns can be addressed). --Ed (Edgar181) 17:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Never mind ... it's now a stub at stearamidopropyl dimethylamine. --Ed (Edgar181) 17:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

1,1,1-Trichloroethane

I have updated the chemical infobox on the 1,1,1-Trichloroethane article from the old style. chem_tom 18:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Ethene or ethylene?

User:Memodude has renamed ethylene to ethene because of comments at Talk:Ethene#Title and name. Smokefoot and I put forward arguments against such a move, but the move went ahead regardless.

Because those who supported the move to ethene seem to be non-chemists or students, I thought it would be good to ask here for the opinions of those more experienced in the chemical arts!

I know it's important not to waste too much time faffing around with names when we have redirects and need to focus on content, but I feel WP:CHEMS should have the final say on the names of articles in its custody. Chemists should be in charge of chemistry articles where possible, not amateurs.

Ben 15:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The move was clearly against the naming conventions and there was no consensus and Memodude ignored your request to discuss it at the wikiproject. I suggest reverting it immediately. --Itub 16:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

What the heck, I've moved it back myself. --Itub 16:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for moving it back. It certainly shouldn't be moved without consensus. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Fast atom bombardment Matrix

I created 1-(2-nitrophenoxy)octane and 3-mercaptopropane-1,2-diol linked from fast atom bombardment. Any input or comments appreciated. Thanks. --Kkmurray 01:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Program to draw structures

Is there any standard program to draw the chemical structures? Or any standard settings? I have been looking around for an answer, but counlnt fined anything about it ChristianoGh 10:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for checking! The relevant guide is here. We really need to set up some better navigation tools so people can find these pages! For a molecule editor, ChemDraw is obviously fine, and many people use MDLI IsisDraw or ACD ChemSketch which are both free for educational use. BKChem and JChemPaint are also popular choices on Wikipedia, as they are both open source and free. Ask again if you need any help with any of these. Walkerma 13:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Silver acetylide

To place its discovery into the year 1866 is definitly wrong. The Silver acetylide is already described in a publication by Berthelot (doi = 10.1002/jlac.18601160108) in 1860 and there he does not claim it a new component either. The publication stating it (G.-C. Guo, Q.-G. Wang, G.-D. Zhou, T. C. W. Mak (1998)) is simply wrong.--Stone 12:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The claim seems unlikely, but I think we should look quite hard at the history given in the acetylene article as well. Early nineteenth century seems more probable to me than mid nineteenth century. Physchim62 (talk) 15:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Boron trioxide

A user has asked me to move this page to boron oxide, on the grounds of its formula. What I would really like to have some advice on is: what is this compound called in real life? If I move the article just on the basis of IUPAC nomenclature, we could have problems with the oxides of phosphorus, arsenic and antimony (although we can always take B2O3 as an "exception"). On the other hand, if we leave it where it is, we have to be able to justify our position in some way. Comments please! Physchim62 (talk) 15:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The same problem like always. Chemists like Boron trioxide because there is another boron oxide (BO)_x is known. Better would be Diboron trioxide B₂O₃, but for this chemists are to lazy. As there is only one important boron oxide the shortening to boron oxide is allowed, because no misinterpretation is possible. The use of both spellings is well documented in literatur, so we will have no 100% clear desicion.--Stone 17:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• I would propose to move the article the chemically correct name (diboron trioxide), as written in our own style guides (see WP:CHEMS, top box). All alternative article names should simply be redirects. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC).

Not sure I like diboron trioxide, its not a widely used name. The usual name I've heard used is boric oxide. Stone's point is very valid, "boron oxide" is ambiguous. Here are some Google results, based on complete string searches (Wikipedia was the #1 hit for all the searches!):

• "boron trioxide" 22,200 hits (mainly scientific articles)
• "boric oxide" 89,700 hits (mainly bulk suppliers)
• "boron oxide" (NB: This will contain hits where the term is being used generically) 186,000 hits
• "diboron trioxide" 864 hits

I don't have my Greenwood & Earnshaw here, but Powell & Timms "The Chemistry of the Non-Metals" (1974 but still good!) calls it boron trioxide, as does Nechamkin's intro book "The Chemistry of the Elements." So on balance I'd probably vote for boron trioxide, with boric oxide as a second choice. I definitely dislike boron oxide. Walkerma 03:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Greenwood & Earnshaw call it boric oxide, which is the name I would recommend as it is the most commonly used one that is not ambiguous. --Itub 08:51, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

2,5-dimethylfuran

Just deleted as a copyvio (MSDS copy/paste). Perhaps a rewrite is in order? (hint, hint). Fvasconcellos (t·c) 03:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. I heard about this compound as I drove to work today. I've put a small stub there. I'll look at it when I am a bit more free. --Rifleman 82 05:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Cool, I love stubs about obscure molecules! ;-) I have added a couple of facts I found about it on Google Books. I hope they are not too obscure... --Itub 08:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Still busy at the moment, but when I have time, I will be filling out the chembox, and I'll read the Nature paper and see if we can draw a synthetic scheme. Of course, if someone does it first... (hint). --Rifleman 82 09:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. Both quick and excellent work :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Diramamorphine

Cross posted at WT:PHARM.

Any of our medicinally-minded chemists ever heard of this? I haven't, my usual sources turn up nothing, and the drugbox has apparently been copied from heroin. Based on the creator's contributions, I'm thinking of sending it to AfD. Perhaps it was a typo (thinking of diamorphine?) If so, one could argue for a redirect, but it's extremely unlikely that anyone would search for this. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I would send it to AfD, depending on other comments here and at WP:PHARM. I agree that it is probably a typo, but with this sort of compound it doesn't hurt to have some outside confirmation. Physchim62 (talk) 17:49, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

"Diramamorphine" made me immediately think "diamorphine", so a misspelling seems a possibility. Tomorrow morning I'll be able to do a quick Chem Abstracts search and see if "diramamorphine" turns up anything. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Barring any objections (or Ed finding anything :), I'll probably redirect it to heroin. Probably best? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

No hits from Chem Abstracts. Redirecting seems reasonable. --Ed (Edgar181) 11:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Done by Alison (talk · contribs) :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Okay, this is just an idea, but most of the books that I have seen on various chemicals has given information in a table format. e.g.

Name	Formula	MP	BP	Density
Water	H2O	0°C	100°C	1000 kg·m-3

This could provide data on chemicals quickly and easily, without requiring users to sort through dozens of pages of articles to get to the data. Would anyone be willing to do this? J Hill 18:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand but it seems that this is already done just in more of a column than a row.--Nick Y. 20:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Check out the Wikipedia:Chemical infobox page. (Ccroberts^{( t · c · g )} 20:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC))

A few weeks ago, I took a look at a book full of charts, giving physical properties and other information on a large number of chemical compounds, and thought, "Why doesn't Wikipedia have something like this?" The chart was an alphabetical listing of compounds, in rows. The columns contained information, such as melting and moiling points, molar mass, formula, etc. This way, chemicals could be reviewed more quickly, than sorting through many pages that focused on only one compound. Is this clearer? J Hill 13:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a few pages like that. They usually have "data table" in the title. For example, see Standard enthalpy change of formation (data table). --Itub 14:06, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

However, the above example only gives heat-related information. I'm talking about a general physical data table, that would contain melting, boiling and triple points, density, acidity, state at 20°C, etc. Also, this format/method could be useful for certain chemicals that aren't important. If a chemical doesn't deserve its own article, then at least its physical information could be displayed on such a page. J Hill 00:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Mp, bp, density, state at (usually at 25C), pKa, pKb are all listed in {{Chembox new}}. Triple point is not, but I don't suppose it will be very difficult to include it. I hope you are not suggesting we recreate the CRC Handbook manually? --Rifleman 82 02:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

If that is the intention, it'd probably be better to get a bot to compile the information from our pages (including the supplementary data pages, which may well include triple points) and compile it into one big table.

• We already have the Dictionary of chemical formulas, a bot could expand the tables in this section V8rik 20:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Opium

Opium has been tagged but unassessed for a few months. It isn't a chemical, but it is a source material for partial synthesis of opiates. I'm reluctant to remove the tag in case you regard it as a "reagent" or "commodity" worthy of interest, but could someone decide one way or the other? I'm thinking of nominating Opium for Good Article soon. Mike Serfas 03:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I've done a quick qnd provisional assesment as B-class Mid-importance for this project, although obviously that might change depending on any comments which other project members wish to make. I will take a more careful and thoughtful look at it this evening (off-wiki) to give editors a more precise idea of any gaps or problems with the article (or maybe to convince myself that it really deserves an A-class, it's a close call to make quickly). Physchim62 (talk) 13:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Clostebol

An article with absolutely no text, except for a table and a figure. Anyone has any idea what this is about? --Itub 15:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like an anabolic steroid. The figure is completely non-standard (and probably inaccurate :), and it could probably use a drugbox (?) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Appears there is some legitimate medical use—I'll see if I can add something to the article. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

And the obscure hypothetical chemical award goes to...

Peptohydrochloric acid. No results in CAS under any of the three names listed on the page. One or two google books results to old books with no real viewable text available. Google scholar also returns a couple of obscure results for one of the names. Is there really anything substantial ;-) we can say about this topic? --Itub 15:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest redirecting to this page, but then that's the sort of rouge editors that I am ;) Physchim62 (talk) 17:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is likely an example given for instructive purposes. Pepsin is a protein which can be a neutral molecule at its isoelectric point, but when you put it into the acidic environment of the stomach, it will acquire H+ here and there. Since the counterion in the stomach is mostly chlorine, I suppose that makes it "peptohydrochloric acid". But in normal biological literature no one usually pays attention to whether a protein is in a cellular environment that makes it acidic, basic, or neutral, although proteins or domains that are intrinsically acidic or basic (have low or high isoelectric points) are noted as such when the tendency in the sequence is strongly apparent. As for the article: I'd say to merge it into Pepsin as a short sentence using the phrase. The term is sourced. [2] Mike Serfas 20:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

A three-line entry in the 1913 Webster dictionary is not a good source for an encyclopedic article. --Itub 09:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

A dictionary entry isn't a good scientific reference, but it's a very good source to prove that the word was known. Mike Serfas 17:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Phenyl oxalate ester

Diphenylethandioate is a little bit too much Diphenyl oxalate is the chemical name and also that of IUPAC I think. The Diphenylethandioate is the systematic name. Am I right?--Stone 12:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

There should be a space in the (English) systematic name: diphenyl ethanedioate. Otherwise, you're spot on. Physchim62 (talk) 14:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:ChemicalSources

Hi, I was wondering what's up with {{ChemicalSources}}. Why does it link to project space from articles? --Iamunknown 21:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, it is a bit of an odd one, but may well be better than current practice of linking to all over the place. Ask major developer Dirk Beetstra his design details on the article's talkpage. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC).

The page is located in wikipedia namespace as that is the place for the searchpages (the page that gets linked to was originally intended to be a searchpage comparable to Wikipedia:Book sources). This template was meant to be temporary until the searchpage would be activated in the wikipedia software (something that never happened). In the meantime we have drastically rebuild the {{chembox new}}; implementation of the 'chembox new' would make the search page obsolete, and I would suggest that {{ChemicalSources}} would be removed (along with any commercial links in the external links section) as the CAS number in the chembox new links to an appropriate linkfarm. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been removing chemicalsources on sight whenever I edit a page, but I refrained from running the list through with AWB. I guess I should have no reservations now! --Rifleman 82 15:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

That said, should we direct readers to [3] to go to [4] instead? --Rifleman 82 15:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a bit of a trouble there, people were used to subst chembox. Maybe substing a {{chembox}} should give the same result as substing a {{chembox subst medium}} (although some users still seem to prefer the old chembox)?

I'll have a look, I may actually perform an AWB to remove {{ChemicalSources}} and then also remove the project namespace page. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:57, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, forget about the last remark, thanks Rifleman 82! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Carbon dioxide

One of our worklist, carbon dioxide, is this week's article for the Wikipedia:Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive. That means that a variety of Wikipedians will be working on the article. If you have a bit of time to work on this, it would be great - it's rare that one of our articles garners such attention. Cheers, Walkerma 03:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Now, now Martin, you know that our articles consitute about 0.5% of Wikipedia, and so they get attention about 0.5% of the time! Actually, a little bit more than 0.5% of the time, because they tend to be better written than the average Wikipedia article, but that is to our credit. Anyway, I heartly approve the motion that we should all go out and learn someting about CO2 (or English grammar, for example) that we can put in the article! Physchim62 (talk) 13:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Vinyl halide text vs. picture definiton

In the text of vinyl halide it is stated that vinyl halide is any alkene with halide substituent. This means that also e.g. allyl chloride is a vinyl halide. However according to the image, it is not a vinyl halide. Which definition is therefore valid? --Tomaxer 17:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

If you look up vinyl chloride in the Merck Index, it shows CH₂=CHCl. Likewise vinyl bromide is CH₂=CHBr. So by generalization it would seem that vinyl halide should be CH₂=CHX only, and that allyl chloride is NOT a vinyl halide. The picture, however, shows the halide on one of the unsaturated carbons. This is NOT the case with allyl chloride. Perhaps the words should be qualified at least to indicate that the halide substituent must be on an unsaturated carbon. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 21:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I also thought that it should be only the case of halogen located directly on an unsaturated carbon. So I'll change it this way. Thanks. --Tomaxer 23:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Iodoacetate

This article needs some help really quick!--Stone 16:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

New pages

Molecular switch, Molecular shuttle, ETN, Johann Gottlieb--Stone 16:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

EH&S Disclaimer for Polyurethane article

Hello: I'd appreciate some feedback regarding the inclusion of some kind of in-line disclaimer for the Health and Safety section of the Polyurethane article.

Something along the lines of,

The following information is believed to be reliable and is available elsewhere in the public domain, but is provided with no representations, guarantees, or warranties. Users of polyurethane materials seeking definitive information on the application, use, storage, handling, disposal, and environmental, health and safety considerations should contact directly the product manufacturer.

The hazards of polyurethane raw materials (such as isocyanates and amine catalysts), and those associated with the use of articles manufactured from polyurethane polymer (such as the flammability of HR flexible foam used in furniture applications and foam insulation) are well known. I feel that since this is an encyclopedic article on Polyurethane (polymer), it is important to (re)direct people seeking detailed or authoritative EH&S information to more appropriate sources, such as manufacturers, industry groups, or regulatory bodies.

Best Regards, P Cottontail 22:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is a good idea to provide specific disclaimers on chemistry articles - it would be too difficult to craft individual ones tailored to each article, and putting them on some articles but not others might imply reliability inappropriately. Wikipedia's site-wide disclaimer (see Wikipedia:General_disclaimer) should cover it. --Ed (Edgar181) 22:39, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with putting a disclaimer, based on Wikipedia:General_disclaimer and WP:NOT#HOWTO, plus the slippery slope concern (are we going to put disclaimers in every article about a chemical, weapon, tool, electrical appliance, sport, vehicle, soups that may be hot after heating, etc.?). However, it is certainly possible to direct the reader to a more authoritative source through the use of references. That section of the article currently has none. --Itub 08:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree with adding such info, the general disclaimer should cover that. Moreover, WP:NOT#GUIDE prohibits inclusion of such advise. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks all for the feedback. Based on this advice, I will not add any kind of disclaimer to the section of the Polyurethane article in question. As for directing readers to more authoritative sources, I will try to provide references as suggested. Best Regards, P Cottontail 11:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

For reference, the official guideline is Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles, which says exactly the same as the comments above but in a more general context. As a guideline, it is occasionally broken, but I don't think it should be in this case. If you are looking for authoritative references in EH&S, you can do worse than search through the International Chemical Safety Cards: there isn't one on polyurethane as such, but many monomers do have safety cards. Don't forget that the best place for a detailed discussion of hazards of the monomers is on the articles which describe them: the polyurethane article can (and maybe should) have a summary of the information, with links to the other articles where hazards are discussed at more length. See Wikipedia:Summary style for more guidance on this. Physchim62 (talk) 12:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Producer links - rfc

A discussion regarding external links to chemical producers is in progress at Talk:Sodium sulfate. Further input is requested as there is a significant disagreement about commercial links. Vsmith 03:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Structures needed...

Greetings from WP:PHARM! Big backlog over at Category:Drug pages needing a structure drawing, if any of our other (ahem, ahem) structurally-minded editors would like to help me out here :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I've gotten a couple and will do some more later too if necessary. --Ed (Edgar181) 19:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Working on it. Would youlike me to tag all talk pages of all the articles in this category with {{chemicals}} and your pharma banner? --Rifleman 82 02:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Could you use chem-awb to find all articles that contain {{drugbox}} and tag their talk pages with {{WikiProject Pharmacology}}? I can't think of any exceptions where this tagging wouldn't be appropriate, so if you can do it I'll ask at the wikiproject and see if there is consensus to do it. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a better way forward than tagging all of these with {{chemicals}}: we should only tag articles which we think we can take care of (see WP:OWN). Physchim62 (talk) 14:55, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) I'm in the process of doing that now. Not a problem. Bot works overnight, end of story. Yet, I feel very strongly that all chemical compounds should have a {{chemicals}} tag. This should include most drugs with the exception of antibodies and enzymes, but should include almost all compounds with a well defined structure and cas number. (Yes, I do recognize that mixtures do have cas numbers too). I do feel that chembox new, drugbox, and explosivebox should one day be merged due to the great number of similar fields. Explosive properties, drug properties, and extended chemical properties etc can come after the image, formula (with no mickey mouse characters!), cas number, pubchem id, smiles, inchi, molar mass, bp/mp. The last few items are basic information which chemicals, drugs, or explosives all possess. --Rifleman 82 15:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Tagging with {{WikiProject Pharmacology}} was an excellent idea. I can't believe I hadn't thought of that. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Cas number search

{{chembox new}} links to emolecules; {{cas}} links to pubchem; {{drugbox}} links to mesh. Can we combine all cas references to a link farm, where a cookie can be generated to save defaults? Something like Special:Booksources? Also useful because some more obscure compounds can't be found on these sites. --Rifleman 82 15:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean something like Wikipedia:Chemical sources? --Ed (Edgar181) 16:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. But, it's not functioning now is it? In fact, one of the first tasks of user:chem-awb was to mass-remove {{ChemicalSources}}. --Rifleman 82 16:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Organic compounds database

I have been working on it for a while. I thought that it could help us a bit when making searches for articles about organic compounds, as Wikipedia does not have it or at least i'm not aware if there is one. It is in a very basic form right now and contains only 229 entries but i've been adding new features almost every other weekend (some of them you will find quite familiar) and i will continue to do it, plus i'm constantly adding new entries as well, so nothing is final and there is plenty of room for improvement - for an example a "Search" can be done only for the different identifiers (PubChem, CAS, etc), for a string in the name and synonyms, and for the chemical composition which are all in the "General" tab of the "Search" form - the form opens up after moving the mouse over the "Actions" in the navigation row, and the clicking on "Search" in the pull down menu that pops out.

I hope you find it usefull. Any "how to be improved" feedback would be welcomed.

P.S. It DOES NOT work in Dumxplorer. Once i used to take my time to make the javascript code run on Dumxplorer too but i just got tired of it and now i stubbornly refuse to do it. Opera (I recommend it) and Firefox run it fine. -- Boris 10:19, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting, thanks! Others are looking to make Wikipedia data more searchable - one exciting development is a database (DBPedia) being constructed to allow structured queries, and it should include chemistry. Take a look at User:Petermr's blog entries on how this relates to chemistry here. It's a community effort, too rather than a commercial enterprise - take a look at DBPedia! Walkerma 18:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh man, o_O. I felt like i just woke up after being frozen for 5 years. Sure my site is interesting, let me exagarate once again - it's like visiting a National history museum and looking at the bones of a new disocovered dinosaur. I followed the links to realise that "Resource Description Framework" was the reason for seeing more and more pages with wierd addresses and even pages that display nothing but plain text. "commercial enterprise"? Nah. I've never had this intention. The only reason there is login is to prevent unregistered clowns to change the content the way they do it over here. -- Boris 22:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Featured article canidate

Comments about the Ammonia article would be nice.--Stone 11:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Help please with pictures of molybdates and other polyoxometalates

I have done a bit with the molybdate article and added an article on molybdenum blue. What would be nice for both of these and the Keggin structure article, would be pictures of some of the anions. An effective way of showing these is with polyhedra (see Gouzerh et al paper [[5]] for some really colorful examples) Does anybody know how I can achieve this, apart from drawing by hand obviously?Axiosaurus 14:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I've drawn polyoxometallates in DS Visualizer before - see phosphotungstic acid. I could illustrate these molybdate-related articles for you, or I could help you do them yourself.

Cheers

Ben 15:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Gramicidin

The article on Gramicidin would be a good match for this project. It is a small peptide antibiotic, but I don't see why that should preclude it from being a "chemical." What do you think? Jeremiah 04:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Although some may disagree I would agree that it is certainly a "chemical". It is also a peptide, which is a class of chemicals. Sometimes organizational schemes draw artificial lines of little real meaning. Sometimes we need to accept that, but I'm not certain about the artificial lines re chemical on wikipedia.--Nick Y. 17:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

New Pages

Fatty acid derivates like Oenanthotoxin, Falcarinol and Cicutoxin used by plants as Plant defense against herbivory. The pages are not brand new but upgraded, but need still a look from a native speaker and a biochemist.--Stone 17:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ethanol changes

I've downgraded Ethanol to GA-class. I've removed and split some wordy and redundant stuff but it has left the "Absolute Alcohol" and "Chemicals Derived from Alcohol" sections extremely sparse. Could somebody help me write introductions for those sections?

Also, I think there's material in the feedstocks section which is still redundant with the "Use --> In Fuel" and the "Controversy" sections.

Isaac 21:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the wholesale removal of the chemistry section (chemical reactions that ethanol participates in, etc.). Although most of the reaction material is covered in the alcohols article, a brief section on chemistry is still appropriate here, identifying ethanol as a primary alcohol, with the properties inherent in that, and listing briefly the names of the reactions that ethanol participates in. That together with a link to the alcohols article would be sufficient. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 22:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I've viewedIsaac's changes, and I think they are a step in the right direction. However, I feel a "chemistry" article is still necessary, with a {{main}} perhaps, and a brief mention of reactions which ethanol participates in. Particularly those of industrial or biological relevance. --Rifleman 82 01:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Talk:List_of_Extremely_Hazardous_Substances

Been looking at these as part of link repair (You can help!), and I, and User:ThisIsAce both don't know enough to know if the unmatched parentheses in the chemical names are right or not. Could someone take a look? — Timotab ^{Timothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)} 21:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

For WE-Chemists note that this list includes ammonia, phenol, sulfuric acid, ethylenediamine as "extremely hazardous." So this list illustrates a broadened definition of the word "extremely".--Smokefoot 18:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you look at the refs, it seems that list was essentially pulled from an EPA list, so it's what the government thinks :) — Timotab ^{Timothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)} 18:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I linked some of the compounds in this list to articles and I am done with it. To me the list is a random collection of chemicals without much rationality. V8rik 19:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If I had my way, I'd delete this page per WP:NOT a directory. The list seems unmaintainable, POV, and quite arbitrary. --Rifleman 82 06:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

• I disagree, Wiki would benefit from a list with relevant chemicals either from a economical point of view or a safety point of view. I only think there should exist better lists. V8rik 18:30, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Dimethyl..., diphenyl... etc titles

User:ChemistHans has noted the following on Talk:Dimethyltelluride: "The name Dimethyltelluride should be two words: Dimethyl telluride. This is "salt nomenclature" (like Sodium Chloride) in which anion and cation are always separate words (if the name ends in "ide" or "ate" the two radicals should be separated by a space). Same for Dimethyl sulfide. Dimethylmercury is correct, however (not salt nomenclature)." This recommendation seems sensible.

• Is there a mechanism for finding all of the affected titles by searching all dimethyls, trimethyls, diphenyls.. etc and then implementing the moves? (BTW: administrative authorization required for the ones I tried).

That is, assuming that others endorse the insertion of spaces following methyl, dimethyl, diphenyl... I usually mistrust nomenclature enthusiasts, but this seems more important.--Smokefoot 01:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Give me a day or two. I'll have a go at searching, and post the list of requested moves to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Requested moves. Then, some of our admins can go and fix it. --Rifleman 82 04:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd gladly help with moving, although there are many admins on WP:CHEMS :) Can't help with the list-building, though—I don't trust my limited knowledge of chemistry with such a task. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This issue is ever-present in organic chemistry nomenclature, with many violations even in prestigious journals. A few years ago I made a little web page on this topic for our students edification. However a caution about doing this in an automated way - it is not just the first part of the name (methyl, diphenyl) that is significant, but the last part (ide or ate) if you want to recognize improperly concatenated "salt" names. ChemistHans 23:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

PS By the way - I have also found several pages with the opposite error - substitutive names that are improperly split into two words. Will keep alert and comment when I see more. ChemistHans 00:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

On reflection after reading Hans' page, I think part of the confusion lies in the many bottles of chemicals produced by Merck and other German brands which have only the German names. What's up with Natriumthiosulfat? Or Salzsauer?!

Looking through the chemicals store of either a (1) cheapskate PI or a (2) long-established PI, you find strange things like an almost full 1 pound bottle of hexamine, manufactured in 1950. Manganese salts from when the former Soviet Union was still the Soviet Union. And other fun stuff like dimethylmercury and carbon tetrachloride. --Rifleman 82 20:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Ethoxyquin

Could someone with knowledge of the subject please take a look at Ethoxyquin. This is a food additive (often a "preservative") that every site that isn't Wikipedia says is potentially harmful. The current article reads almost like propaganda, as it references an FDA statement from 1989. There are many reports from the FDA in the 18 year interim that suggest the opposite, besides the fact that the American FDA isn't the ultimate authority on everything. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 03:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I am the editor who added most of the content of the article. It is based on information from reliable sources - the Merck Index and the Food and Drug Administration. I think it is a silly exaggeration to characterize the article as propaganda - I certainly have no interest in having the compound characterized inaccurately. I looked for reliable sources (including the FDA) to back up claims of safety dangers, but couldn't find one. If you can find a more recent statement from the FDA that contradicts the FDA report cited in the article, it would benefit the article to add it and I would welcome its addition. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I didnt see anything that looked strange - seems to be a straightforward, objective article. I recommend detagging.--Smokefoot 13:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Isopapa-dimethoxy-aniline

Cross-posted to WT:PHARM.

New article. I've never, ever heard of this (not surprising), but it appears to be an elaborate hoax. No hit on the CAS or PubChem entries, ATCs do not exist. The second cited source is actually PMID 17569741. Could use a hand or a cluestick, please :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree it looks like a hoax. No google hits for isopapa, and the references seem fabricated. --Itub 14:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that this will require an exteded clean-up. Multiple accounts have been used to add links to this nonsense to other articles. Check out Special:Contributions/Tmaester2345, Special:Contributions/Newcastleunii, Special:Contributions/Nuchem. --Itub 14:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The creator admitted it was a hoax. I've deleted the article and structure image and rolled back all edits from the above accounts. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Anabasine

Not being too experienced with posting comments to Wikipedia, I hope I am doing this right. If not I apologize in advance.

I believe that the article on anabasine contains an error. It refers to anabasine as a metabolite of certain tobacco alkaloids. It is my understanding, based on discussions with colleagues who are toxicologists, that anabasine is not a metabolite (in the sense of a compound generated by metabolism in humans), though it is found in tobacco and some other plants. It is this fact which makes anabasine levels in body fluids a powerful indicator of tobacco use by a patient. Some other tobacco alkaloids, such as nicotine, are less useful because they can also come from sources other than tobacco, such as the nicotine patch, and therefore do not provide conclusive evidence of tobacco use. However, high anabasine levels are a very strong indicator of tobacco use.

Unfortunately, I don't have a reference handy, but I believe references can be found in some tox books.

Mass-man 20:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the phrase to "minor tobacco alkaloid" to match the source that was cited. Is that correct? --Itub 06:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I believe the statement on anabasine is now correct. I do not know about the source one way or the other. Thanks.Mass-man 06:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Turkenol

The article turkenol is nonsense to me. There is no record of it in PubChem or Chem Abstracts. For now, I have added a proposed deletion tag, but maybe it should be deleted as a hoax immediately (no real hurry though since it's been around for years!). Can anyone either verify or debunk the article? --Ed (Edgar181) 18:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the article was created at Meta in late 2005 and moved over here. Hyper-mastication? Prod is fine IMHO—the article's been here for two years, after all. It's also not complete gibberish (i.e. "fhdfklflknmlkvmlb CLOWNS!") so G1 might be a stretch; a reasonable person with no knowledge of chemistry might find this to be a serious article. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, it was deleted by DragonflySixtyseven as "made up". Thanks. --Ed (Edgar181) 20:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Paclitaxel

There's been an interesting series of posts on the ChemSpider blog recently regarding the structure of paclitaxel, and WP gets plenty of mention :) I left a comment to the second post of the series, on the accuracy of Image:Taxol.svg. Antony has posted to Talk:Paclitaxel noting (after quite an admirable bit of research) that our PubChem was incorrect, as well as, apparently, the IUPAC name provided, while the structure itself was fine. Anyone care to have a look? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:55, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• my understanding from the discussion is that the wikipedia images are valid. The post is really about quality issues in external databases V8rik 19:23, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Indeed, the WP image is perfectly fine. I meant that someone should have a look at the IUPAC names provided and see which appears most accurate. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:29, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I just want to add that there are many errors at the PubChem database, which was the source of the problem here. PubChem gets data from external sources and makes no effort to validate what they receive. I have contacted them in the past to report errors in an effort to see if they would fix them. I was told that they are not permitted to make any corrections. Basically, they are a repository of other people's data and have no authority to alter and/or correct it. Consequently, many chemicals have multiple entries - some are correct and others are not. I feel the reliability of PubChem data is commonly overestimated. --Ed (Edgar181) 12:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've created a few incorrect structures after not taking PubChem data with a grain of salt (Ed will remember one, I'm sure). There are several entries with inaccuracies; one major problem I often find is PubChem's handling of tautomers—it always seems to display minor/unstable ones. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Polyurethane

Hello: I would appreciate a review of the Polyurethane article. I have made a significant number of additions and changes over the past few months and would appreciate some critical feedback, and suggestions for further expansion and improvement. I'd like to get this article out of start class ASAP. Best Regards, P Cottontail 18:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

MSDS

In the old chemboxes, there was a link for external msds; in many chemicals articles, it exists at the external links section. I'm proposing that for all articles using {{chembox new}}, all these external links be removed in favor of the CAS number link out. Comments please? --Rifleman 82 16:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned that this might make it a little too difficult for the average user to find an MSDS. For someone specifically looking for an MSDS, it may not be obvious that it could be found by clicking on the CAS number and being sent to emolecules.com. And I'm not sure that an MSDS could always be found via the data and links provided there. As an aside, does anyone know if there is any comprehensive public online database of MSDSs? --Ed (Edgar181) 17:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

How about tweaking {{chembox new}} then? We could un-link the CAS#, but add another field which says "Suppliers and MSDS" which links to e-molecules? It should link automatically, to minimize duplicate work. Alternatively, for the title of the CAS# field, we can rename it "CAS (Links to suppliers and MSDS" --Rifleman 82 17:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding a comprehensive online public data base of MSDS, I don't think there is one, at least in the US. I have found MSDS for industrial chemicals by running internet searches, and can often find them by digging on manufacturer's sites, but nothing I'd feel comfortable linking directly into. I like Rifleman's idea abouting adding another field to the {{chembox new}}. P Cottontail 21:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the new chembox does have an "ExternalMSDS" field. So I've been moving external links to this field on sight. Apart from that, there appear to be some undocumented functions such as this one in {{Chembox new}}. Anyone care to document them? --Rifleman 82 02:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps: Ethanol

As part of WikiProject GA's sweeps process, we are reviewing all current GAs to see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm reviewing all of the chemistry articles. As it stands now, Ethanol is dangerously close to losing it's GA status, having been nominated early in the GA program's history (12/8/2005), it lacks referencing, and has become a bit disorganized. So if anyone has a moment in the next couple of days, swing on by and see what you can do. Dr. Cash 06:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

New articles

• Sodium ferrocyanide has some problems with the IUPAC namin compared to Potassium ferrocyanide.
  •  Done Physchim62 (talk) 13:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Calcium hexamine thiocyanate is basically empty
• RS 67333 nice name but a redirect to something more usefull should be there
• Pinacolone realy stubbish
• Potassium trioxo­chloro­chromate already several edits
• Potassium bisulfite--Stone 12:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

And these too, for the past month, experts and non-experts are encouraged to make these reports more useful, more readable, more linked.

• Triphenyl phosphite
• Caesium dodecaborate
• Tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato)aluminium
• Xantphos
• Hexafluoroacetylacetone
• John C. Bailar, Jr.
• Bromobimane
• Silver hydroxide
• 2-Ethylhexanoic acid
• O-Acetylserine

--Smokefoot 18:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Rated for Wp:CHEMS and other wikiprojects. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC).

Style Guide

I've done major changes to the style guide here. Any comments? --Rifleman 82 05:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Looks good to me! Thanks Rifleman. Physchim62 (talk) 12:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Like it.--Stone 14:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• I dont know the channels for editing the Style Guide, but here are some suggestions for it:

We aim to mention the first synthesis or first characterization of a compound, with reference.

We avoid mentioning scientist's names, nationalities, and their institutions, except if these individuals are notable and their mention is particularly pertinent. This kind of biographical/geographical material belongs in a biography and tends to de-objectivize the articles. I worry slightly about WE becoming a hero-worship site.

Similarly, there is rarely any reason to wikify dates.

We particularly encourage general references (monographs, reviews) except for discoveries or related reports of particularly. Even though WE has no space limits, some articles become too encumbered in citations.

Of course, I have not carefully followed my own suggestions perfectly either, but there they are. --Smokefoot 19:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

No objections, so I'm adding your comments into the style guide. --Rifleman 82 13:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

My main suggestion for the style guide would be to encourage using the <ref> notation for references. Regarding scientists names, I often mention who did the first synthesis or characterization (at least for the "classic" compounds where the discoverer is long-dead ;-). I hope that's pertinent enough by Smokefoot's standards. However, I see the point--sometimes people mention people, and especially institutions and nationalities, unnecessarily. --Itub 08:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

An additional suggestion is to encourage adding production figures and other economic data to the articles for commodity chemicals (I don't know if it's best under Preparation or Uses, or in a section of its own, or in the lead). Good places for getting some of this information, although usually a bit dated, are the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology and Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. If you are lucky and work for a big institution, you might be able to access them online. If not, you might be able to find it in a library. --Itub 08:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments. I agree very much with Smokefoot in that the first synthesis/discovery/characterization of a compound should be referenced to the original paper. Also agree with his second point not to talk too much about the people, as well as the dates and the refs.

I agree with Itub too that <ref> notation should be encouraged. On top of that, I would like that the {{cite journal}} and related styles be encouraged as well. However, WP:References states that these options are not obligatory and I think we have to word it carefully. Perhaps we should have a new section on "Production" separate from "Synthesis" for commodity chemicals generated and consumed in huge quantities. --Rifleman 82 08:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I like it too.

Re the references. The script Rifleman 82 and I are using to put the {{chembox new}} in place is trying to add {{unreferenced}} (when there are no <ref> marks in the text) or {{citationstyle}} (when there are references not tied to the text, but bulleted in a references section) to the documents, including the references sections etc. It looks like that there are many that do not have any references, or just a general one (like 'Merck index'). I would for our guideline encourage one referencing style, and I indeed prefer the <ref>/<references/> style.

Generally about running the script. The current style and mix of boxes makes it almost impossible to do a full, real replace of the boxes, and sometimes fields get deleted because the script makes mistakes. I am sure Rifleman 82 and I are having a look when we save the page, and it does save a lot of work, but please check after us if the script does not destroy too much. If you see certain changes being overlooked by the script too often, leave a remark (with some example diffs) at User talk:Beetstra/Chemicals, and I will have a look to improve the script for the future. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

In the last few days we haven't had any dissenters from the <Ref><references/> style. Can we give a week here, for any to voice objections/comments? If there are no objections, can we say that there is consensus for all chemistry pages to use this reference style, and mandate it exclusively in the style guide? --Rifleman 82 10:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It's been a month, and there have been no objections/comments, so I'm putting it into the style guide (that <ref> style is mandated for chemicals articles. --Rifleman 82 13:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

{{Chembox}} vs. {{Chembox new}}

Side note. Since we (me & Dirk) are clearing all existing articles which use {{chembox}} in favor of {{chembox new}}, I believe that template should eventually be deleted, with {{chembox new}} being the sole template for Chemicals. Arguments for this include WP:FORK. Of the contributors to {{chembox}}, the active ones I can recognize include User:Wimvandorst, User:Walkerma, User:Cacycle. Do you guys, and anybody else, have any comments for and against? In the meantime, can we remove the documentation/hide it so that people stop using it? That's happened in some of the new articles User:Stone found. --Rifleman 82 10:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Since Chembox was normally subst-ed, another suggestion would be to make {{chembox}} a template for the 'medium' chembox new, like {{chembox subst medium}} (which is one of the three subst-templates to put a new chembox new on a page). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

For clarity and ease-of-use, I think {{Chembox new}} should be renamed to {{Chembox}} and one chembox used with different number of parameters. The documentation for {{Chembox new}} is quite easy to follow to produce small, medium or large chemboxes, and additional data pages. --DoSiDo 23:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, is it possible to remove the redirect of the talk page of {{Chembox}} (old) to Template_Talk:Chembox? It causes the "What links here" script to list pages that in fact transclude {{Chembox new}} and do not use tables. A soft redirect could be added instead. --DoSiDo 18:47, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I've tried as you've suggested, but whatlinkshere to chembox is still reporting those transcluding chembox new. I've also added the {{tdeprecated}} to {{chembox}}. --Rifleman 82 19:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Right. It seems to be because of {{Chembox header}}. Can we rename {{Chembox new}} to {{Chembox}} and semi-protect the template? --DoSiDo 21:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd very much like that, but we can't do it now beecause the migration is not complete. --Rifleman 82 01:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Have an idea. I've created {{Chembox header2}} using exactly the same content as {{chembox header}} (so that there is no disruption). {{Chembox new}} uses {{Chembox header2}} now. By using what links here, we will get a list of article pages using {{chembox}} (those still transcluding the old {{chembox header}}; also, we will get a list of articles using {{chembox new}}. This will be helpful for my bot (Chem-awb (talk · contribs)) to clear.

Now, because whatlinkshere doesn't update until someone views the new page, I'll leave it for a day or so before checking. Comments? --Rifleman 82 04:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) Since each of the individual modules transclude {{Chembox header}}, I had quite a lot of false positives. But taking the diff from {{Chembox header}} and {{Chembox header2}}, I have only about 900 or so left to clear. Working on clearing that list now. --Rifleman 82 06:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

After a few days' work, we now have 800 or so articles left to be converted. Me & Dirk have been working at it. I can clear about 50 articles a day, and not considering Dirk's contributions, it'll take 16 days at least.

If anyone is inclined, they can help out by using the AWB script here, and importing the worklist from User:Beetstra/Chemicals/Worklist. This list is supposed to be free from all false positives, so as not to waste time. It would be good to export the list after you're done, and paste it there so that the next guy doesn't need to wade through the "cleared" articles. --Rifleman 82 16:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

New articles

• Disodium octaborate tetrahydrate
• Gadolinium nitrate
• Paprika oleoresin
• Manganese Triacetate might need a move to Manganese(III) acetate

-Stone 15:58, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Silver hexafluorophosphate
• Silver tetrafluoroborate --Rifleman 82 15:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Assessed them all six. I like the paprika chemical! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC).

IUPAC name of caffeine

In the de-WP, we currently discuss about the correct IUPAC name of caffeine (see discussion). Briefly, the following options have been proposed (adapted into the English version):

• 1,3,7-Trimethyl-1,3-dihydro-7H-purine-2,6-dione (7H optional)
• 1,3,7-Trimethyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-7H-purine-2,6-dione (7H optional)

Is there an expert in IUPAC nomenclature in the en-WP? Thanks. --Leyo 16:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's neither dihydro nor tetrahydro, so it should probably be 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione as currently shown in the English page. The bonds are not hydrogenated if you think of the tautomeric forms (as in pyridone vs 2-hydroxy pyridine, which are tautomers of one another and neither is hydrogenated). The 3H,7H indicates the specific tautomer. --Itub 17:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, Chemdraw's automatic name generator says it should be "1,3,7-Trimethyl-3,7-dihydro-purine-2,6-dione". --Itub 17:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I'm not an expert... the more I think about it the less sure I am. ;-) --Itub 19:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

NCBI says it is "1,3,7-trimethylpurine-2,6-dione" [6]--Nick Y. 19:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Merck Index has the Chem Abstracts name (not the same as IUPAC, but the core heterocycle nomenclature should be the same) as 3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione. It's confusing to use "dione" for an unsaturated system like purine. It seems to me that it should be named as a derivative of tetrahydropurine, but I'm certainly no expert of IUPAC nomenclature.--Ed (Edgar181) 19:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone's interested, these are the alternative names listed in CAS (besides the CAS name quoted by Ed). I'm not sure if the IUPAC name is one of them, though.

Caffeine (8CI); 1,3,7-Trimethyl-2,6-dioxopurine; 1,3,7-Trimethylxanthine; 3,7-Dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione; 7-Methyltheophylline; Alert-Pep; Cafeina; Caffedrine; Caffein; Cafipel; DHCplus; Dasin; Diurex; Durvitan; Guaranine; Hycomine; Koffein; Mateina; Methyltheobromine; Miudol; NSC 5036; No-Doz; Phensal; Propoxyphene Compound 65; Refresh'n; SK 65 Compound; Shape Plus; Stay Alert; Stim; Synalgos; Thein; Theine; Tri-Aqua; Wigraine

Cheers, Itub 07:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC).

I think, at first we shall make clear, which of the following isomeres actually exists:

1H-purine, 3H-purine, 7H-purine, 9H-purine.

(I really recommend everybody to try to figure out each of these alleged isomeres, while looking on the skeletal formulae in purine's chembox! I think you will be surprised by the first two.) The german article only writes about the 7H and 9H isomeres as tautomeres of each other. And, on my opinion, any other alleged xH isomere will be an 2x-hydropurine, thus no genuine purine or isomere of purine, respectively.

Besides, one problem may be much faster solved: In the (german) article there is the name “1,3,7-Trimethyl-3,7-dihydro-2H-purin-2,6-dion”, which it think is obviously wrong because of the 2H.

Moreover, I would like to add, that as I started the discussions, I specifically searched for the systematic IUPAC name, not for any trivial or semi-systematic names.

Concluding, I'll add the sources, I already mentioned in the german discussion:

[7], [8], [9], [10]↔[11], [12], [13], Rules for hydro prefixes, Example to Rule C-16.33 in [14].

With respect to these, I cannot come to results essentially differing from: 1,3,7-trimethyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-7H-purine-2,6-dione or 1,3,7-trimethyl-7H-purine-2,6(1H,3H)-dione (7H optional).

—Markus Prokott 14:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Both seem correct as far as I understand. I personally prefer the "non-hydrogenated" one, but as [15] says, Phosphinin-2(1H)-one and 1,2-dihydrophosphinin-2-one are both correct, so the the "hydrogenation" is optional. --Itub 08:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

But note also that the 7H indicated hydrogen seems to be optional as well, per note 1 in [16] and the footnote for purine in [17]. If we went to the extreme of considering the other indicated hydrogens optional as well, we would end up with the PubChem name quoted by Nick Y.: "1,3,7-trimethylpurine-2,6-dione" --Itub 08:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, meanwhile, I also tend to opt for the PubChem name as I already have mentioned in the german discussion. It's because there are no isomeres of the final structure that come from the position of H's or double-bondings, respectively. The substituents of caffeine completely determine each appearance and position of H's and double-bonds in the molecule. Therefore, it makes no difference, which of the hydrogenation forms we choose, on one or another way we will always end up in the same final structure, which is that of caffeine. Now, since the ind. H's as well as the hydro prefixes are redundant, we may omit them. But on the other hand, I don't know, if this is recommended or allowed by the IUPAC rules. So, considering the basic patterns of the IUPAC nomencalture I exerienced until today, if we need to describe the H-isomere and the further hydrogenation, I guess, we'd have to choose the minimal locant for the ind. H (resulting in the 1H-isomere) and than add the necessary hydro prefixes. Now, this would lead to the name: 1,3,7-trimethyl-2,3,6,7-tetrahydro-1H-purine-2,6-dione. (Cf. Image:Purine isomers.png.)

But, as a matter of fact, yesterday, I used IUPAC and ACD Lab's on-line name service and this gave the following name for the caffeine structure: 1,3,7-trimethyl-3,7-dihydro-1H-purine-2,6-dione. I don't know how it comes, that there is one dihydro missing.

—Markus Prokott 10:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The rule you're looking for is C-315. The name is formally formed as followed

1. the –CH= groups at positions 2 and 6 are replaced by –C(=O)– groups: as per rule C-315, this does not lead to the indication of hydrogen substituents at positions 2 and 6.
2. hydrogen is indicated at positions 1 and 3 as per rule C-315.
3. there is no need to indicate hydrogen at position 7, as this is the "standard" purine isomer for nomenclature purposes.
4. the three methyl substituents are noted at positions 1, 3 and 7.

This gives

1,3,7-Trimethyl-2,6(1H,3H)-purinedione

This is not to say that the many of various names cited above are not also correct. To quote from the Preamble to the 1993 Recommendations (emphasis added):

It is important to recognize that the rules of systematic nomenclature need not necessarily lead to a unique name for each compound, but must always lead to an unambiguous one.

BTW, almost all of our purine structural diagrams (apart from de:Bild:PurinTaut.png) are of the 9H-isomer, which is somewhat suboptimal given that we continually talk of them as if they were of the 7H-isomer! Physchim62 (talk) 20:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much, :-)

I think this is the needed rule for the construction of the desired name. Applying that rule to caffeine, I also come to the name you mentioned. Nevertheless, I'm still confused by the result the online name service of IUPAC and ACD Labs gave: 1,3,7-trimethyl-3,7-dihydro-1H-purine-2,6-dione. Don't know how they came to the dihydro instead of tetrahydro. Obviously, this name is no product of rule C-315, but of more general rules using hydro prefixes instead of added hydrogene nomenclature. Think, we won't get an answer to this question anytime.

It's correct, that we often mixed up the 7H- and 9H-isomeres of purine. In certain cases this may be no big problem, since they are tautomeric forms of each other. But I think, at least the chemoboxes should be uniform: If there is the pic of the 9H-isomer, there shouldn't be the names of other isomeres (at least not without an comment). I've already often mentioned that in german WP. Such boxes may be rather confusing to non- and semi-profs.

—Markus Prokott 00:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if a computer program sometimes makes mistakes when trying to apply the IUPAC rules. It's a hard problem to solve, from what I've read. --Itub 07:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Have now added two alternative IUPAC systematic names to the german article. —Markus Prokott 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Perfluorocarbon

I think the article perfluorocarbon mixes up 2 different topics:

• short chain PFCs with a high greenhouse warming potential
• long chain PFCs such as PFOS or PFOA that do not have a high greenhouse warming potential, but are persistent in the environment

DuPont, the largest producer of these compounds, groups the organic fluorine chemistry in 3 groups:

• Fluorochemicals (small molecules 1-8 carbons; uses for refrigerants, cleaning solvents, blowing agents, CFC alternatives

(e.g. HFCs))

• Fluoro-Organics (“short” fluorine chains attached to organic polymer backbones [F(CF2)n-] n > 4; uses for surface modification & protection, surfactants, water & oil repellency)
• Fluoropolymers (high MW (10⁷) polymers; PTFE & Melt Copolymers, fluorinated “backbone”; uses for cookware, CPI linings, aerospace, automotive, apparel, construction, etc)

The fluoropolymers have their own article, but the two others are mixed up in perfluorocarbon. In the German Wikipedia, there are 2 individual articles: [18] [19]

I know that an overview is given in fluorocarbon, but to me it's still confusing. --217.11.34.119 12:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

From a chemical point of view, there is no obligation to split up perfluorocarbon into two articles. From the different uses and environmental implications (greenhouse gases vs. POPs), however, two individual articles would be a benefit for the reader. 129.132.210.4 19:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I have just remarked that there is a quite similar posting by an Environmental Working Group researcher at the talk page. -- 77.56.108.47 00:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, I agree on these points. Unfortunately, the guy from EWG (Kmarkey) has not been active for the last four month. Is there somewhere else who is familiar with fluorine chemistry? --Leyo 15:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

In my mind, there seem to be a number of pages related to polyfluorinated compounds (PFCs should refer to poly- rather than per-) of varying quality. I would propose one of two options:

• The Perfluorocarbon page be stripped of all non-perfluorocarbon related material (which folks have already identified) and a second

Polyfluorinated carbon page be started (Could then include information on PFCAs, PFOS related compounds, etc.).

• The Perfluorocarbon page be reworked into a broader Polyfluorinated carbon page with the stripped perfluorocarbon page as a section. Any related pages on wikipedia could be associated with the main page.

As for the industry categories, I think they're useful information to include, as there are unique environmental and chemistry issues with each one, but I doubt that there is enough traffic justifying creation of individual pages at this time. If DuPont would like to contribute to this section, that would be great. Kmarkey 07:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobel 2007 season

It is that time of the year again: Nobel prizes! So if you think you know who will win this year it is perhaps an interesting idea to check if a relevant article and a bio exist. My bet (same as last year):James Fraser Stoddart. Announcement: Chemistry - Wednesday, October 10, 11:45 a.m. CET (at the earliest) according to the website V8rik 20:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

My money is on George M. Whitesides, but I had read speculation on Dieter Seebach, for which we have no article.--Smokefoot 20:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

My bet is for another biologist to win. (Just like last year.) ~K 21:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Now we have an article on Dieter Seebach--Stone 07:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my money is on Seebach as well; we're going to have to start writing article on dendrimers! Physchim62 (talk) 13:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

We have already on! --Stone 16:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks to all and thanks for the bio, Seebach / Beta-peptide really seems like a winner, for once chemists and biochemists are able to unite! V8rik 20:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Gerhard Ertl it is then! Physchim62 (talk) 12:36, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Infobox-only articles

From time to time people make articles on chemicals with only an infobox, and then someone often nominates them for speedy delete. i don't think it makes any sense to do this and have to start over, so i generally decline such requests for deletion. At the moment Leu-enkephalin is in that state, declined, but then I've been challenged on that. the same ed. also has remarked Chlorophenol red. Perhaps somebody could fix them, or suggest how thy should be handled. DGG (talk) 18:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

To me these seem more like stubs than empty articles. Thanks for "saving" them. Usually these are created in response to a redlink, but the article's creator doesn't have the knowledge and/or time to write more than a stub. I've cleaned up chlorophenol red a bit, but it could certainly use some expansion. --Ed (Edgar181) 19:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• I propose that chemicals are grouped together in articles about compound classes rather than single compound articles. This calls for new infoboxes that allow info on more than one compound. See for example boronic acid V8rik 20:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Articles should not just have infoboxes: they should have at least a sentence along the lines of "Chlorophenol red is a pH indicator. {{expansion}} would seem to be the appropriate template, and if there is a particular problem with chem articles we could make {{chem-expansion}}. Physchim62 (talk) 13:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

State symbols in chemboxes

There's a user, Eloc Jcg (talk · contribs) who is insisting on placing state symbols in the formulae fields of chemboxes. See here and this representative diff I disagree. Very strongly. Firstly, there is a separate field for the appearance of the chemical. Secondly, acids are NOT by definition aq. Any comments here? --Rifleman 82 01:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. Those symbols are not necessary, and the assertion that all acids are aqueous is complete nonsense. Moreover, if you look at any chemistry dictionary, catalog, encyclopedia, or handbook, these "state symbols" are not used. Adding them goes against common practice. The only place where they are commonly used in my experience is when writing thermodynamic equations. --Itub 09:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I also completely agree. It does not belong in the formula field, it belongs in the appearance field. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions for articles on the total synthesis of pharmaceuticals

The question is, should the pharmacology guidelines for INNs apply to organic synthesis articles?. Please see discussion at Talk:Paclitaxel total synthesis. --Itub 07:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Two significant threats to the health of WE-chem are editors who are adamant on nomenclature and those that are similarly orthodox on detailed safety instructions. My experience is that such editors rarely contribute scientific content that requires integration/distillation of knowledge. Fortunately other parts of Wikipedia are more attractive to such zealots and they wander off, allowing the scientific content to grow.--Smokefoot 12:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat unrelated question: why is "Taxol" capitalized in all of the article titles? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Taxol is often capitalized in the literature (I think because it is a brand?), but not always. Look at the references and you'll see the inconsistent usage. ;-) --Itub 16:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Argh. So when it was isolated, it was termed taxol, but "Taxol" later became a trademark? That enough would clinch it for me (using the INN); the only reason I'm still neutral is the (apparently) more common usage of "taxol" in the chemical literature. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S.: the INN of "galanthamine" is galantamine, so Galanthamine total synthesis might require renaming if the WP:PHARM guidelines are indeed to apply :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines and styleguides are no law and to avoide them with good reason is not forbidden, but alowed!!--Stone 16:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course. I haven't yet formed an opinion on this; I'm not pleased with the idea of inconsistency across articles, though... Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Quick question. Although I like the idea of total synthesis of pharmaceuticals being published where everybody can freely view it, my question is: how is it that doing so in WP does not violate its edict about articles not being how-to manuals?? Karl Hahn (T) (C) 16:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not a how-to, but a description of a scientific achievement. A how-to would read more like the experimental section of a publication: "in a round-bottom flask put 500 mg of X, add 5 mL of Y, stirr at 70 deg C for 2 hours, and filtrate...". --Itub 16:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur. Describing an important industrial process does not amount to a manual but is an important part of any encyclopedic entry. Ideally most important industrial products should indicate feed stocks and waste products as well as common methods of manufacture linking to articles about each part of the process. Also historical methods of manufacture and changes in these methods and why they have changed. Unnecessary specifics should be avoided. Most industrial processes are done in slightly different ways in different places but share common principles.--Nick Y. 16:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. You have answered my question to my satisfaction. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 16:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Cahn-Ingold-Prelog priority rule

I'm not part of WikiProject Chemicals, but I happen to be very interested in the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog system and noticed that the Wikipedia article was badly in need of attention. I have just completed major changes to the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog priority rule article, including a rewrite of the explanation of priorities. Please see if my changes are to your liking and revert as necessary if not. Hashproduct 05:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

References for chemical properties

I have remarked that normally no sources are cited for chemical properties in the chembox (even if no MSDS is linked). Is that a common agreement not to have these "^[1]" in the chemobox? In de-WP, we try to cite sources for non-trivial properties such as e.g. melting point, vapor pressure or hazard symbols. We often use the GESTIS Substance Database that includes information on hazards as well as chemical properties for thousands of (hazardous) chemicals. For the purpose of easily creating a reference including a direct link to the substance entry in the database, we have recently created a template. It is used i a growing number of articles, e.g. in DDT. The English version of the caption would be

"Record of DDT in the GESTIS Substance Database, accessed 13 October 2007"

or similar. Do you think that there could be a use for this template in en-WP as well? If yes, I would create the template and use it in my futher work here. --Leyo 12:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I support citing sources for data: density, m.p. spectroscopic, thermodynamic, crystallographic data. Crystal structures for compounds should be cited.--Smokefoot 16:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Definitely. I always add the source for such data when I add the data (which is not very often ;-). --Itub 17:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

In conclusion, you support citing sources for data, but you don't think that there is a use for the template I proposed to create. Did I get you right? --Leyo 12:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't comment regarding the template. I certainly wouldn't oppose having the template, although I personally don't know if I would find it useful, given that I have never used this particular database. But if you edit the English Wikipedia enough to find the template useful for yourself, that's enough reason to create it IMO. --Itub 13:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I have just created the Template:GESTIS and used it in DDT. --Leyo 17:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Article request

Could someone create a short article on N-acetyltalosaminuronic acid? It is an important structural component of the cell wall of some Archaea. It is also one of the few red links in the article on the cell wall, which is the COTM for WP:MCB. --EncycloPetey 03:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Done.--Rifleman 82 04:39, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Polyurethane article

Silverchemist and I have put a lot of effort over the past couple of months into substantially improving the Polyurethane article. As a core article of high importance on the worklist, I recommend it be raised to B-Class. Thus, I would appreciate a peer review and comments, and if justified, the status raised as recommended. I look forward to the feedback and will gladly take suggestions for further improvement. Thanks in advance. P Cottontail 04:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

IMO, this article is well into B class, and the question should be whether it is A or B. I've changed it into B for now. --Itub 08:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• Definitely a good B-Class article. I added some peerreviewer scripted recommendation to the talk page, so that further improvement can be directed. The B->A class promotion is a reviewed process on Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/List of A-Class articles. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:15, 24 October 2007 (UTC).

Wim, thanks for doing this. I am looking forward getting the content and presentation up to A-class, then FA! Cheers, P Cottontail 01:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Contributor?

Sorry for the garishly pointed username, but I was wondering what it would take for a lil' old PhD student to become a contributor. I've been trying to change the carbon disulfide page ever so slightly. Someone keeps reverting the beginning to say that it is 'sweet smelling' when I know for a fact from working with HPLC-grade CS₂ every day, that it does - like most sulfur-containing compounds - smell like rotten eggs.

I'm an organic/materials chemist at UCLA and am pretty well versed in functional materials (organic solar cells, conducting polymers, OLEDs, etc). The wiki doesn't quite mention how one becomes an official editor, sooooo I'll leave one of you gents (and I HOPE ladies; at least in the name of diversity in the chemistry world) to point me in the right direction. Danke! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dayknowsalchemy (talk • contribs) 09:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You don't need to do anything but edit, there are not "official" editors here. Regarding CS2, did you consider what the text say about the impurities? Maybe pure CS2 does smell sweet after all! I only used it once and don't remember it having a particularly terrible smell. But in any case, the best way to settle such a dispute is to look for a reference and cite it. --Itub 09:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes indeed, welcome and start editing away. Half of us editors are kids and half probably have semi-reasonable official credentials. Who cares? Itub's advice is right-on - most of us have a tome or three of factoids that we consult (and cite) as we edit articles. Chemists often carry misconstrued ideas and myths in their heads, such as CS₂ having a rotten odor (the good stuff does not, and HPLC-grade is not good enough). For me, publicizing these inconvenient truths motivates my editing, because WE affords an opportunity to set the record straight(er). BTW, a problematic area of WE-chem in strong need of editing is your apparent areas of expertise Conductive polymer and organic semiconductor.--Smokefoot 12:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Smokefoot: While I recognize the necessity for siting credible references in regards to physical data; do not overestimate their importance (not that it seems that you, yourself offer any references to indicate that it is 'sweet' smelling). I read articles (from respectable journals, mind you; JACS, JOC, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Materials, etc.) which have purposely-placed, LEGITIMATELY misguided data or explanations in order to make their hypotheses seem clearer. Generally speaking, I wouldn't want to make a huge fuss over whether or not something is 'stinky'. But...'miscontstrued myths'? I WORK WITH IT. I don't quite understand where you're coming from by making me sound like a quack. If anything, it's just a difference of opinion, and I'm slightly (very) annoyed that you would try to belittle my input by attaching such modifiers to them. I work in an organic chemistry lab 12 hours a day for 6 days a week (I have no references to prove this), which - in my humble opinion - is enough credibility to site my own experience which I hold to be purely objective and factual. To go so far as to label the idea that something is smelly as 'misguided' and 'an inconvenient truth' is just a tad unnecessary, if not a bit absurd. Furthermore, I hope you understand that if 'WE afford an opportunity to set the record straight'... then that includes ME now, so please recognize that. If there is a dispute, we should discuss it instead of childishly taking turns scratching out one another's 'inconvenient truths.' It is the worst possibly insult to use the word MYTH with a scientist. It reminds me of trying to talk to LaRouche propagandists. Don't stoop to that low. Respect me and I'll respect you.

Quarrels aside: in regards to the request you left after the moot hierarchal shove; I will look at what is currently in the section and begin building...possibly insert hyperlinks to new related articles, starting with the organic semiconductors (half the components in organic solar cells). I'm working on my oral to advance to candidacy, so have patience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dayknowsalchemy (talk • contribs) 11:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi I have a book called "The Origins of Chemical Names" by W.E. Flood, 1963, pp1-238 Oldbourne Book Co. Ltd., London. It has all the old names for chemicals and a lot of forgotten and rare names. For example it has "Kainite" a magnesium and potassium mineral which is in Wiki and "Kairine" a tetrahydro-quinoline which is not. Must of the entries are what you guys call stubs. I just wonder if you think it would be worth while putting these missing stubs in. It could be helpful if people want modern names for older ones found in the literature e.g. Lunar Caustic = Silver nitrate. I am a practicing chemist and would be happy to do this. Kevin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.246.9.15 (talk) 16:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a good idea to add worthwhile information into the articles and creating redirects from the old (odd?) names (e.g., Lunar caustic) to the current modern name (e.g., silver nitrate). And it's a good idea to sign your posts here with the four ~ characters. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC).

INNs for organic synthesis articles?

Do WP pharmacology (chemistry) guidelines for INNs apply to organic synthesis articles?

Please see the talk page at Talk:Paclitaxel total synthesis Alvis 10:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

No need to insist--this topic was already advertised in this page one week ago (see above). --Itub 11:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Cyclopentadienylmolybdenum tricarbonyl dimer

Validate me!

Could anyone check the accuracy of this image I created for cyclopentadienylmolybdenum tricarbonyl dimer? I'm not big on inorganics, and I don't have any sources for the structure—a quick Google search was it :) Thanks, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Can't tell by the pic, shouldn't the cyclopentadienes have two (conjugated) double bonds each? Or do they get taken up in the bonding to the Molybdenum atoms? P Cottontail 01:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Usually Cp- ligands are flat and aromatic. --Rifleman 82 01:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, those tiny erm, "sticks" (hopefully visible) are supposed to represent delocalization, as here (well, they're clearer in the latter). Are they not visible enough here? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I can see the delocalization on the linked .png. I can't pick them out very well in the Cyclopentadienylmolybdenum tricarbonyl dimer image, though. Got the flat and aromatic. Makes more sense now. P Cottontail 02:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

IA-Mass

Does it make sense that similar paragraphs have been included in multiple articles?

• Brominated flame retardant
• Polybrominated biphenyl
• Polybrominated diphenyl ethers

Furthermore, is the lemma IA-Mass a good choice? "Ion attached mass spectrometry" might be better. -- 212.41.68.237 15:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

As there is no result in google in a specific search, I am not sure if the article is either a fake or original research. There are also no references cited in the article. --Leyo 21:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is the patent for the technique:[20], [21] , [22] I had not heard of it before and I would tend to know about such things. It also does not pop up in the journals I am searching. Possibly marginally notable ionization method.--Nick Y. 23:40, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

In summary, the technique exists, but it is new. Should the article therefore be kept, even it is possibly a marginally notable ionization method? --Leyo 15:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

If it exists, and sources can be found, it meets WP:V, so I believe it should be kept. However, I have certain concerns here. --Rifleman 82 17:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Copper(I) chloride

Near the last part of the page, it states, "Avoid bringing CuCl into contact with alkynes." Is there a reason for this? It cites reference, but does not explain why. Just thought it would be significant. Thanks, Marasama 23:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I brought CuCl into contact with an alkyne this morning. Nothing happened until I added an azide (I did a Azide alkyne Huisgen cycloaddition). I don't see any particular hazard, but don't have access to the cited reference. --Ed (Edgar181) 20:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Possibly it referes formation of copper(I) acetylide, which is an explosive. I think acetylides of higher alkynes are not so dangerous if preparation is carried out in solution. --Calvero JP 17:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, Marasama (talk) 06:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Xenon nominated for Featured Article

(Also posted to WikiProject Elements.) Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Xenon. --Itub 11:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The article has been promoted. Congratulations to all involved, especially User:RJHall for all his efforts! --Itub 09:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Sulfur oxoacids

I have added a new category for this group of compounds and new articles sulfur oxoacids, disulfuric acid, thiosulfuric acid, and added a little to existing articles on other S oxoacids. There are a few "not known" acids (where salts are known) without their own articles. Could someone check the SMILES please. Axiosaurus 15:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

GA sweeps review of Iron(III)chloride

I have re-reviewed Iron(III) chloride in accordance with the WikiProject Good Articles Sweeps Review, and found that it mostly meets the GA criteria, with the exception of inline citations. There are significant parts of the article lacking inline cites; although I think that this could mostly be solved by converting the 'further reading' entries to inline citations. Could someone familiar with the article and the citations please look into this. I'll re-review the article in about a week or so. Thanks! Dr. Cash 19:56, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

chembox new is broken

The template {{chembox new}} seems to be broken currently. Anyone know how to fix it? There were some changes made to it earlier today - perhaps they should be reverted until the problem is identified? --Ed (Edgar181) 11:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Ho hum, it's taken you all more that a year to break my little baby! I'll take a look and see if I can fix it again. Please be kinfd to animals, small children and hideously complex systems of templates... Physchim62 (talk) 12:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I looks OK to me at the moment, can someone post a more specific description of the problems if they reoccur. Physchim62 (talk) 12:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Curious. I added a field (LD50) this morning, and decided to add an example to the text on how to do that for simple parameters. Before adding the example everything worked, but I did not check after adding the example (which was in the text, not in the actual template). Maybe I misspelled a tag there, and that broke the template? But I see that Physchim62 has solved it brilliantly. I guess that this solution will prevent any further mistakes of this kind. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you misplaced a tag somewhere (though I'm not sure where....) I have moved the documentation onto a seperate page using {{documentation}} to prevent this sort of (possible) error from affecting article space. I briefly screwed up article space in the process of doing so (now corrected), which goes to show that nobody's perfect! :) Physchim62 (talk) 17:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

A few new rhenium articles

• Bromopentacarbonylrhenium(I)
• Dirhenium decacarbonyl

I'm still looking for the citation for Re(CO)5 --> ReBr(CO)5. Anyone has a clue?

--Rifleman 82 17:14, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's Chatt, and I think it's from about 1958, but that's going from memory. Physchim62 (talk) 17:35, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Oxidative addition in hydrocarbons of Br₂ to Re₂CO₁₀. Schmidt S.P., Basolo F., Trogler W.C. Inorg Chim. Acta, 1987, 131, 181; Inorg Synth 1985 23 41 (taken from encyclopedia of inorganic chem) Axiosaurus 17:45, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

RM: great - you got one of the missing metal carbonyls, ... and make that Chatt.--Smokefoot 17:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, great. I'll go check it out later. Thanks a lot! --Rifleman 82 01:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't have inorganic syntheses (vol 23)at the time, but I borrowed volume 28 home for the weekend. Volume 28 is the special edition containing all the surefire optimized syntheses previously published. In the end, the updated Schmidt Trogler and Basolo synthesis in vol 28 was the one I used. Thanks!--Rifleman 82 13:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Nice articles. I rated them for the WP:CHEMS (Start-Class). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC).

InChIs

I have braved the bowels of MediaWiki:Common.css to bring you the new, improved Template:InChI! This template now allows users to add an InChI to an article in a form which won't be seen by normal human readers (unless they have specifically chosen to see them), but which remains machine readable. More details at Wikipedia:InChI. Enjoy! Physchim62 (talk) 13:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

That's great. Is there anyway to integrate it into {{Chembox new}}, such that InChIs are now invisible for all chemistry articles? --Rifleman 82 17:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

There's no simple way of making the two compatible, unfortunately. There are just under 200 InChIs in new-style chemboxes (list here), and these could be removed from view by simple edits to {{Chembox new}} and {{Chembox identifiers}}. We still need to make sure that the new InChI is still visible to spiders, Google etc. Physchim62 (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

When I'm done with my current project of migrating the chemboxes, perhaps I can be of assistance. --Rifleman 82 18:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

We need to wait seven to ten days to check that Google picks it up (the test example is tributylphosphine), but yes, some semiautomation is possible. There are just over 2500 old chemboxes out there, according to my check today. Physchim62 (talk) 18:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, about 600 according to my worklist. --Rifleman 82 01:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

This is great, PC, thanks a lot! We've been at an impasse on this for some time, I'm glad you've found a workable solution. I tested your "Make it visible" modification, and since a technically challenged person like myself got it to work first time it looks like a winner!

Regarding the Chembox, I think I'd like to see us start to use the InChIKey. This reduces the (really long) InChI to a managable, practically-unique string of 25 characters - which should fit nicely into a Chembox. I previously suggested use of this somewhere else (can't find it) and the objection was raised that it was "still beta". However, I have it on good authority that it is now working well and is expected to become official, and it's already used at ChemSpider on about 17 million compounds. Walkerma 21:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

To Rifleman, "What links here" can be out of date, so I trust your figures over mine!

To Walkerma, I only learnt that InChIKey existed last night, but it is very simple to include in the template. I must say that there is a small amount of opposition to this move in certain quarters and, in any case, we need to test that this solution actually works for what we want it to do: as such, I shall not be modifying the template for the next few days or so, nor do I recommend its immediate roll-out. Physchim62 (talk) 12:48, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Image:Vanadium_(II)_oxide_diagram.png

I'm doubtful of this chemical structure of vanadium(II) oxide. Any comments? If it's bogus, it probably should be IfD'ed. --Rifleman 82 17:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the null-image from the chembox. The article is now automatically categorised in the category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing. I am sure one of our image-drawers will come to that sometime. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Acidic power

Orphan article. Needs a bit of expansion/needs to be merged into a larger article. Never heard of this concept, not familiar wtih the H-nought notation, and can't find any google hits. Anybody can help? --Rifleman 82 06:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
This is the Hammett acidity function - there may be something worth merging from acidic power into the hammett article Axiosaurus 10:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Done. Physchim62 (talk) 15:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that there is also an article on acidity function, which arguably could be merged with Hammett acidity function. --Itub 10:39, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Article on user page

I found this with category links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anna_K./DMP Is that okey? ChristianB 02:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

We're supposed to add < nowiki > tags to them so as not to have them counted in other categories. But I think it'll be rude to edit someone else's sandbox without an invitation to do so. I'll drop her a note. --Rifleman 82 04:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Sulfur trioxide pyridine complex

This article was orphaned and have added a chem box (new!) and removed the orphan tag as I have added a little regarding Lewis acid adducts to the SO₃ article. This adduct is commercially available and seems to have some importance from an organic synthesis POV, references to sulfation, sulfamation etc. are easily googled. Can anyone take a look and add some organic words, references and possibly put it in the appropriate categories? Axiosaurus 11:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

IRC

Hi, for all those chemists who are active on IRC, Rifleman_82 and I have set up a channel on IRC for chemistry on wikipedia. You can find us here: the wikichem channel. To be able to talk with other online chemists there, you need an IRC program, like mIRC, the Chatzilla plugin for firefox, Opera (built in), and there will probably be more programs out there. At the moment User:Rifleman_82 and I are the 'keepers/moderators' of the channel, but anyone can enter and talk! Hope to see you there! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Added table

I added a chemical table for citral. I will try to create tables for all articles that are lacking the boxes.--Manderson198 (talk) 23:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Hopefully there aren't too many of these left on the core list. Walkerma (talk) 05:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Large reference lists

Can someone have a second look at Creatine, Beta-alanine and Carnosine. Large lists of references have been inserted, which seem not to have been used for the articles. I have now put them into 'further reading' sections, but I think a specialist in these chemicals could better have a second look at these. Thanks already! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a specialist, but the reference lists are excessive for an article of that length. A couple of reviews or monographs are fine for further reading, but not a list of 20+ specialized papers that are not cited in the article! I suggest moving them to the talk page or deleting them. --Itub (talk) 11:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Will do. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense to have a long list of references that are not specifically used to support statements in the article. For an article like creatine, there are literally thousands of journal references that concern the topic. Selection of 10 or so of them and putting them in the article doesn't make sense unless there is some reasonable criteria (such as important review articles, as Itub suggests). As it stands, I don't see how they contribute to the quality of the article. I'd suggest moving them to the talk page or a subpage, rather than just deleting though. --Ed (Edgar181) 12:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Moved them to the talkpage. I also don't believe they have been used to write the article. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The inclusion of large lists of specialized literature is one of the most difficult aspects of WE-chem and will require management and policy. Every scientist will, subtly or unsubtly, arrange to cite their papers in articles, and every editor (me included) will seek to demonstrate their special insights by inserting special references. Ultimately we will need to deal with this problem of accretion, but for now, we're okay except for a few articles. My initial recommendation is that the references in mature articles be to the original discovery report(s), monographs, major reviews (define 'major', I know), and a mere sprinkling of recent papers that post-date these foundational sources. I dont know if the talk pages are the right dumping ground, maybe articles will need a reference archive for this overflow. IMHO, --Smokefoot (talk) 13:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

As a regular in the conflict of interest/spam corner of this encyclopedia, I would say that the talkpages are just the places to start, either on the articles themselves, or on an affiliated wikiproject (talkpages are also suggested in most, if not all policies and guidelines). Most established editors don't actively promote their own work (they use their knowledge and therefore sometimes edit with a conflict of interest, but that is not a problem), the problem are editors whose edits are mainly/only involving own work. I believe that there at least review of their work, or management of the editor is in place (that has been applied some times, and has resulted in some good collaborations). If the editor refuses that, or fails that, then there is a problem.

I see that I did suggest the editor in this case to discuss the edits, but that has hitherto not been done. I guess I will try to nudge that discussion again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with smokefoot's comment about only major references being used. Don't think it's a good idea to have a "reference archive" for the rest. WP is WP:NOT SciFinder? :) --Rifleman 82 (talk) 15:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi (is this the right way to comment/ask Q's?); re the ref lists I'm still figuring these things out i.e. best method to link to (e.g Pubmed) as a legit source for refs (suggestions/directions welcome)- have noted the above comments and will add as and when directly included in text body. I will continue to submit text as these articles are somewhat lacking.--Postgradsport (talk) 16:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Postgradsport, good to see you here. Perhaps you can take a look at {{cite journal}} for citing journals. It is especially helpful to find and include the DOIs. It is infinitely more useful than PMIDs which do not always have a link to the fulltext. Where DOIs are not available, including the url to the abstract is also very helpful. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 16:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Postgradsport, thanks for your answer. Yes, this is the proper way to respond. Feel free to ask when you have further questions (if they are on another subject you can click the '+' in the tabs on top of this page, that creates a new subject), and of course feel free to help us expand these articles! For the references, you might want to have a look at the guidelines for references and the way to use them. Welcome to our wikiproject! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• Just dumping references that do not support a statement in the article is annoying. I also frequently encounter additions like some people over there did some interesting work read about it here equally useless in my view. That editor should explain what is in the article so that I do not have to read it. In general I do not like reviews! (one of my hobbyhorses so I am repeating myself). Way too detailed and never very critical (is all this stuff really useful?). Instead, select open access articles for referencing, maybe less important but at least accessible. Pubmed is completely useless! How they ignore providing links to the actual articles is really beyond me V8rik (talk) 17:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: V8rik's comments arguing against reviews being too techie/non-critical and open-source being more accessible. Maybe textbooks or monographs are preferable, but if one wants a portal to real references, the reviews are efficient. The problem of course with open-source is that few or none of the top journals are that way, so the work published in open-source journals tends to be less impactful. Maybe the world order will change, but I havent noticed. But I am a big supporter of Organic Syntheses.--Smokefoot (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a good time to revisit the style guidelines, esp. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/Style_guidelines#Preparation. Organic Syntheses and Inorganic Syntheses are good for tried and tested reactions. Textbooks such as Gabriel Tojo's Oxidation of Alcohols to Aldehydes and Ketones and Vogel's is useful too. I think review articles are a good because they are not too narrow in scope compared with normal articles. They are also a good starting point to look for specific articles. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 18:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Style guidelines

Following on from Rifleman's comments above, I also think it would be a good time to revisit the style guidelines. They are about two years old now (dispite some amendments from time to time): many of our current participants were not around when they were first written. Do they still reflect what we feel is good practice for chemicals articles? Is it worth taking some of the more specific guidelines and placing them in a Wikipedia:Manual of style section? Are there topics which should be cvered but which aren't. All comments are welcome :) Physchim62 (talk) 13:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The Units section does not agree with actual practice or with the MoS. It states too unequivocally that "Only metric units of the SI systems should be used". While I agree with not describing bond energies in BTU/(lb mol), we have to be realistic. Many areas of chemistry use units that are not part of the SI, whether for historical reasons or for good reasons. Examples include the very common use of kcal/mol by physical organic chemists, the use of debyes to measure dipole moments, angstroms to measure bond lengths (although there is some competition from pm), electron units to measure charges, the use of "molar" as a unit of concentration, and so on. The recently updated WP:MOSNUM says something more reasonable IMO: "In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI, but not always." --Itub (talk) 13:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I did make some major changes not too long ago, which got Guide good responses (including from you, PC!). But yes, maybe we should relook the topic in greater detail. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 14:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we can also agree about whether supplier information should be included in articles. See [23] and [24] and [25]. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 17:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Blog discussion on error in a drugbox

Please see this blog comment. I should mention that he has previously blogged about a case where one of the major databases had the taxol structure wrong, and we had it right. I realise that it is (strictly speaking) a WP:PHARM problem that was highlighted, but he has raised the broader issue of curation and validation of structures in general. Maybe we should set up some scheme for checking all of our articles? Antony Williams is seriously interested in helping us, I believe. I will raise this at WP:CHEMS also. Walkerma (talk) 02:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Login required? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 04:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Without viewing the blog article, how about using templates for the chemboxes like how the Elements people are doing it? Once the chembox is stable (and every assertion is referenced), we can protect the box. The chembox is transcluded to the article pages, so the rest of the article is editable. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 04:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The whole site is supposed to be open access (whoever heard of needing a password for a blog! Yet I got the same message). Something is up with the Chemspider server, the basic search feature is giving an error message. I think they are uploading their 17 million compounds into Pubchem, perhaps that's going on right now? Short version of his blog - "I found an error in the formula on WP - it didn't match the structure - and I used ChemSpider to help work out which was right, then I fixed it." But then he raises the wider issue. I really like Rifleman's idea, at least for common compounds with full boxes, as long as it can be done smoothly. I'd also like us to have some place to record where the data came from (if known), but without cluttering up the box with citation subscripts. I think the Chemical Information Community would take us much more seriously if we could do that, and even more so if we could record the fact-checking process. Walkerma (talk) 05:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with turning the chemboxes into protected templates. It's equivalent to a full protection of part of an article, which I think goes against the spirit of Wikipedia. I can't think of any article with a "perfect" chembox that couldn't use any more edits, and having users go through an administrator for every little change seems like an unnecessary hassle to me. In any case, I think the chemboxes tend to receive less vandalism than main article text. That said, I'm all for adding sources to the chembox data, and I don't mind if it involves a gazillion footnotes. But if something can be done to hide the references unless someone really wants them, I'm okay with that too. --Itub (talk) 14:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Protecting the template only means that the template code can not be altered. The data in the document (inside the template) can still be altered. It is true that templates recieve less vandalism, but when they do, it results in bad things on thousands of pages. There are spammers that know where the templates are, and add spamlinks to them (which sometimes gets unnoticed for some time, since not many people have the templates on their watchlist, unlike the articles). There has been, about half a year ago, someone who just added their external links to templates which are shown on drugs pages.

References, fine, they can simply be added to the fields in the article (example line: '| MeltingPt = 17.5<ref>here</ref>'). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but if I understood correctly we are talking about something like Xenon, where all that is done to include the box in the article is a simple {{infobox xenon}}. All the data is in the template page. If you protect {{infobox xenon}}, which is a single-use template, no one can edit the data anymore. I have nothing against protecting widely-used and delicate templates such as {{chembox new}}, because in that case people can still change the data. --Itub (talk) 14:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I agree with that. By the way, is the use of single-use templates not a bit against the principle of the templates? I know that they tend to clutter up the beginning of the page, but that is a matter of organising things properly. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Validation of data is one of the trickiest issues with Wikipedia, since anyone can add data or change it. But I don't like the idea of protecting the data from editing even if it has been referenced. Public databases such as PubChem for example, which we use often as a reference, are just as prone to errors as Wikipedia is. I have encountered many instances in which we have linked to PubChem data that is clearly incorrect. So I don't think referenced data is necessarily more accurate. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed—and thousands of pages transclude {{drugbox}}. Surely it would be impossible to have {{drugbox aspirin}}, {{drugbox metformin}}, {{drugbox trastuzumab}}...

As for the accuracy of data, I've recently turned to using INN lists as sources for structures. PubChem is getting too tricky for my taste. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe PubChem was always advertised as a non-curated, "use at your own risk" type of database. One always has to be careful. I've also found errors in the NIST Chemistry Webbook. --Itub (talk) 15:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to emphasize this point, the chemical structures for mupirocin differ in PubChem and Chemical Abstracts. The stereochemistry is different around the epoxide ring. --Ed (Edgar181) 15:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I've updated the article with an image that shows stereochemistry, a link to the PubChem listing that has the correct structure (I think), and the corresponding IUPAC name. This new data appears to be consistent with the info from a package insert (partially reproduced here, for example) and with Chemical Abstracts. If anyone could doublecheck me, that would be nice. --Ed (Edgar181) 15:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Feedback request

• 
  Trehalose Haworth.svg
  β-L-Glucose in the right ring
• 
  Trehalose2.svg
  β-L-Glucose in the right ring
• 
  Trehalose.svg
  α-D-Glucose in the right ring
• 
  Trehalose.png
  α-D-Glucose in the right ring

A note was left on my Commons talk regarding a structure of trehalose, but (probably due to my dislike of Haworth formula and practically nil experience with them) I'm having trouble visualizing the requested change. Does this (to the right) look like α,α-trehalose to anyone? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the CH2OH on the right should be pointing down rather than up. --Itub 08:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

If I'm looking at it correctly, in Image:Trehalose Haworth.svg every stereocenter in the right ring is inverted. In other words, it has β-L-glucose rather than α-D-glucose. A similar problem exists with Image:Trehalose2.svg which is currently used at trehalose. The images Image:Trehalose.svg and Image:trehalose.png get it right though. Comparing different representations and orientations like these can be tricky, so I hope I've gotten this correct. I've put the four images next to each other in a gallery to help compare them. --Ed (Edgar181) 11:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that everything is inverted in Image:Trehalose2.svg, but not in Image:Trehalose Haworth.svg. In the latter, the ring is upside down. The only stereocenter that was inverted is the one for the CH2OH. --Itub 12:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

So... one of mine was right and one of mine was wrong. Go figure. I guess I'll stick to skeletal formulae and chain representations :) Thanks. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Re the captions: Glucose is in none of these rings, I dont think. The captions reminds me of other articles that state that peptides contain, for example, glycine but peptides contain a derivative of glycine depending on the location of the residue (middle, N-terminus, C-terminus). Glucose is a molecule, not conjugates thereof (IMHO). I dont know the nomenclature otherwise- glucosyl might be the more appropriate term. I realize that this perspective is anal, but that's chemistry.--Smokefoot 14:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Incongruous MOS section on chemistry articles

On advice from User:Itub at the MOS subpage on technical terms and definitions, I've removed this section, which doesn't belong at MOS, and offer it up for this page. Here it is; please take what you want from it and add.

(snip) Tony (talk) 09:52, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• In articles about chemicals and chemistry, use the style of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for chemical names wherever possible. An exception is in article titles, where the common name should be used if it is different, followed by the IUPAC name. For general information see systematic name, and for organic compounds in particular see IUPAC nomenclature.
• In periodic table groups, use the IUPAC names (these use Arabic numerals, not Roman numerals or letters).

This entire section is superfluous to Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines, so we can just throw it away without losing sleep about it. --Rifleman 82 12:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The project style guidelines are not very visible to the community as a whole, which is why I think we should move them somewhere else: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (chemistry) is my preferred destination for a summary, with separate projectspace pages for each topic. Physchim62 (talk) 12:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

{{MOSCHEM}} now exists, but shouldn't be rolled out until some more of those redlinks are turned blue. Physchim62 (talk) 12:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's about time we had our style guidelines outside project space. I'll try and help with that once exams are over in a fortnight or so. Walkerma (talk) 16:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, everything's blue now on {{MOSCHEM}} except for WP:MOSCHEM. Thanks to everyone who's helped. Physchim62 (talk) 17:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

doi not treated correctly

Not sure how to report this problem perhaps someone out there knows how? I have added a new article for arsenic pentachloride. The doi for one reference (Z anorg allgem chemie) is very long. The cite journal template and the doi template both fail with this extra long reference e.g.
{{doi|10.1002/1521-3749(200205)628:4<729::AID-ZAAC729>3.0.CO;2-E}} doi:10.1002/1521-3749(200205)628:4<729::AID-ZAAC729>3.0.CO;2-E
displays incorrectly and truncates the string and fails to retrieve the reference. Axiosaurus (talk) 09:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I turned < into %3C and > into %3E to make doi link work correctly (but not displayed correctly...). If anyone knows how to fix the template so that we don't need to do that, please go ahead! :) --Itub (talk) 09:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

This is actually problem documented on {{doi}}. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 10:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both. Axiosaurus (talk) 10:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Potassium perchlorate

There are a couple of minor problems with the article potassium perchlorate as mentioned on the talk page. I took care of the image problem mentioned, but couldn't find the data to resolve the other two. Can someone with a reference book handy please take a look? Thanks. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review for Lithium Aluminium Hydride

The article was last reviewed in October of 2005, so it's time to re-review again to see if this still meets the Good Article criteria. It continues to be very well written, and appears quite complete. The only significant concern I have is for verifiability. While there are good references, there are still many sections that are unsourced: e.g. 'Inorganic reactions', 'Thermal decomposition', 'Solubility data', and 'Thermodynamic data'. This information is actually hard data, and really needs to be sourced. Some of it probably came from the 'further reading' items, which were also previously listed as 'general references'. However, "general references" are unacceptable and cannot be used -- information should be cited directly by inline citations instead, so that it is clear where the information came from.

Other than this issue, I think the article continues to meet the criteria. So I will put this on hold for the next 1-2 weeks or so, so that this can be addressed. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Split of DDT

Comments are requested at Talk:DDT#Major_split_into_seperate_articles. --Itub (talk) 07:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

CFC-14 & Tetrafluoromethane

There is a discussion at Talk:Tetrafluoromethane regarding alternate names that could use some knowledgeable input. The question is whether CFC-14 is a correct alternate name. Thanks. -- JLaTondre 11:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• I contributed there (PFC-14 is the systematically correct one, and HF14 and CFC14 are common although incorrect alternatives). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 14:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC).

Dot Diagrams

Well, as of right now, most of the articles have both a picture of their shape and their 3D model. See Tetrafluoroethylene for an example of what I mean. But, my idea is, why don't we also add an image of a dot diagram? I apologize if this is the improper place to post this. This just seemed like the most appropriate place to post this at. § Eloc § 01:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed this is a good place to post such thoughts or ideas. Dot diagrams give an overly simplified impression of bonding, i.e. they are misleading or impractical. So I oppose presenting more of them. The article Chemical bond has some. Virtually all hydrocarbons can be represented with them, but there seems no point in cluttering such pages with lot of dot diagrams since the diagrams would be a little redundant. At least these my views, others might feel differently. --Smokefoot (talk) 02:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I find dot diagrams not helpful (except when you are counting electrons, perhaps). They are not as compact as line drawings, and nobody really uses them anyway. So no, I don't think we should have them for "completeness". --Rifleman 82 (talk) 02:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think dot diagrams are very useful as a learning tool for students learning the octet rule etc, but I don't think a Lewis structure would really enhance most articles like tetrafluoroethylene. It's fairly easy even for a beginner to see that carbon forms four bonds and fluorine one. I think there may be a handful of particular cases (perhaps sulfur dioxide or boron trifluoride?) where a Lewis structure may add educational value, but it would have to be part of a written section on structure and bonding that might explain the oversimplification. If you were able to expand these written sections, it would be great! In the meantime, let me say that we appreciate your work on the redirects - it's something important that often gets overlooked. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 03:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Like Walkerma says, I think the dot diagrams are useful only in limited cases where there is an explicit discussion of bonding. For example, with some diatomic molecules such as O2, NO, CO, etc. (where often the discussion focuses on the failings of the Lewis model!). Another example where a discussion of the Lewis structure could be useful is sulfuric acid, which is notable for the historical debates about what the "best" Lewis structure is (with double bonds and a hypervalent sulfur, or with formal charges and an octet-complying sulfur?). But for common organic molecules such as tetrafluoroethylene, I don't think the dot diagram is necessary. Finally, note that a normal structural diagram with explicit lone pairs is also a Lewis structure, just one where the bonds are represented by lines instead of pairs of dots. These are useful for drawing reaction mechanisms, and you will see them on many Wikipedia articles about reactions, but not so often in articles about chemicals. --Itub (talk) 10:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... another example where dot diagrams might be useful would be when discussing VSEPR. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 12:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Greek letters are never italicized??

That's what it says in this article, and yet the internet is certainly full of it, even in dictionaries. So who says? SBHarris 03:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean in this article? I think it means only that in chemical nomenclature we don't italicise - for example in α,β-unsaturated ketone. Do you have some specific examples in mind? Walkerma (talk) 04:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be an error, made by me! Greek letters should be italicised when they refer to physical quantities or physical constants, eg δ for chemical shift, λ for wavelength, χ for electronegativity, ε
₀ for the electric constant (permittivity of free space) etc.; and in bold italics for tensors or matrix quantities, eg μ for dipole moment, α for polarizability. They are not italicised when they are used in chemical nomenclature, eg 5α-androstan-3β-ol, or as mathematical contstants or operators, eg π, Δ. See International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (1993). Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry, 2nd edition, Oxford: Blackwell Science. ISBN 0-632-03583-8. pp. 5–6. Electronic version. International Bureau of Weights and Measures (2006), The International System of Units (SI) (PDF) (8th ed.), p. 131, ISBN 92-822-2213-6, archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-06-04, retrieved 2021-12-16 Mills, I. M. (December 1999). "On the use of italic and roman fonts for symbols in scientific text". IUPAC. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Physchim62 (talk) 14:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Upright

α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω

Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω

Slanting ("italic")

α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω

Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω

Bold slanting ("bold italic")

α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω

Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω

New article

Pentyne, Perkinamine and CLD chromophore need for sure more than a look.--Stone (talk) 12:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC) Perkinamine

• rated them as stub/low. Pentyne is redirected correctly to 1-Pentyne. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 14:35, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

{{Carotenoids}}

If you are familiar with carotenoids, please see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 December 15#Template:Retinoids for a proposal to merge {{Retinoids}}, {{Xanthophylls}}, and {{Carotenes}}. –Pomte 20:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Various forms of CO2

There's carbon dioxide proper, and there's dry ice and amorphous carbonia. Do we need to suggest merging? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 14:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC).

I don't really think so - there is only so much room in the main CO2 article, and we would lose a lot from both if we merged. Dry ice is a part of general culture outside of chemistry, and the amorphous carbonia is something with a niche interest in areas like astrochemistry. But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if there are strong arguments for a merge. Walkerma (talk) 03:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I believe I split this page off from the CO2 page because I feel it is quite an important form of CO2. Furthermore, its properties and applications differ greatly from CO2 at normal temp and pressure. I am not philosophically opposed to a remerger, but I split it off ten because I thought it was best for the article. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 08:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I encountered these will (re-)assessing all the WP:CHEMS articles that haven't been (fully) assessed before, a sort of household cleanup. Given the above good arguments, I'll assess them (without merge suggestion) as follows:

• Carbon dioxide: Chemicals, B-Class, Top-importance (core)
• Dry ice: Chemistry (not a chemical compound), Start-Class, Mid-importance
• Amorphous carbonia: Chemistry (not a chemical compound), Stub-Class, Mid-importance

Feel free to be bold if you think otherwise. PS. The CO2 article needs just a smidgeon of work, and the A-Class article promotion procedure to be really good, imho. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 10:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC).