Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Archive 2012

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Archive 2005 Archive 2010 Archive 2011 Archive 2012

Oxford University MSDS

are no more available, see http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/index2.html. Looks like a lot of work to do... Nice weekend, --FK1954 (talk) 19:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:Neon compounds

Template:Neon compounds has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Double sharp (talk
) 12:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Chembox field

I propose that the MeltingPt and BoilingPt fields be altered — that the "−" exchanged for the "–" in cases where a range is displayed. An example: "− # –−%" instead of "− # −−%". Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Please give an example article. --Leyo 09:16, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Ethane. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

MOS:ENDASH instructs us not to do "− # –−%". Their proposed solution is not good for infoboxes IMO, so we're left with "− # −−%" being not ideal but also not contrary to current site consensus. We'd need a strong chemistry-specific reason (as distinct from other fields) to do that. Otherwise, I think we should follow the formatting used by {{convert}}, since that's standardized across many subjects' articles, for example, −40 – −50 K (−313.1 – −323.1 °C). DMacks (talk
) 20:49, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I concur with DMacks. Not an ideal solution, but the best for the moment to comport with the standards of the broader Wikipedia. N2e (talk) 17:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I was patrolling the new pages section and found the article, Alcohol and cortisol. I believe it would be better if it was merged either with Ethanol or Cortisol. Please provide your input. Gsingh (talk) 20:48, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
articles with "and" in the name are almost always wrong — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.193.24.148 (talk) 16:41, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

DAT allosteric modulator chemical images request

I've added a section to the

"dopaminergic" template; a new section, but I require someone to help me by making the individual articles linked. A good start would be the re-drawing of free-license versions of these compounds/molecules and uploading them: “Agonist” and “Antagonist” Allosteric Modulators of Amphetamine-Induced Dopamine Release. I have recently re-located and do not have access to my chem-draw software, but this would be an important addition to the dopaminergic articles here in Wikipedia's contribution to molecular biology Nagelfar (talk
) 02:00, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

How are these? -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
  • SoRI-2827
    SoRI-2827
  • SoRI-9804
    SoRI-9804
  • SoRI-20040
    SoRI-20040
  • SoRI-20041
    SoRI-20041
Many thanks, user Meodipt seems to have helped by getting on the issue for me as well. Nagelfar (talk) 07:20, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Infobox for psilocybin

Psilocybin was recently promoted to a FA. Right now it has a red X by the CAS number. Could someone make it a green check mark instead? Thanks. Jesanj (talk) 01:10, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

"Organic table information" & "Inorganic table information" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Organic table information & Inorganic table information. Since you had some involvement with the Organic table information Inorganic table information redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). 76.65.128.132 (talk) 05:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Element compounds templates

This might be useful:

Index to the <element compounds> templates
1
H
2
He
3
Li
4
Be
5
B
6
C
7
N
8
O
9
F
10
Ne
11
Na
12
Mg
13
Al
14
Si
15
P
16
S
17
Cl
18
Ar
19
K
20
Ca
21
Sc
22
Ti
23
V
24
Cr
25
Mn
26
Fe
27
Co
28
Ni
29
Cu
30
Zn
31
Ga
32
Ge
33
As
34
Se
35
Br
36
Kr
37
Rb
38
Sr
39
Y
40
Zr
41
Nb
42
Mo
43
Tc
44
Ru
45
Rh
46
Pd
47
Ag
48
Cd
49
In
50
Sn
51
Sb
52
Te
53
I
54
Xe
55
Cs
56
Ba
* 72
Hf
73
Ta
74
W
75
Re
76
Os
77
Ir
78
Pt
79
Au
80
Hg
81
Tl
82
Pb
83
Bi
84
Po
85
At
86
Rn
87
Fr
88
Ra
** 104
Rf
105
Db
106
Sg
107
Bh
108
Hs
109
Mt
110
Ds
111
Rg
112
Cn
113
Uut
114
Fl
115
Uup
116
Lv
117
Uus
118
Uuo
* 57
La
58
Ce
59
Pr
60
Nd
61
Pm
62
Sm
63
Eu
64
Gd
65
Tb
66
Dy
67
Ho
68
Er
69
Tm
70
Yb
71
Lu
** 89
Ac
90
Th
91
Pa
92
U
93
Np
94
Pu
95
Am
96
Cm
97
Bk
98
Cf
99
Es
100
Fm
101
Md
102
No
103
Lr

Double sharp (talk) 09:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Chemical data pages

Looking around for info about drugs for an article I'm writing, I've noticed that we have a lot of articles along the lines of Chemical X (data page). There are 171 pages in Category:Chemical data pages, most of which are separate articles. Personally, I think these don't belong as separate articles. Would anyone object if these were moved to a subpage of the chemical's article's talk page, so Morphine (data page) would be moved to Talk:Morphine/Data page? Given that this involves ~170 pages, I thought I'd bring it here for a discussion about this instead of being bold. Quasihuman | Talk 22:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

these are linked from the info boxes of the parent articles, and are article quality information, so should not be in talk space. So I am objecting. Presumably they would make the parent article too big and boring. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't really see how these pages meet our notability guidelines (and I don't see why they should be excused from meeting them, being in article space and all). Is it in an encyclopedia's remit to publish data sheets separate from the article on the chemical? My main rationale for arguing that they should moved to a talk subpage was that they might be useful for further development of the parent articles, but
useful is not a good rationale for keeping something as a separate article. As a compromise, how about merging the data into a collapsible box somewhere in the parent article, this would reduce the "big and boring" impact on the readability of the article. On the other hand, it might make some articles too big in terms of kb to be loaded comfortably on some devices. Any thoughts on that? Quasihuman | Talk
13:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Thoughts - yes, better spend this time on improving main articles :-). This "problem" has dozens of solutions and arguments, pro et contra. Materialscientist (talk) 14:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

looking for info on writing up new chem articles

I am finding myself starting a lot of stubs on new chemicals or classes of chemicals (well notable, too). They will always be low view, but are binary compounds and additive to the pedia. I guess maybe DYKing them could be a good objective. That or just stubbing, not sure. DYK has gotten so hard and scary. That said, it pushes me to do more than a cat, a ref, and a sentence.

I guess just looking to get any insights on how to be more efficient.

  • templates and stuff
  • approved sources, frowned on sources
  • how to search other languages (is there a language that tends to have strong chemicals stuff)?
  • anything else

Will skim the info here. I guess for now, just plan to do cut and paste ffrom existing article (into sandbox), modify to make new one, method of article generation. Just looking for insights to make this easier, less work.

TCO (talk) 02:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

For other languages Germany was very strong in chemistry before world war II. But you would also find plenty of material in Russian and French for the older work. I am thinking for a DYK, work it up in a sandbox first, and then you can get it into a good state before going live. The important thing in DYK is to reference your material, and if you are writing it you should know where your facts come from.
Template:Chemicals for the talk pages. You may also want to make up templates for binary fluorides or other groups you are working on. My opinion is once it is in article space edit it there as working in a sandbox risks parallel updates, which should then be merged. Graeme Bartlett (talk
) 09:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Try searching the German Wikipedia. They might have the equivalent article, and you can translate it as a starting point. You can let us here know of the new articles, and usually those who can will help expand them. Chemspider is good, but do be careful about their "names" list. Journal references are always nice, but if they are in textbooks that's even better since textbooks put them into context whereas journal articles may not do so. Since you are talking about binary compounds,

ISBN 978-3527306732. might discuss the industrial route. --Rifleman 82 (talk
) 16:02, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It would be useful to identify:
  • key compounds we are missing.
  • articles lacking a textbook-reference book like reference or two.
The austerity of many so-called stubs makes them approachable and appealing to professionals and students, so I don't buy the negative connotation of "stub". IMHO, many longer articles lack perspective and some become blog-like. Areas of greater need, again in my opinion, are not compounds, but chemistry themes, like classes of compounds, reactions, and descriptions of many everyday materials that people are keen to learn more about (plastics, food additives, cosmetics). In the latter area are some tough ones where the safety/environmental content has grown disproportionately, e.g., bisphenol A. Good luck,--Smokefoot (talk) 20:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree that chem stubs are nice, much nicer than normal stubs, and quite accessible. I figured it was the template and sourcing and all. I just want to be able to create slick stuff like Materialscientist does. Find myself in an article like "Fluorine" generating lots of redlinks for binary compounds that end up becoming stubs. Alternatively, I can just bag it and plop a one liner down as the peeps here seem pretty good about coming in and actually getting it to a decent state (of a stub). ;-) Hmmm.TCO (talk) 05:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

worklist?

I just looked at the worklist and it says it is historical only. Think some of the discussion on this page linking to it should change. Feel free to revert of course.TCO (talk) 04:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Suggested update to the WikiProject Chemicals Activities in Progress section

Hi. The Style Guide is no longer an

Wikipedia:CHEMMOS is the official style guide but the subsection in the body text of the project article says otherwise. If anybody cares to verify that this is no longer an Activity in Progress, I'll make the change. USEPA James (talk
) 21:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I moved the Style Guide from an Activity in progress to the Finalized section. USEPA James (talk) 17:37, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

For anyone that is interested, there is a discussion about renaming Category:Natural_opium_alkaloids to Category:Opium_alkaloids here: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_February_15#Category:Natural_opium_alkaloids. ChemNerd (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I have nominated for deletion the new chemistry article Tripeptide-37. Your comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tripeptide-37. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

There are a lot of chemicals in food...

Just a note on well-intentioned but potentially problematic activity by user:NotWith who is carefully listing the phenols detected in some foodstuffs. See [[1]]. One can reasonably assume that all foods contain thousands of organic compounds, and many major organic compounds are found in thousands or more foods. These edits could go on forever.

I question the value of these additions unless there is something notable about the occurrence of a particular organic compound (like HCN in peach pits, or certain characteristic compounds that powerfully influence flavors or odors or nutrition). Comments from others?--Smokefoot (talk) 13:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Zinc titanate 3D.gif

Is the structure shown in Zinc titanate correct? IMHO a crystal structure would be needed for this compound that is in the solid state at room temperature. --Leyo 19:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I've quickly expanded the article and removed that structure. There are several crystalline forms; I've downloaded a CIF file for one of them, but haven't plotted as I don't understand it yet 8-). Materialscientist (talk) 10:39, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. Should the image be nominated for deletion? --Leyo 13:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
I actually don't understand what it shows and don't see any use in it. Materialscientist (talk) 13:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
I put it into Category:Unclassified Chemical Structures for now, together with other orphaned GIF and JPG images of the same uploader. --Leyo 20:21, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

The article Hydrochloric acid (data page) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

This page is nonsensical - as a chemical data page, it requires a collection of highly specific information which, does not apply to this particular substance.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be

deleted for any of several reasons
.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Not again this discussion. I have removed the prod. On this page there is nothing wrong with having different data for different concentrations. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:12, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

How do you then suppose we fill fields like bond length? The page then becomes a discriminatory list of information. This particular page has not been used since it was created over 5 years ago. Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:39, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

O, wow, we have a parameter that we can't fill in!</sarcasm> And, not been used - sure, only very few have edited it, but at least some edits are there. I am sure subcategories of Category:stub categories contain more articles which have never been edited since creation and are several years old. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

There is never a need for sarcasm in a serious situation. Those edits did not fill any entry fields, in fact the page has shrunken since its creation. Redirecting attention, by no means removes the issue. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:45, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

There is a lot of information that could be on that page, tables with concentration parameters like %w/w HCl, molarities, pHs, ionic strengths, density. For some 'typical' concentrations (1 M, conc., fuming, a typical commercial concentration) some specifics like toxicity, MSDSs, identifiers (if they exist for specific concentrations) for example. Information which is in some form encyclopedic, but not suitable for the mother-page. And what I mean is, there is a lot of stuff that we never got around to, but that has never been a proper reason to delete it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, that's fine. (It seems odd not to have it for any other data page.) Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Ordering elements in chembox formulas

{{Chembox}} allows to autogenerate chemical formula by specifying elements (C = 1, H = 2, etc.). This is convenient (mass is auto-calculated and the input is simple) and therefore is used in many articles, but results in weird formulas like Cl3W, etc., because the ordering is alphabetic. This ordering is accepted by suppliers but not scientists. Proposal: change it to the IUPAC system, where the elements are listed in order of their position in the periodic table, read from bottom to top, left to right, and hydrogen between groups 15 and 16. Beetstra suggested to bring this here. Please comment/vote. Materialscientist (talk) 07:41, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Note, the adapted system is the '
Hill system', which is a common way of ordering the elements. There are indeed other ways of ordering, but all of them have different effects/difficulties. I myself would look for chemical formulas in google by applying the Hill system, which now should give me hits including the Wikipedia page. Ordering can be easily adapted by 'sorting' {{Chembox Elements}} (fully protected, but one could just make a sandbox to test first). Note2: would be nice if we could also force this template to do 'exact mass' as it seems there is some interest in that number sometimes. --Dirk Beetstra T C
07:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
(EC) I assume the
Hill system
is used. This is perfectly fine for organic chemicals. For inorganic chemicals, some formulas might look a bit strange.
BTW: Could you please give some examples of articles using this method? As far as I see, it is not documented on Template:Chembox. --Leyo 07:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes I meant Hill system. A quick example that came to mind is acetone. There were attempts to use it for inorganics and salts. They were reverted/replaced with another syntax, that is specifying |Formula = and |MolarMass= Materialscientist (talk) 08:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Suggestion: we could make it so that if C > 0 & H > 0 that it adapts the Hill system, otherwise another system .. (there are some inorganics which have both an inorganic H ánd an inorganic C .. but that is pretty minimal). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
What about compounds like
lithium methanide? Under Hill's, it would be CH
3
Li
, under IUPAC's, it would be LiCH
3
Plasmic Physics (talk
) 01:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)}}
Under any choice there are going to be oddities .. also consider 'MeLi' (I would not write LiMe). I think (I use the word 'think'!) the previous consensus was to use the Hill system .. there are pro's and con's to all .. difficult choice. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
For me at least, formulae generated according to the Hill system tend to appear odd on more cases than not for non-carbohydrates. The IUPAC system generates formulae that are overall more agreable with other users besides myself.
P.S. "MeLi" is an abbreviation for the name methyllithium, where the covalent character of the molecular orbital between lithium and carbon is emphisised. Alternatively, others prefer to stress the ionic character and name it lithium methanide instead, with the corresponding abbreviation "LiMe". Note that an abbreviation in any case is distinct from a stoichiometric formula. Plasmic Physics (talk) 20:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
What has happened to this discussion? Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:12, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm reviving this older discussion. Since this continues to be an issue, I think it would be helpful to decide and include it in

WP:MOSCHEM
.

For organic compounds, molecular formulas in all databases and catalogs, both electronic and print, use the Hill system. Wikipedia should do the same. It is clear from former discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Archive 2005, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Archive 2008, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Archive 2009, that for organic compounds editors here prefer the Hill system and that is why the chembox uses it. For organic compounds, it doesn't make any sense at all for Wikipedia to use anything else. For inorganic or organometallic compounds, there doesn't seem to be clear consensus. I suggest using the Hill system autogenerated by the chembox for all organic compounds, and if there is a different system that is preferred for certain other compounds, the "Formula =" can be used in its place. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest the same. I thought previous consensus was indeed that for organic molecules we use the Hill system, for others we can use other systems using the formula-field. I don't think the above copied discussion overrides the previous consensus.
An even more sophisticated option may be to expand the template, using a parameter 'Fsystem', which uses Hill as standard, but can also be set to IUPAC. Another option is to still use C, H, N, .., but have a 'DisplayFormula' field which overrides the display given by the C, H, N, .. fields (but only for the non-organics as far as I am concerned). Having the C, H, N, .. fields has multiple advantages, it is an easy input, it sorts elements in a standard way, it automatically calculates the molecular weight (which also disables the ever ongoing discussion on precision on that number - it is just standard set to a certain number and no discussion possible), it would even be possible to calculate 'exact mass' as well (which some people do find convenient). It would be great if s.o. could expand on Template:Chembox Formula and allow it to use different systems where needed. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:58, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
To sort organic from inorganic, I propose the following criteria:
  1. The single molecule must contain at least one carbon atom and one hydrogen atom.
  2. The atoms of at least one connecting route, must not contain elements of group 14 (excluding carbon) or less.
Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:51, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
No need to overcomplicate things, just use Category:Organic compounds and its daughter categories. ChemNerd (talk) 11:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
How do you recon that category gets filled? And there is a other reasonable choice: also use IUPAC for the ogranics. Databases and purveyors of chemical goods facilitate the Hill system, however (recent) scientific literature facilitates the IUPAC system. Plasmic Physics (talk) 20:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it is reasonable for us to use a system that isn't used by anyone else. Can you give me any examples where something other than the Hill system is used in the organic chemistry scientific literature? In my experience, there is nothing to suggest that the use of the Hill system is driven by databases and purveyors of chemical goods. I see the Hill system used everywhere by everyone, no matter what community you look at - with no exception for the scientific community, or academic community, or government agencies, or anyone. ChemNerd (talk) 21:20, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
It is actually quite easy to find examples, google a chemical formula containing nitrogen and apply the IUPAC system when you enter it. Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:14, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
The paucity of Google hits doing that is not an argument in your favor. C6H15N, for example, gives 164000 hits. C6NH15 gives 26 (and several of those are license plate tags). That convinces me even more that with very rare exceptions, everyone uses the Hill system. Clearly, we should use the Hill system because the world overwhelmingly does so. ChemNerd (talk) 00:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
That is just one case. Plasmic Physics (talk) 02:08, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

RfD discussion: Should
Dipotassium hexafluoronickel
redirect to Potassium hexafluoronickelate(IV)?

Dipotassium hexafluoronickel currently redirects to Potassium hexafluoronickelate(IV), but a user has nominated it for deletion at Redirects for discussion with the rationale "obviously wrong". This is a discussion that would particularly benefit from knowledgeable input, hence this message. Your comments would be appreciated in the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 April 5#Dipotassium hexafluoronickel. Thryduulf (talk) 11:48, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
Wavelength (talk) 17:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Should File:Hemicellulose.png be inserted into the article Hemicellulose? Or do we have a better alternative as an example of a possible structure of hemicellulose? --Leyo 13:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Otherwise, I will nominate this image for deletion. --Leyo 08:55, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Edits by user:Songriter en

Songriter en (talk · contribs) adds commercial sections based on the same website. Please comment. Is this a systematic advert? Should the edits be reverted, or rewritten? If yes, how (feedback to Songriter en). Materialscientist (talk) 23:50, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

News item in Nature that mentions chemical structures in Wikipedia

A quote from: Van Noorden, Richard (2012), "Chemistry's web of data expands", Nature, 483: 524,

In a project presented at the ACS meeting in San Diego, Williams and his colleagues showed how five large online databases disagreed on the structures of 150 top-selling drugs: the best got 99% of structures correct, whereas the worst managed only 76%. In fact, notes Williams, Wikipedia proved the most reliable source of structural information in that experiment — mostly because of an effort to clean up the site’s 13,000 pages about chemicals

Aa77zz (talk) 12:41, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think some congratulations are in order here! Great job, folks! P. D. Cook Talk to me! 13:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Is for isohexane as an alternative name really a citation needed? BTW: Commons:Category:Isohexane also contains other branched hexanes. --Leyo 11:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought it'd be quicker to find a reference than debate if one is necessary. I've cited the CRC Handbook. --Ben (talk) 11:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
OK, thanks. But what about the correctness of the entries in the category on Commons? --Leyo 15:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
That category is incorrectly named. It should be Hexane isomers. Dirac66 (talk) 18:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
That's a good solution IMO. Isohexane can still be kept as a subcategory of Hexane isomers. I just realized that there are more similar cases. --Leyo 19:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

PI5?

We now have an article on phosphorus pentaiodide. I always thought that his stuff does not exist, and the second edition of Greenwood and Earnshaw, sort of the bible in this area, says "The pentaiodide does not exist (except perhaps as PI3.I2, but certainly not as PI4+I- as originally claimed [ref to Feshchenko et al.)" The article cites a Chinese source and the Greenwood and Earnshaw book I mentioned. One recourse - we find that there is little evidence for it and say so in the article, which we retain as another interesting "non-existent compound." Thoughts? --Smokefoot (talk) 23:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

We even have such compounds. :-) --Leyo 00:15, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Exact mass

Could someone please explain why chembox has a parameter exact mass and what is its purpose? I think it means molecular mass for the most abundant isotope combination (e.g. 2*(H-1) + O-16 for water), that this notion comes from mass spectrometry, and that it is misleading for a general reader, especially given the meager explanation in exact mass. Good example would be bromides (say, hydrogen bromide); bromine is composed of nearly 50% of Br-79 and Br-81 each, making a difference of 2 in "exact mass". I suggest disabling this parameter. Materialscientist (talk) 05:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I feel a bit ambivalent here. I can see it's use, absolutely. While to the general community it is not a parameter of great use, I dare guess that most of the chemicals pages are used mostly by people involved in chemistry. For that them it may be a 'nice' parameter. However, I do see the problems you say as well, it would need more. Bromines are a good example with their near 50/50 ratio - but then that is in itself also a 'notable' thing (is it mentioned in Bromine that mass-spec is there of interest?). It would actually be better to have 'isotope_mass_1' through 'isotope_mass_10' and 'isotope_mass_occurance_1' through 'isotope_mass_occurance_10', and having a 'graph' for the mass-spec there. But then, that reaches a level of table creep and data drowning that that should move to the /data pages some compounds have. And then the question becomes, is there enough in the /data page that warrants having them - do we really aim for 13.000 data pages in the end? I see it's use (google - though not in top 10 for this - could be useful for someone doing mass spectroscopy and finding something unknown, but it is limited), but also that this will give many problems. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:27, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
The CRC handbook and PubChem [2] give only molar mass (normal isotopic abundance), but I was surprised to see that ChemSpider uses "Monoisotopic mass" and does not give molar mass (say for acetone [3]). Those dedicated specialists who understand the difference between molar mass and exact mass usually have a quick access to a dedicated database or a CRC book. I believe those who use our chemboxes for a quick reference are the remaining part; i.e., we must think about non-chemists. Materialscientist (talk) 05:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
I use Wikipedia (with my 'commonsense' parameter set to '1', and with checking of the outside databases). Finding the CRC book requires walking, and Wikipedia is a good, fast, and pretty accurate entry point (I tried to find something that User:ChemConnector said not too long ago .. but can't find it, darn, I knew I had to link that from my userpage!). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
there it was, see post above somewhere. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we should also use the term "monoisotopic mass", as "exact mass" could mislead our readers. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:55, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
If we keep it, I agree that "monoisotopic mass" is a more self-explanatory tag and less confusing for non-specialists. I know that students and scientists might be interested in the M+ value. But I'm not sure how many are only interested in the HRMS M+ (exact mass to many decimal places rather than low-res whole-number value/nucleon count--and I can't even find a bluelink for HRMS!) and without also being interested in isotopic patterns. And the full isotopic pattern with abundances is getting into table-creap for data that is completely mechanically generated from the molecular formula. Aren't there online databases of MS (at least isotopic patterns, maybe also actual or predicted fragmentation patterns) already available? If not, seems like a trivial Toolserver utility or other external resource to create (like the JMol-based 3D models). DMacks (talk) 15:13, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Material Scientist that the parameter should just be removed (disabled). The term "exact mass" is undefined if the isotopic species is not specified, "monoisotopic mass" still doesn't say WHICH isotope, and "exact mass of the most abundant isotopic species" is long and clumsy for use in an infobox (and still confusing for say PBr3). Also the values are of use only to chemists using HRMS, who should have instruments capable of generating them as DMacks has said. They don't belong in a general-purpose encylcopedia.
Today I removed the "exact mass" value of CO2 after Ordinary Person pointed out the problem on Talk:Carbon dioxide, and was then directed here by Material Scientist. And I note that this discussion only started today, so I wonder how long has the Exact mass parameter been in this Infobox anyway? I don't remember noticing it before. Dirac66 (talk) 02:25, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Added in 2009 [4]. This line is not seen in many articles simply because its value is blank. Materialscientist (talk) 02:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
OK, thanks. And by following your link, I see that the answer to where it was added is at
Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox. Dirac66 (talk
) 01:21, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Any followup action on this? DMacks (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the reminder. I have just posted a notice at

Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox#Exact mass - proposal to remove from template. If there are no strong objections there within a week or so, I think we can go ahead and remove Exact mass. However this will be have to done by someone who is an administrator (not me) since the template is protected. Dirac66 (talk
) 22:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Removed [5] after a reminder by Dirac66 on my talk. I am clumsy with template coding, thus revert/fix my edits at will. Materialscientist (talk) 01:47, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
I think you have it right because I checked methane as a test. It formerly had a many-figure "exact mass" which has now disappeared without any other apparent effects. Dirac66 (talk) 02:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Help needed, please

Can someone please look at my quandary on

Talk:Thallium sulfate and maybe suggest an encyclopedic way out of it. Cheers, Bjenks (talk
) 16:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

chem24h.com

Are User:Mbcww's contributions helpful? I can't tell whether they are adding useful information, or just spamming links to this website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.189.211 (talk) 19:16, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I've blocked that user for spamming. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Telluric Acid

Why is an acid when it has oh attachments to the tellurium? Dan653 (talk) 18:58, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you asking why it's called an acid, or why it behaves as an acid? The former is because of the latter: the article gives a pKa value that is certainly likely to lower the pH in water (it's comparable to the second H of phosphoric acid). The article also notes how it easily forms mono- and dianions by loss of one or two H+, again following the Brønsted–Lowry definition of an acid. As to why it behaves like this, the rationalization I've heard is that the central metal atom is substantially cationic, which attracts electrons from the hydroxyl groups, weakening the O–H bonds. And then if the H+ is lost, the oxygen anion is again stabilized by the metal cationic nature. Seems the same idea as chromic acid, boric acid, sulfuric acid, etc...positive center weakens the O–H on an attached hydroxyl and stabilizes the resulting oxygen anion. DMacks (talk) 19:43, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

RM on Talk:Marinobufagenin need expert input

The Requested Move discussion at Talk:Marinobufagenin needs the attention of experts from this project. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Turns out that the trouble with long names is not limited to old browsers (such as SeaMonkey 1.1), but also new ones (Firefox 12). The article section does not explain why long names are required, only that they should be adhered to. This should be fixed.

For example, I've seen several discussions refer to searchability and completeness, so that it would be hassle-free to copy these names without later having to encounter characters that should not belong to an adhering name — like soft hyphens that were added for wrapping so a chembox would not be around 1000 (one thousand) pixels wide. (One of the troubling pages is Oxytocin.) And then I discovered InChI... -Mardus (talk) 05:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you mind rephrasing your question? The names are long because ... they are long? They are mechanically constructed according to nomenclature rules. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 06:01, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not disputing nomenclature rules and their being mechanically constructed, but this from Style guidelines/Long names:
"Names of chemical compounds can be long. This may effect suboptimal layout in older browser software. However, proper chemical names should be adhered to."
I actually meant to ask about inserting zero-width spaces into long names in article code, so that the names would wrap in display, but remain essentially on the same line in code. In effect, this should not change chemical names in display (insofar as shorter names won't wrap and longer ones do when necessary), but only in code. — The question is whether there is any known adverse side-effect to this practice.
Current wording is ambiguous and does not explain what is the "properness" of chemical names and why that should be adhered to (for example, if there is a reason as to why they should remain uniform both in code and display). -Mardus (talk) 08:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Most recently the issue was discussed in Template talk:Chembox#Line_wrap_problem_for_long_chemical_formulas. -Mardus (talk) 08:04, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
And an archived discussion about the width of infoboxes because of long names is here. At least this one tries to offers some reasons as to the names' uniformity. -Mardus (talk) 08:19, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
This recent change by Mardus (talk · contribs) to Oxytocin did not completely fix the problem with long names causing wide infoboxes. In my case, the issue is not how old my browser is (I am using a January 2012 release of Firefox). The problem is that I did not have javascript enabled, and the change Mardus requires it to be so. In probably a decade of frequent use and editing of Wikipedia, this is the first time I've encountered an article that requires javascript to be enabled in order for a page to be rendered properly. Has WP policy changed? Has javascript support become a requirement? If not, could someone come up with a better fix? 67.101.7.242 (talk) 20:50, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
The change that I did was only to the IUPAC name, which is displayable by default and should work whether JavaScript is on or not (it should work without JavaScript turned on, but shows as long, because the two other long names extend the infobox far too wide anyway). Without the change, that one name caused the chembox to be very long in SeaMonkey 1.1. Once I discovered two more long names in the chembox, I started looking for Wikipedia style guides that would suggest the correct way such long names are wrapped in type (when printed on paper), so as to properly position zero-width spaces.
Neither seems there to be any policy on what could be the proper code format to wrap long names without breaking them, but Style guidelines#Long names is vague and lacks the necessary rationales. On one hand the names have to remain proper; on the other, they break formatting by being long. Therefore I decided to only make change to just one name to rectify what I saw as a rendering inaccuracy because of an underlying formatting implementation in {{chembox}} that does not yet satisfy significant use cases. -Mardus (talk) 21:27, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Prompted by your reply, I looked into this more carefully. I noticed that Carbetocin and Eledoisin also require javascript enabled in order to render correctly. The dependency on javascript is that the infobox adds a show/hide option if javascript is enabled. When javascript is disabled, it defaults to "show" and makes no effort to limit the width of long names. Any long string (InChI, SMILES, IUPAC) causes problems. In retrospect, I now recall I have seem this problem before. I vaguely recall that there is some convention for dealing with this, perhaps zero-width spaces. 67.101.7.242 (talk) 22:10, 19 May 2012 (UTC) P.S. I noticed that http://en.m.wikipedia.org renders long names more effectively.
One of the possible fixes I once saw with the chembox (or a related) template was the use of a div with overflow (certainly this, if not overflow) and a horizontal scrollbar in the article about Violaxanthin: http://toolserver.org/~cbm/20090127b.png — note that this is an old screenshot and shows Firefox 2, and at that time the problem seemed to be with names' display truncated with overflow. I don't know if the screenshot is just a mockup and whether the template does have this feature currently implemented or not, but that there have been problems in trying to solve the issue. — I suspect that some of the possible blockers could be relationships between different CSS files for display, print, and PDA. If so, then this would require an experienced coder to come up with potential working solutions. -Mardus (talk) 23:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Added a topic to the
Chembox template talk. -Mardus (talk
) 00:19, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Images

I've noticed that some pages use vdW images to represent molecules whereas other pages use ball-and-stick type images. I was just wondering if it would be better to stick with one or the other, just for the sake of consistency? Or maybe we should include both types for every article. --FlamingCobra (talk) 16:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It would require redrawing a great many images to make all the articles totally consistent. And the fact is that the world does use more than one types of image to represent molecules, so I don't think we should suggest (even subliminally) that only one type of image is valid. It is probably best to leave the images alone unless they contain actual errors. Dirac66 (talk) 17:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Actually for many molecules both types of images exist, but only one is in use. --FlamingCobra (talk) 18:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Hydraulic fracturing chemicals

Hydraulic fracturing article's fracturing fluids section includes several link to cellulose and guar derivatives, some of them are being red links. I wonder if members of this wikiproject could help with checking these links and maybe create relevant stubs or redirect to relevant existing articles. Also, the fracturing fluids section and chemicals section of that article needs assistance with cleaning up. Thank you. Beagel (talk
) 19:06, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I have created this category, and started a bio for Pekka Pyykkö. -DePiep (talk) 16:11, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I have worked on the Pyykkö model template. Maybe someone wants to take a look. First of all, the technicalities should be right. After that, layout suggestions are welcome. It is used:

I have made a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Category:Chemistry disambiguation pages and Category:Molecular formula disambiguation pages that all pages in Category:Chemistry disambiguation pages and Category:Molecular formula disambiguation pages be changed to set index pages, to more accurately reflect the relatedness of the articles listed on those pages. Please note that this change, if implemented, will not affect the substance of any of these pages, but will only entail switching the existing {{Chemistry disambiguation}} and {{MolFormDisambig}} tags for {{Chemistry Index}} and {{MolFormIndex}} tags to be created, modeled on the existing tags. bd2412 T 20:54, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to unify spelling in elements articles

Is being discussed here. Materialscientist (talk) 04:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

New articles with errors

There have been quite a few new articles created by Alvaro Filbert (talk · contribs). I found errors in some of the articles he created and some errors in edits he made to existing articles. Also Democracy112 (talk · contribs) recently created a few new chemistry articles and they contained blatant errors as well. So it might be helpful for another chemist or two have to a look at the contributions from these two editors to make sure there aren't more errors. Thanks. ChemNerd (talk) 12:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Their editing abilities should be stopped.--Smokefoot (talk) 12:25, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
This editor continues to contribute a lot of mindless cruft. Probably a really bright 10 year old, but the content is not usually good enough for us, IMHO.--Smokefoot (talk) 12:24, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

More the last couple of days. These need review. Are any of these notable? I have asked Alvaro Filbert to stop. ChemNerd (talk) 18:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

1,1,1,2,2,3,3-Heptachloropropane 1,1,2,2,3,3-Hexachloropropane Hexachloropropene Pentachloroethane MethylsilanecheckY Borolane Thiosilane Iodosilane Bromosilane Fluorosilane Silicon_monosulfidecheckY (found in interstellar space) Heptasilane

Hexasilane
Pentasilane
(derivatives exist, as also Bicyclo[1.1.1]pentasilane) TetrasilanecheckY
Arsenic_diiodide
Xenon_monofluoride☒N[6]
Xenon_monochloridecheckY(but article is wrong)
Gold_triiodide(unstable looks non-notable)[7]
Uranium_diselenidecheckY
Uranium_phosphate
Uranium_monophosphide Titanium_triiodidecheckY Platinum_disulfidecheckY Tetrauranium_octadecafluoride Diuranium_pentoxide
Uranium_pentaiodide
☒N Uranium_monobromide☒N Uranium_monosulfidecheckY Uranium_disulfidecheckY Uranium_disilicidecheckY Uranium_tetrabromidecheckY Uranium_hexachloridecheckY
Uranium_tetraiodide
checkY
Uranium_triiodide
checkY Uranium_pentabromidecheckY Uranium_pentachloridecheckY Uranium_trifluoridecheckY 1,1,2,4-Tetrachlorobutene 2,3,4-Trichlorobutene Isobutyl chloride 2-Chlorobutane 1,1,3-Trichloropropene 1,1,1,2-Tetrachloropropane 1,3-Dichloropropane

Some of these do not exist as prepared substances, but a few do have multiple references available about them. cross means there is evidence it does not exist, tick means multiple writings - ie notable. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I have deleted some of them - the ones which are devoid of content beyond "XY is a compound of X and Y" (or merely content derived from the name) because they qualify under
general notability guideline). -- Ed (Edgar181
) 01:25, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Since the response of Alvaro Filbert (talk · contribs) to being asked on his talk page several times to discuss these article creations before continuing was to create dozens more articles with essentially no content, I have temporarily blocked him from editing. He appeared to be trying to create articles for every possible combination of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine many of which I have deleted already, but there are more that I have added to the list above for review. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:06, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The image in Figure 9 is the same as in Figure 8. I guess this is an error. Can someone help? --Leyo 16:37, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

All the images in that section are so small that I can't get any information from them. Figures 8 and 9 look like they might be the same, but it's hard to tell. The text of the section has problems too. It reads as if someone wrote a paper for a university class and then just pasted it into the article. ChemNerd (talk) 18:23, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
You may enlarge the images by clicking them. It is two times the same file in Figure 8 and Figure 9. --Leyo 21:38, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I found the image File:Nbt1265-F3.gif among the deleted contributions of the editor that created the other images in that article. It appears to be the image that is intended as Figure 9, so I undeleted it and added it to the article. I think this fixes the error. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. I converted the (bad)GIF to PNG and uploaded it to Commons. --Leyo 13:45, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Regarding file:Dap.52.gif, what a horrible (for WP) way of doing images! Someone please break that single file containing what, 7 different images about different things with all sorts of embedded captions to distinguish each from another and hardcoded figure-numbers that make this file completely un-reusable and the parent article un-expandable/un-reorganizeable, into separate files. DMacks (talk) 14:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
At the same time, the file type should be changed from GIF to PNG in order to improve the thumbnail quality. --Leyo 07:16, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

OrganicBox templates up for deletion

Several OrganicBox templates have been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_June_21#Template:OrganicBox_tautomers -- 70.49.127.65 (talk) 04:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

It is the first time I see an article about a chemical (here: herbicide) with such a kind of infobox. Are there more such cases? --Leyo 17:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I switched it to {{chembox}}. I'm not aware of any others that use a generic infobox like that. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:14, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. I did not find any other articles using CatScan. --Leyo 05:41, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Elements coloring scheme

Seeing that Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Elements coloring scheme didn't have colours for the trans-copernicium elements, I made up some colours for them. Of course they won't be used much, but since even the transactinides had colours, I figured it would be OK. Hopefully they look good and don't clash with any other colours there. :-) Double sharp (talk) 12:07, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

N-Tert-butylbenzenesulfinimidoyl chloride

There was not an article for this compound, so I recently created one. I've never created an article - much less one about a chemical - so I'd appreciate it if someone with more experience looked it over. Particularly, I'm not sure how the content that goes into chemboxes is verified; all the data I used for this particular article was taken directly from journal articles or MSDS sheets, but I'm not sure what the procedure is for getting the verified check-mark. Also, I'm not sure if the chemical structures - particularly the 3D and VDW models - are up to snuff. They look fine to me, but are not exactly like those found in most other Wiki articles. Ckalnmals (talk) 16:59, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks very good. Crystal structure is unknown. The 3D models are beautifully rendered. What did you use to calculate the structure and render the images? Put that information on the image description page when you upload. --Ben (talk) 17:19, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I used Avogadro for the 3D structures. The auto-optimize feature gave the geometries, which I tweaked slightly by rotating methyl groups to make the structure more clear. The images were rendered with POV-Ray. I'll add that info to the image descriptions. Ckalnmals (talk) 17:25, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Good. It'd be useful to find out and report the nature of the auto-optimize method - molecular mechanics, I'd imagine. To prove notability, you may want to find a review article or textbook that mentions this reagent and cite it in the article. I can't find it for sale on the Sigma-Aldrich website. --Ben (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Since I seem to specialize in criticism, here are some comments:
1) The main problem I have with the article is that it is rather specialized. 41 references to that compound in Chem Abs. That is at the thin side of notability. When confronted with a situation like this, I recommend creating an article on the functional group and citing the compound as a prime example. We have no article on "sulfinimidoyl chlorides".
2) The article relies on very specialized literature (Org Lett!), but we have a guideline (not a law) that encourages secondary sources (books, reviews): .
2a) The pitfalls with not heeding
WP:COI citations, a recent example of this possible problem can be seen in polyphosphazenes. I would still move it to the sulfinimidoyl chloride
.
But for a first article, it is very good indeed. And, most importantly to me at least, a really nifty compound. --Smokefoot (talk) 18:07, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Again, thanks for the feedback. In regards to Ben's comment, Sigma doesn't sell it - SCBT and TCI do, though it isn't cheap. Your suggestion about the secondary source is duly noted, though it looks like Smokefoot found one - thanks! It also has melting/boiling point information, which isn't in the chembox currently. I will incorporate the source, as well as the new information, into the article.

In regards to notability, you're probably correct. This is certainly not a common reagent, though it has seen some use in natural product syntheses as of late - haouamines A and B come to mind. Perhaps one of the reasons it's not common, however, is that its utility as an oxidant was only recently reported. I did a SciFinder search and while I saw the Russian synthesis from the 1970s, the first reference where it was used as a reactant was from 1991, and its use as an oxidant wasn't reported until 2000 (DOI:10.1246/cl.2000.1072). Moving the article to sulfinimidoyl chloride is certainly a worthwhile idea, though it would need some additional work. Truth be told, the main reason I wrote the article was because I too thought it was a neat reagent. I stumbled across it in a natural product synthesis, and thought it would be worth sharing via Wikipedia. Again, thanks for all the constructive criticism. Ckalnmals (talk) 02:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello, would someone with a degree in pharmacology/chemistry, please review the following article for accuracy: Bath salts (drug) any corrections with citations would be appreciated. Thank you. JunoBeach (talk) 10:58, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

CAS number of 1,2-Epoxypropene or 2-methyloxirene

Hi,
Everything is in the title! Before, the diagram in the article C3H4O gave CAS number 75-56-9 for this compound but in fact, it corresponds to propylene oxide. I found on the Japan chemical substance dictionary web service another one, 2835-41-8 but I have a big doubt when I see what PubChem returns with this CAS number. Could someone help me confirm this CAS or find the true CAS number of 2-methyloxirene? --Titou (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm through access to Chemical Abstracts that 75-56-9 is the CAS number for (±)−propylene oxide and 2835-41-8 is the CAS number for 2-methyloxirene. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks a lot --Titou (talk) 13:12, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Request graphic artist report

Hi:

Wondered if I could get help from someone to make a couple illos, both for the Fluorine article.

1. structure of MnF4

2. sketch of fluorine piping diagram

Please, I will be your Wikifriend, if you help!  :)

TCO (talk) 23:23, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

This article has been proposed for

Featured article reassessment. Anyone is welcome to improve the article. JZCL
21:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

What is going on in the chemboxes?

We once had a list of altenative names in

EDTA with citations? IMHO, many edits made on the ChemBoxes are unhelpful. Cant we discuss these edits, which often strike me as obsessive and even wacky? --Smokefoot (talk
) 14:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why User:Plasmic Physics is making so many "citation needed" requests for synonyms that are very easily verified at the links that are in the chembox (CAS, ChemSpider, PubChem, etc.) or which can very easily be verified by a web search. For the extent of the silliness involved in these "citation needed" requests, just look at Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid where there is a request for citation for the abbreviation "EDTA" which is used in the title of about a dozen of the cited references already used in the article. There is clearly no thought whatsoever put into these "citation needed" requests. They should all be summarily removed. ChemNerd (talk) 11:47, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm in agreement with both of you. I don't think there's a need to cite each individual alternative name. As a matter of fact, I think it would look busy if every name was cited. Most MSDS sheets contain a section entitled "Synonyms" or "Other Names" that lists common alternative names for a chemical. I'm under the impression that most of the information that goes into Chemboxes comes from MSDS sheets anyway, so the extra citations seem like overkill. Ckalnmals (talk) 21:58, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't think MSDS sheets should be used as references, or to take data from (just like PubChem, ChemSpider) - although it could mostly be referenced to that, most MSDS sheets contain manufacturer-compiled data using their data, it are 'safe limits' (which may be on 'the safe side'), not peer-reviewed information (which may still be dubious). A lot of the more physical data in the chemboxes is dubious for many reasons (mostly suitable as an indication, even if often correct). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:17, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, my extended take on this regarding data in the chemboxes (specifically names of compounds):

  1. First, when names are generally used, they do not require a reference - those are names that are used in the outside world by respected organisations (not by your favourite health blog!), those used in chemical textbooks, or throughout chemical literature (where the chemical gets used, e.g. 'THF', 'DCM', 'petroleum ether' as a general solvent, 'LDA', 'Binap', 'Wilkinson's catalyst'). I find the reference for the name pentane absolutely rubbish, that is common textbook knowledge, it is likely to be taught in high-school, maybe even in secondary school - the editor who added that should be trouted around
    WP:RS
    ). I would almost say, we are all pretty familiar with chemical textbook level names, synonyms and abbreviations for chemicals, and otherwise a Google-scholar search (i.e., a publicly available search) will show you how common it is. Third resort is maybe something like SciFinder or Reaxys, though if the former two did not show you the notability of a name or synonym you may want to start thinking it is not notable enough to be put into Wikipedia as a synonym (or it does need a proper reference).
  2. Which one is the preferred name is a matter of debate, and can generally not be suitably referenced. There are ongoing debates still on quite some of them (MDMA, ecstacy, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine). The chemical world is not up to it, don't try to prove that by referencing one is thé name. Follow our standards, or establish consensus, or use all 'common names' without prejudice.
  3. Which one is the PIN is for by far most of the compounds still
    original research
    - the box has been prepared for it, but that one is still under development by the 'issuing organisation' (IUPAC). Some of your dear WT:CHEM members are following those discussions (actually, they seem pretty dead ..) or even participating in it.
  4. Synonyms/abbreviations: those which are again used in the outside world, or those in chemical textbooks, do not need a reference - THF, EDTA, DMF, etc. Others may, depending on obscurity, need a reference. If you add one because you think that it is fine (per
    WP:BOLD
    ), leave it like that, if someone else comes by and wants a reference or whatever, they will tag (or delete, after which you may consider to re-insert and tag).
  5. Trade names - Primary reference them to the company, those almost by definition need a reference, even if a primary one, otherwise there is no way to check it (some exceptions exist, 'aspirin'). Any obscure Sildenafil spammer can think of its own name, and put it in the list. If the company is not notable (by Wikipedia standards), then the synonym they chose for one of their products is likely not either.

Some names get special attention in an article (I am thinking of names like 'maleic acid', 'quinone') - which have a distinct reason for being named that way, and there are often suitable references for that - the chembox does not need to duplicate those references (though it does not hurt either).

Regarding MSDS, ChemSpider, CommonChemistry, whatever - those are not suitable references for the existence of a name - many of these databases contain typo's, local names that are totally not common and notable by themselves, etc. etc. The only thing that these databases are suitable proper references for is their own identifier. They however link you to a wealth of information, often each database contains rather unique information (especially on the not-too-common chemicals), and a lot of data which is way out of scope of Wikipedia (some link to collections of reported boiling points of a chemical, which is way out of our scope). Which is exactly why we link to them. If all of them use 'THF' as an abbreviation for 'tetrahydrofuran', then yes, that is likely a real abbreviation of it, but please go by my first point up, not by them. These database have a great risk of massive creep - I see sometimes articles with large (huge) numbers of synonyms, abbreviations, or trade names - way excessive and most of them obscure (and the obscure ones unreferenced). Yes, your shampoo bottle contains 'aqua', and that is probably reflected in ChemSpider, but that is not a suitable place to reference that to.

I hope I have covered my thoughts about this for the moment. I think that my first point up here pretty much makes the reference-request on EDTA useless, for PMDTA it becomes a bit more obscure, but removing the full name from the chembox (un-edit-summarized, but likely because it contained a citation-needed tag for months) is certainly not helpful - I am sure that a reference CAN be found for that (actually, it is following my first point - google scholar search: if a reference says "The tridentate ligand N,N,N',"',N-pentamethyldi- ethylenetriamine (PMDTA) is uniquely suited for the purpose" then it pretty much is a commonly used name/abbreviation, and does not need a reference, especially since more references use similar words), so removing it because it was tagged and no-one bothered to put it there is not the way forward. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:41, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, chemspider/pubmed do list lots of dubious names and rubbish data, either calculated (like refractive index, melting point .. great ..) or taken from I don't know where. So I guess the message is do not copy anything from chemspider/pubmed to our chemboxes :-). Materialscientist (talk) 07:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
I have to give my view as well. I can stop removing uncited names. I am not familiar with abbreviations or synonyms, they are not commn knowledge to me. Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Plasma Physics, if you think that you detect what you suspect is a pervasive problem is requires a lot of editing, you are encouraged to ask the community of editors before acting. Just post your suggestion here, like the rest of us do. Many of your edits have done damage to articles. People here would be glad to contribute advice to help achieve some consensus. Such consultation would be good for you, our community, and

our readers. Please help us help you--Smokefoot (talk) 14:13, 15 July 2012 (UTC).

I also want to say a big THANK YOU to Beetstra for stepping in to address this issue. He has been dragged in to deal with this kind of messy problem for many years. The success of our project is highly reliant on his knowledge of chemistry, his Dutch directness, and his diplomacy. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:20, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:No original research#IUPAC names for chemicals, especially for drugs --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:26, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

It still continues. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hydrogen_cyanide&curid=42078&diff=502593067&oldid=502592557.JSR (talk) 11:33, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, literally hundreds of ChemBoxes have been tampered with. If someone has time, you might contact the administrator's notice board and ask for mediation. There is a Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Chemical knowledge is secondary since the problem is so obvious. Also we would like to be able to unwind some of the damage.--Smokefoot (talk) 12:44, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Done:
WP:ANI#Chembox edits by User:Plasmic Physics. Comments welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk
) 17:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. Also, be aware that the odor field in the chembox may also be wrong. I found a series of higher normal alkanes labelled with the name of various essential oils. I corrected most of those, I think, but there may be others.JSR (talk) 18:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
The recent "citation needed" tagging for HCN is excessive, and it looks very amateurish. The majority of those tags have been removed, but I don't think most of them should have been there in the first place. It seems like this is starting to get out of hand. Ckalnmals (talk) 16:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

See

Wikipedia:ANI#Chembox_edits_by_User:Plasmic_Physics. Materialscientist (talk
) 12:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Have the problem edits been removed? The ANI report was archived with no action taken (archive is here). However, DGG made it very clear that he would take whatever action was required to resolve the matter, and he requested to be informed of anything that might need his attention. Johnuniq (talk) 12:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

See the recent edits at carbene analog. Most of those names are made up.... Chris (talk) 15:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
This topic is way out of my area so whereas I can see that this edit looks dubious, I cannot judge it. If a couple of other editors from this project would assess the history of Carbene analog and clearly state here that there is a problem (and briefly why), I would inform DGG. Johnuniq (talk) 23:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
No, they are not made up. Google (Scholar) them: "borylene", "alumylene", "gallylene", "indigylene", "thallylene". I suggest that you act like a scientist, and test your hypothesis before asserting your conclusion so rashly. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:00, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
'they are not made up' .. I am sorry, 2 Google scholar references for alumylene (11 for alumilene, which includes the 2 found for 'alumylene', and I have not argued about what the references are about or their credibility as sourcing for names) hardly gives significance on a Wikipedia-scale. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:59, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Then compare "borylene" with "boranylidene" Few references does not make it any less untrue, granted, alumilene may be more prefered. What significance do the other lesser preexisting analogues then bare? Plasmic Physics (talk) 01:07, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
And again you did not get the point. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

A user is insisting on inserting a chembox for aqua regia, when we've decided not to do that for mixtures. The suggested chembox also contains misinformation, such as a SMILES, molecular formula, molar mass, solubility, etc. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Note, while hydrogen chloride and hydrogen nitrate are essential ingredients, aqua regia is a complex system of various components produced by their reaction. The suggested chembox is an oversimplification of this dynamic system. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:46, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Could you please point to the discussion where was decided that mixtures don't get a chembox? --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I do not have a perfect memory; I cannot. Plasmic Physics (talk) 12:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
The point is, I can not remember that we decided not to do that for mixtures (I may be wrong), but you seem to be convinced otherwise, so I'd like you to show me where that decision was made. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:21, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I suspect that it was decided at the time of the great acid discussions (they were made an exception.) Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:06, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
If acids were made an exception, then surely nitrohydrochloric acid would fall under that. Drnathanfurious (talk) 14:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
No, the acid disussions surrounded single acid solutions not acidic systems. Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:21, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm the person who added the chembox. It seems like a perfectly legitimate use of the template. Both the German and French pages have one of these, too.User:Plasmic Physics keeps telling me the information in the box is incorrect, but refuses to tell me why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drnathanfurious (talkcontribs) 12:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I have named the errors in the introductory paragraph of this discussion. Plasmic Physics (talk) 12:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Argh! If you know, for example, that the molar mass is incorrect, you must also know what the correct value is. So instead of deleting the entire box and wasting time telling others that it's wrong, just edit the box and put in the correct value! Or post a link here and I'll add the correct values. In either case if the data is wrong we need to update both the French and German pages which contain the same values. This is important information, please share! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drnathanfurious (talkcontribs) 12:27, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
It cannot have a SMILES, molecular formula, molar mass, since it is not a discrete substance. A single solubility doesn't mean anything to me for the same reason, I woiuld appreciate a second opinion on the that though. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:01, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
It may set a precedent, are we going to have chemboxes for sun screen then? Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
And that last question is exactly the reason why I think that you should not be touching chemboxes and drugboxes, or maybe even pages within the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry at all. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Certainly. you can recognise a Reductio ad absurdum. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:29, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't like the argument that if the German and French Wikipedia articles have a chembox, then we should too. I could just as easily use that argument to delete the chemboxes at dewiki and frwiki. Nevertheless, for common chemical mixtures that are defined enough to have chemical identifiers such as CAS numbers, etc., and to have chemical properties listed in reliable sources, then I don't see any reason to remove chemboxes. If the mixture has highly variable composition depending on context or different uses of the chemical, then a chembox probably isn't all that helpful. I haven't looked closely to see which category aqua regia falls into, but that's what I believe to be reasonable criteria for including a chembox or not. ChemNerd (talk) 13:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Again the problem here is the black-or-white approach (which is exemplified by the remark from Plasmic Physics "It may set a precedent, are we going to have chemboxes for sun screen then? Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2012 (UTC)" - Certain things are certainly not white, but it is certainly worth to think about things that are grey, and not just throw them away as 'they are not white'. Plasmic Physics, as I say below, I would suggest that you steer well away from chemboxes and discussions about them for at least 3-6 months. Let it properly cool down, I am afraid you have upset too many editors. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:19, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Chembox Rules

So, lets take care of the problems one at a time.

  • When should a PIN/other name be cited?
  • If it should be cited, how should that concern be recorded?

Feel free to create subheaders for other problems, these are the only ones that most people have a problem with. I need users to not just propose solutions, but also agree on them. Please stay on topic, I do not add names/abbreviations, except for systematic names of course.

Here is a deal: work with me to answer these problems, and I will repair the "damage" by restoring the deleted names.

Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

No deal, either you stay away from chem/drugboxes completely or you repair the damage. You leave the consideration about all that information to others, and I ask you to be very, very careful at the moment with any data in the chem/drugboxes. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:50, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't offering the deal to you alone; I am careful in anycase; for the moment I'm avoiding editting chemboxes. Plasmic Physics (talk) 12:20, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Plasmic, I recommend that you cease editing Wikipedia-Chemistry. Your edits have attracted much negative attention. Your competence has been called into question. You have inflicted substantial damage. --Smokefoot (talk) 12:27, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Of course you do, you've been crusading against me since day-one. Opting to criticise more often, even to the point of ignoring my explanations and other users' refuting comments; rather than offering solution. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:15, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I've known you for less than 24 hours and I have the same impression through our interactions. Drnathanfurious (talk) 14:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
No problem, I don't accept the deal, I'll hear what others say. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Regarding 'I am careful in anycase; for the moment I'm avoiding editting chemboxes.' - first, you are here in a way editing chemboxes, moreover, I have reported you to AN/I for other chembox edits. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:54, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
PlasmicPhysics, I too disagree with the amount of editing you've done on ChemBoxes, especially in regards to alternative names. Just because you're not familiar with a particular alternative name or abbreviation doesn't automatically make it ineligible for conclusion. I can understand your desire for proper citations, but citing every single alternative name is unrealistic and in my opinion, unnecessary.
Unfortunately, the problems that you listed weren't problems until you made them so. Prior to your citation crusade, the validity of alternative names in ChemBoxes simply wasn't an issue. I don't think any special review process is necessary for the alternative names; I'd simply let the Wikipedia process run its course. If an editor who's knowledgeable about a particular compound sees a questionable name, they can tag it for citation, just like they'd tag a questionable fact in the body of the article.
Again, I can see where you're coming from, but I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I think it's somewhat ironic that we're devoting so much effort to discussing alternative names, which in the grand scheme of things are relatively trivial. Shouldn't double-checking the safety information (for example) be more important than citing alternative names? What about double-checking the actual content of the article? What about key physical properties, such as density and molecular weight? In my opinion, any one of those things is eons more important than alternative names. Ckalnmals (talk) 17:44, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Do you mean inclusion, not conclusion? In that case, I never said that it is ineligible for inclusion because I am not familiar, I infered that it is ineligible because it is uncitable. This problem could be solved by me simply not auditing other names. Are you aware that I double check the whole chembox, including the areas recomend, such as physical properties, density, safety information, etc.? Plasmic Physics (talk) 01:27, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Another thought: you say that such a system isn't neccessary, but the lack of such a system is what caused the problem in the first place. Plasmic Physics (talk) 01:31, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Plasmic Physics, you have now formally been banned to edit chemboxes in articles, leaving it to us to repair the damage that many editors think that you have inflicted on the chemboxes. I would really suggest that you leave all those subjects regarding chemboxes alone for at least 3-6 months (including here), and perform some other editing. Your points are real, but the way you went around Wikipedia editing chemboxes was upsetting way too many editors (and the edits like the unexplained reverting of the densities were very

bitey and may have resulted in editors walking away), and with discussions like this you run the risk you further inflame the situation. Please, please, let it cool down properly. --Dirk Beetstra T C
204:08, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Very well, be prepared to continue this discussion on or after 1 January 2013. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:36, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
That is ignoring the very last sentence of my previous remark: let it cool down properly. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:38, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
It is long enough, I have good grounds to apply for a repeal today yet. Plasmic Physics (talk) 14:37, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Merge suggestion

I have proposed merging the two articles

N-Methyl-DL-aspartic acid. One is about the single enantiomer and the other is about the racemate. If anyone would like to contribute to the discussion, it is here: Talk:N-Methyl-D-aspartic_acid#Merge. -- Ed (Edgar181
) 12:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

8-Anilinonaphthalene-1-sulfonate

Does it make sense to describe the deprotonated form? --Leyo 16:03, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

No. It is sold in the acid form or as a magnesium or ammonium salt (see Aldrich) http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search?interface=All&term=8-Anilino-1-naphthalenesulfonic+acid&lang=en&region=US&focus=product&N=0+220003048+219853269+219853286&mode=mode%20matchpartialmax). If we are describing the acid form we ought to show it that way.JSR (talk) 16:22, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Most importantly I'd argue we need to be consistent (hence my recent edit which appears to have started this discussion, surely the article title should be the same as the chemical described in the box). In addition to that, the article describes it as being used as a fluorescent molecular probe, specifically in biology. Though I can't quickly find a pKa online, and my knowledge of chemistry is limited, it looks very low and I would be very surprised if the article was incorrect in saying that it is the sulfonate that is the molecular probe. So we're (probably) describing the base and ought to show it that way.
Also, the magnesium and ammonium salts are the sulfonates, so I don't quite get what JSR is saying... PhiJ (talk) 17:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
For cases like this one, it is probably best if the article title is a chemical compound, not an ion. You need to figure out which salt is most common in the real world or if the free acid is the more common form. Then move to that new name and adjust the items in the table. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:19, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Smokefoot that the article should be titled as a compound, not an ion. However, I would very much prefer to have the article named and described in the chembox as the parent acid. The text can then describe uses of various salts or ionic forms. If desired, the chembox can also include identifiers such as CAS#s, etc. for notable salts. -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
OK, it seems that there is an agreement on moving the article to
8-Anilino-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid. --Leyo
14:33, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Or would
8-(phenylamino)-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid be the better target for moving the article? --Leyo
11:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Made the move, and created redirects as appropriate. It's more likely a zwitterion than what the picture depicts. Unless we are choosing to depict the neutral form (like we agreed for amino acids several years ago...). --Rifleman 82 (talk) 13:44, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. --Leyo 21:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Colour of Neodymium(III) oxide ok?

Picture in German wiki shows a light-blue colour instead white on english version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.178.60.94 (talk) 21:13, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

The English picture is very pale blue/purple. If you read about this substance you will see that it appears a different colour in fluorescent light or full spectrum daylight or incandescent light. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 14:10, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Borane articles

Someone, especially someone with administrative status, might talk to user:Xiangzhuang-pg. The edits are clumsy and often oriented toward a company. --Smokefoot (talk) 12:46, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The borane-related articles he created look like they were just copy-and-pasted product specifications from some supplier's webpage. So I just redirected them to borane. ChemNerd (talk) 13:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I was wondering about that pasting business. I tried reverting a couple of these articles, but he re-reverted me. Imagine that. In any case, thanks. BTW, we have a new legit article on sodium triacetoxyborohydride. I think that we have the main borohydride reagents. I will try to get BH3SMe2 done this fall. If anyone sees topics missing in this borohydride theme, leave me a note. --Smokefoot (talk) 13:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I think you missed one: see
Borane-tetrahydrofuran.JSR (talk
) 13:58, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

C class

I propose that we have a

C-class
assessment option for articles in this project. The text from this page states:

The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup. The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective.

Many of our start class articles could be upgraded to C Class. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:03, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I would support this - I think C-Class has been pretty well adopted by the wider community. I realise that we have strong personal and historical reasons to sticking with our original scheme, but I think C-Class does fill a useful void. Walkerma (talk) 04:11, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I also support this. I've wanted to assess chemical articles as C-class many times. Double sharp (talk) 11:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Chembox R/S phrases

Some discussion over here Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_August_20#Template:R-phrase, and I think the chemists should be adequately represented. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 18:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Skull and crossbones for toxicity

I think the skull and crossbones graphic should be removed from the toxicity sections of articles such as Arsenic, Chlorine and Thallium (full list of usage in article space) since it doesn't increase the reader's understanding of the subject matter. (Or are we legally required to include them?) May I get a second opinion? Thanks. wctaiwan (talk) 13:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree; the symbol looks tacky in the body of the article. I can see including the standard "toxic" symbol in the Chembox with the rest of the MSDS data, but not in the body of the article. Ckalnmals (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
I have gone ahead and removed the graphic from articles on chemicals. Please bring up any objections. Thanks. wctaiwan (talk) 07:30, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Aluminum Zirconium Trichlorohydrex Gly

Redirects Aluminum Zirconium Trichlorohydrex Gly and Aluminium zirconium trichlorohydrex gly, both of which currently target Aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly have been nominated at RfD with the rationale "Trichlorohydrex != tetrachlorohydrex". As the target page is tagged for this WikiProject your comments would be particularly welcome in the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 September 15#Aluminum Zirconium Trichlorohydrex Gly. Thryduulf (talk) 14:27, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

WP Chemicals in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Chemicals for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 05:41, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

RFC: Need to change CAS database provider away from CommonChemistry.org

I made a request at

Template talk:Chembox CASNo
to change our CAS database provider away from CommonChemistry.org. I found much better website that has more complete information (without advertising):

CommonChemistry.org is essentially a crippleware advert for their "member's only" SciFinder.[8] - Stillwaterising (talk) 20:36, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

List of binary fluorides

A well intentioned but I think ill-advised edit was made this morning (at least my morning) where a semi-exhaustive list of binary fluorides was added to Fluoride. I reverted it in an effort to get some sort of consensus on this venture. I can understand the motivation in part but think nonetheless that it is a bad idea.

  • We indeed probably want to tell readers about a few prominent fluorides (CaF2,
    WP:INDISCRIMINATE
    ?
  • Do we add such a list to every anion? Every cation (
    methyl
    ?)
  • Which binary fluorides? We have a group of editors here who are creating articles on hypothetic binary fluorides, for example. As others have indicated, there are a lot of computational folks out there and lots of hypothetic stuff are the subjects of publications.
  • Why only binaries? I realize that binaries make a tidier list.

One possible compromise would be that we aim for consensus on a few - 3-5 key materials and invite those that want to see an exhaustive list to delve into categories. --Smokefoot (talk) 13:22, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

  • I agree. There was no particular need for the list, listing them as a category or categories would be easier to maintain.JSR (talk) 13:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
(ec)Note, that there is again a history to this. We have Binary_compounds_of_hydrogen, which has a merge discussion for it to be merged into Hydride (Note it is Plasmic Physics who has suggested this merger, the same editor who added the list of binary fluorides to Fluoride). The discussion there mentions Binary compounds of silicon, which is similar. On the other hand, we do not have Binary compounds of carbon, that info seems to be in Carbide (which looks pretty much like what I would expect.
Again, this comes to a point of 'where should this end' - if we have Binary compounds of hydrogen, we talk about hydrides, which in itself is indeed an important point ('hydrogen storage') and which may itself be notable. Same IMHO would go for Binary compounds of carbon, Binary compounds of Nitrogen, Binary compounds of Oxygen. But then the problem comes, where to limit it. For most, I would suggest them to be extended to own articles, which aim to be complete, and highlight the notable ones (even to point to their own articles). IF there are not enough or enough significant notable ones, no article.
To just have a list (somewhere in an article) I would object, it has to go further than that, make the topic so that it is more than a list (before we know it, we have Binary compounds of Berkelium, where at most one of the binary compounds in itself is notable enough (did someone ever make Berkelium fluoride??)). I have the feeling that Binary compounds of Fluoride will in the end pass that bar (per Smokefoot's remark), with carbon (carborundum, calcium carbide for lamps), nitrogen (titanium nitride as hard, stable material comes to mind), oxygen (rust and sand ..) as well, I doubt whether bromine would do, or lead, whereas with cadmium and gallium maybe the case again can be made (semiconductors etc.). Those articles IMHO might (should?) end up looking like Carbide ... --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
  • why do we keep having discussions about lists? List exist. Period. The article Solar System basically is a list. Very handy. We should consider the generation of general interest articles formatted as compounds of xxx one for each element. Then there are general interest articles such as fluoride and hydride that will only deal with the common and mainstream members. There should also be room for specialist topics such as Binary_compounds_of_hydrogen or binary compounds of silicon . where should this end? that is not up to us to decide. Apparently they are editors willing to create these articles. Deal with it V8rik (talk) 22:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
    I agree. Try to write it, and see if you have enough notable material. Some really have enough to tell about. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:35, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
The problem with Binary compounds of hydrogen and Hydrides is that there is too much overlap. Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but it is also confusing, some things have the same name, but are distinctly different. Hydride as the negatively charged hydrogen ion, or hydride as a solid material which has often not the same properties as the hydride ion. If you mix those two into one article, they get confusing, especially since there is a lot to tell about both (unlike the carbide-ion, where I expect way, way less material will be available than for the hydride-ion - in that case most of the material is on the carbide-materials). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:35, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

ascorbates missing solubility data in chembox

I note the article about sodium ascorbate lists solubility in water (also alcohol). After reading that, I wondered about the solubility of calcium ascorbate in water. That data doesn't seem listed there! My particular interest was their relative solubilities. I wanted to bring this difference to the attention of chemists. Dare I check the potassium ascorbate page? Hmm. Gzuufy (talk) 18:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like you have set yourself a task.JSR (talk) 19:39, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I tried. The chembox display was horribly broken, so I undid the edit. Gzuufy (talk) 22:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Solved the display problem, it was an editing error. Gzuufy (talk) 03:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I tried it also. It appears to have an error somewhere as soon as one substitutes in a value for solubility.JSR (talk) 23:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Scandium trihydride

I need some help to flesh out the article and to iron out all the creases. So far, I've distinguished between two usages of the term scandium hydride. I want to avoid making the page just a list of facts, and include some discussion. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Scandium hydrides is not my area, but the article does pass one rule of thumb that we should adhere to: Greenwood and Earnshaw does discuss it. Danger signs with the current article IMHO):
  • The only secondary source is "Chemistry of d-block elements G. Singh (2007)" a non-entity source in the inorganic world (IM not so humble opinion). Replace with Greenwood and Earnshaw?
  • Extended elaboration from primary reference (Phys Rev from the 1970's). Those parts should be contracted - too specialized for an encyclopedia.
  • the chembox discusses a molecular structure, but it is not a molecule.
This looks like a useful reference (and a

"The h- sc (Hydrogen- Scandium) system" by F. D. Manchester and J. M. Pitre. They discuss the material in the context of the lanthanide hydrides, which do appear to be prominent materials. Good luck, --Smokefoot (talk) 13:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

But it is a molecule, scandium trihydride is a molecular compound, and would be a colourless gas if enough of it could ever be acumulated at once. Scandium hydride also describes an alloy with properties quite different from the molecular substance. Plasmic Physics (talk) 14:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Nonetheless, that is a wonderful source! I will try and incorporate it in the next few days, it may take a while to fully transcribe all the useable information. Now if only there was a similiarly useful source on the molecular compound... Plasmic Physics (talk) 14:27, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Like many of these hydrides, in the solid you would not call it a molecule. So the gas and solid phases are very different. For the infobox the most likely encountered material should be highlighted, and that would not be the gas! For the gas the spectrum could be the most studied aspect, and in the past I have struggled to explain spectra of other transition hydride molecular gases, and it does not help that there is poor coverage on spectra in general. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
We'll run into trouble if we try to fill chemboxes for alloys, we're already stretching their domain by applying chemboxes to acid solutions, such as hydrochloric acid. Both of these compounds (in a loose sense) are synthetic, so it is moot to determine which is the most likely encountered material. Perhaps, the molecular compound exists transiently in the atmosphere of stars and such. There are some good journal aricles discussing the spectrum of the molecular species. Plasmic Physics (talk) 05:47, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I really doubt whether one can make true ScH3 in an appreciable amount as to be able to study the bulk properties of the material. As such, I would expect it to be a solid material like other metal hydrides (CaH2, NaH, etc.), not a gas. However, probably the solid seems not stable (I can only quickly find a bit of ScH2 as solid state material - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-0248(78)90412-8). I don't see solid ScH3. That suggests that ScH3 has only been studied in 'gas-phase', probably in a reasonable high vacuum, spectroscopic studies. I wonder whether that qualifies enough for a wikipedia article .. is there notability in the compound itself, I don't think so. The solid material seems to be getting to 6.30%, which is the theoretical ScH3 stoichiometry. Though I am not sure if that is ScH3 or ScH2 with enough 'dissolved' H2, very unlike CaH2/NaH etc. Maybe write an article on ScH2 (which does seem to exist), and note there that one can 'dissolve' H2 in that to get to a stoichiometry of ScH3? --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I am with Beetstra on this one. Scandium trihydride is not notable. This much is indicated by the fact that, despite Plasmic's diligence, the current article is supported only by very narrow references and a third-rate textbook. Scandium hydrides probably deserves a single (thin) article, just like copper hydrides. But to subdivide these topics into individual articles is fetish behavior that places
undue weight on things that are unimportant. ScH3 is of ZERO significance (not an intermediate in useful gas phase reactions, I don't think has been observed in interstellar medium). Few hypothetical molecules merit mention Wikipedia, despite the efforts by some. Editors need to realize that calculations on weird and semi-ridiculous results are spewing out of the computers of underemployed computational chemists and physcists across the globe. The alloy-like interstitial hydrides do however represent useful and widely studied, we should tackle that theme if we want to serve the readership.--Smokefoot (talk
) 13:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I also agree that is not notable. Also, reactions do not occur in gas phase, as the primary reference for reactions are from a matrix isolation spectroscopist. These reactions occur in an argon matrix at cryogenic temperatures.JSR (talk) 13:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Good then, because at current, there is only one scandium hydride article. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:30, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Well since we appear to have consensus that the trihydride is not sufficiently notable for its own article, let's rename it Scandium hydride, with a sections dedicated to the trihydride and otherwise dedicated to the interstitial materials. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:34, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Then please consider the deletion of stannane and plumbane for lack of notability. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
There are orders of magnitude more references to these two, and they are not theoretical only, so we should not delete them. However renaming ScH3 to Scandium hydride does have merit. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, at least part of your logic is flawed - ScH3 is not theoretical-only either. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

SMILES changes

An IP has been changing SMILES in drug/chemboxes; as far as I see, the main changes are from aromatic atoms (lowercase) to double bonds, eg. here. Could someone have a look at these changes? (I'm sorry to say I haven't got enough time at the moment.) Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Please reassess "low" importance tag of "polyphenols" article.

This article is in desperate need of attention from editors with good biological and chemical backgrounds, and prioritization of such may be hindered by its assignment of a "low" importance tag by this Project team.

I would note that a google search of the term gives ≈2,600,000 results, where the wikipedia article is the first. The Project team might compare the interest in this subject—which includes the health-related "hot" topics of the antioxidant properties of plant-derived polyphenols, e.g., from grapes used in red wine manufacture, various bramble polyphenol such as raspberry ellagitannins—with other higher priority articles, to see if this is a fair assessment of outside interest. Cheers. Leprof 7272 (talk) 05:48, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I changed it to medium, low may indeed be a bit too far down (though the scale is utterly arbitrary anyway, anyone will assess that in different ways). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, but now you have peaked my curiosity: How can there not be a wikipedia-, google- or other tech-based algorithm to assess article importance? This seems very strange. Is there someone's attention, to which this can be called? LeProf

Algarot

The

Algarot
article mixes up things so I wanted to move it or rename it. Algarot is most likely either a mixture of SbOCl with Sb4O5Cl2 or pure Sb4O5Cl2. So the article might be best be put as chapter into an article about antimonyoxychlorides.

Any suggestions before I start to move things around?--Stone (talk) 13:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Racemate illustrations

Could someone take a look at Talk:Mephedrone#Racemate.3F? User:Jü pointed out a while ago that the illustrations in the chembox are incorrect and got round to changing them this week but has been reverted. I'm not sure which is correct and hopefully someone here knows what's best! SmartSE (talk) 12:52, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Just to follow up on this ... It is neither wrong to show a racemate as a single 2D structure nor necessary to depict a racemate as its two distinct enantiomers. That is unnecessarily pedantic. For chemical compounds with a single stereocenter such as mephedrone, it is best to show one 2D structure with no stereochemistry specified such as the one currently in the article, File:Mephedrone.svg. This is the simplest and least confusing depiction. It is standard practice in chemistry databases, chemical catalogs, etc. to do it this way and there is no reason for us to depart from this convention. This is covered at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Structure drawing. -- Ed (Edgar181) 00:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Looking for a skeletal structure illustrator

I know there have been quite a few folks making skeletal structure SVGs on request, but I'm not certain who is currently active and doing so. I also know that I'm awful at this. I created this image of the structure of calostomal (and/or its methyl ester) for my current article project, but it is clearly of terrible quality. If someone with some spare time would be willing to redraw that in a way that's presentable, I'd be especially grateful! Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't do SVGs, sorry. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 22:02, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

No complaints about the format from me. You've got my sincere appreciation for those structure diagrams and the corresponding calostomal stub. Exactly what I needed! Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 23:56, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

TheWikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Structure drawing is a good manual.--Stone (talk) 23:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

This AFD could use the input of a couple more chemists. ChemNerd (talk) 13:28, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Phosphane/phosphine

phosphane earlier today. I'm not sure whether this is correct or not. Could someone take a look? Thanks! SmartSE (talk
) 17:06, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Help needed

Could you guys help with Special:Contributions/Skuhl2, please? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 21:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

This looks very much like a group of students.--Stone (talk) 21:55, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Jschlude2 Mgonne2 Skuhl2 --Stone (talk) 21:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/reactorgo/projects

Awful work. Will take a lot of effort to clean up. Please someone needs to contact the instructor or these students! ASAP. --Smokefoot (talk) 02:20, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
These students aren't too good with image licenses either. See
User:Nknelso2/sandbox). --Rifleman 82 (talk
) 03:57, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Most, if not all of the images herein are copyvios. I'm going to remind the instructor to contact us. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 18:52, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • you cannot blame the organizer. It is a University of Illinois project and these students do have access to a proper library and to chemical drawing software. There is no excuse for sloppy work V8rik (talk) 21:46, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Why not? A person orgaizes that and for what I can see this person has either no good knowledge about wikipedia, or the person is a wikiexpert but he has no oversight over his course. This i a way of cooperation with a university which gives a lot of work to us to fix problem which could be avoided by asking before they dump.

--Stone (talk) 23:24, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

  • I do not get it, the [instructions left by the supervisor for the students are clear] and respect the Wikipedia guidelines. The articles are uploaded but only as user sandboxes? Has someone checked which articles have actually been published? One article (Benzestrol) is now up for review. I cannot help here if no damage is really done.V8rik (talk) 16:21, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you to everyone who raised concerns. I appreciate the interest and desire to ensure these articles have academic integrity and meet Wikipedia's standards. It has always been my intention these articles be a positive contribution to the Wikipedia community. This project is a voluntary honors project. When designing this project, we sought to provide detailed instructions and policy documentation to make sure the students had adequate opportunity to successfully complete drafting a quality Wikipedia article. As an honors Chemistry project we gave the students (working in peer groups) responsibility to complete their proposed final drafts at a level worthy of finial publication to Wikipedia. However, it has always been our intention these articles be reviewed prior to any submission for publication. Along with the review process, I have listed below the other steps we took to try to make this project a success. Please take a look at what our process has been. If you can recommend any improvements or changes to the the process to better meet Wikipedia's standards, please let us know. It would be very helpful.


We required the projects to be worked on entirely in the sandbox where we felt there would be no harm to Wikipedia or add additional work to other editors as the students learned to edit and gather information for their articles. (Part of the initiative was for the students to learn how they might contribute future articles, not just for this assignment.)

  • We gave students links to scientific journal databases and chemical drawing software so articles could meet wikipedia's standards
  • We gave critiques and suggestions for improvements throughout the project
  • Projects that did not meet final approval were never to be published to Wikipedia.
  • We sent reminders about Wikipedia policies and copyright infringement throughout the project's cycle.

Our continued goal is the improvement and expansion of Wikipedia and exposing students to the Wikipedia process to hopefully encourage them to become continuing contributors to the Wikipedia project as a whole. Again, I appreciate your feedback and welcome any suggestions on this accounts talk page. Reactuiuc (talk) 04:06, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions: that the instructor teach these students rather than the other students (blind leading the blind thing). The referencing is generally poor (
WP:NOTMANUAL
). The students are obviously not receiving instruction on basic (undergrad) structural inorganic chemistry.
Your intentions are laudable, but your execution is not. One suggestion - the students be tasked to write fewer articles focused on more notable topics with greater editorial involvement by a PhD-level instructor. --Smokefoot (talk) 13:16, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Having cleaned up a few of these articles, I have a general comments:

With all that said, I felt that terrible image copyright violations notwithstanding, diamantane, User:Mkleinjan/sandbox and User:Aradi7/sandbox were quite nice.

Anyway, my suggestions for you are:

  • More people on fewer articles. There are 60 articles or so in the list below, and it's tough for us to keep up. Especially if they need extensive work done.
  • Drop by and say hi here, and ask that your students engage us early, so that they may learn by example, rather than simply dumping inadequate drafts on the main space for us to tidy. Once they have a decent draft (30-50% complete, but must be free-standing), they should publish it so that it can benefit from all the tone, style, etc. corrections that others will make. Publicise your list of articles here so that we can help you guys with them (rather than us having to do detective work).
  • Read
    WP:MOSCHEM
    , which lays out what an article should look like. We would have avoided many of the problems listed above, if your students had read the document. I know it's tedious and boring, but at least they'd know where to look for resources.
  • Discuss the quality of sources with your students. What is an authoritative source, and what is not?

I hope this helps. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

By the way, are they coming back to work on their articles? Or not? If they are, we can work with them (probably after they first attempt to address the concerns we have talked about here). If not, I'd ask that you wait for us to pick the most promising to move to the mainspace, rather than doing it wholesale. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 15:38, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
  • No, I think we managed to scare them away, they will leave us alone now...V8rik (talk) 20:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
From the last crowed storming through last year not a single one staid. The worst thing ever happend to poetry was the day when a teacher first used it in class. We experience the same with wikipedia.--Stone (talk) 22:26, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

All (most) of your comments and suggestions are appreciated. My TA's and I are discussing how to best proceed from this point. You all have extensive experience in this forum and we will weight all of our decisions with that in mind. I am somewhat embarrassed that some of our students published articles that were awful. It was our intent that ALL articles would stay in the sandbox until either I, or one of the TA's, review the article and approve the move. We are discussing ways in which to control this much better in the future. We are just now reviewing the pages with grades in mind. It is obvious to me that we will have to be a larger presence in the process. This is a fantastic learning experience for the students, and as we learn and grow; so will the quality of the output for the benefit of all. TurfNakrion (talk) 19:05, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


Fall 2012

Group 1 Lithium Cyanide, Cyanuric Triazide, Barium Metaphosphate

Group 2

magnesium oxalate

Group 3

Ethiofencarb

Group 4-

diethyl succinate and 3-Aminobenzamide

Group 5

Group 6

Vobasan

Group 7 -

Methylmagnesium Bromide

Group 8 -

Benzestrol

Group 9-1,2,4-Trimethylcyclohexane, Lead (II) Oxalate, 4-Fluorobenzoic acid

Group 10-

Mucobromic Acid

Group 11 - Phenylethanolamine, Allyl cyanide, Acetyl cyanide

Group 12 -

Group 13-

cadmium chromate
, Lithium Chromate

Group 14 -

(1R,3R)-1,2,3-trimethylcyclopentane

Group 15 -

Homoarginine

Group 18 -

2-Bromobutyric acid

Group 19 -

N-Hydroxypiperidine

Group 20 - Acetylcholine bromide,

2,3,5-trimethyl pyrazine

Group 21 -

sodium tetrasulfide

Group 22 - Nickel selenide, Strontium oxalate, Manganese (II) phosphate


Group 23 -

ammonium carbamate, [|hydroxycitronellal
]

Group 24 -

1,4-Bis(diphenylphosphino)butane

Group 25 -

Potassium ethoxide

Group 26- Diisopropyl Methylphosphonate, 2-Butynediamide (Cellocidin), Glyceryl Hydroxystearate ,

Aminocarb

Group 28-Safrole, Anthranilic Acid, and phosphorus pentachloride

Group 29- ethyl bromodifluoroacetate

5-Bromouridine

propionate/propanoate

? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.131.80.19 (talk) 15:42, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

It might be helpful if you actually ask your question, but I'll try to answer anyway. Propionate and propanoate are synonyms. Propionate is a common name, propanoate is systematic nomenclature. ChemNerd (talk) 13:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)