User talk:Bmalbrecht

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Hello, Bmalbrecht, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Mark Arsten (talk) 02:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

FAC

You're running into obvious problems at FAC, but I don't want this to be an entirely negative experience for you. Although you know your stuff, you have probably realised that's not enough on its own to get a featured article star. Now, I know enough chemistry to follow your article, and I have a good deal of experience in both writing and reviewing FAs.

What I'm suggesting is that you withdraw your article for now, and I help you with the presentation and MoS stuff, either by prose suggestions, peer review or copy-editing. There is a mass of good stuff in the article, and it would be a pity if it didn't end up eventually as a FA. There are many technical articles at FA, the trick is pitching the content in the right way.

Anyway, there's no obligation, but the offer is there if you want to take it up (although I'd understand if you decided that you wanted nothing more to do with FAC and its dreadful reviewers) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:30, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd be pleased to have your help. The FA process, while not gentle, has actually been useful in that it was otherwise very difficult to draw criticism. I'm currently planning to revamp the lead and add in that heterogeneous section. If you think I should withdraw the article in the meantime, I can do so though I don't mind drawing fire. Bmalbrecht (talk) 15:48, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I've posted the new lead below. What do you think? I've minimized referencing and kept to secondary sources (though I continue to dislike the idea of doing that in general, I am willing to concede it for the lead). I also tried to keep the language both accurate (and therefore suitable to the chemical community) and reasonably approachable (at least to anyone with enough knowledge to be interested in the first place). If you like it, I'll add it in and set up the hyperlinks. Bmalbrecht (talk) 16:44, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I will also add images, approval pending Bmalbrecht (talk) 16:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Owing to some degree of silence, I decided to go ahead and upload it to the page. We can always revert if need be. Bmalbrecht (talk) 22:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to have appeared to ignore your replies above, I don't normally watch talk pages where I leave messages, so it was only your message on my talk that galvanised me into action. If you want to keep discussions in one place, use the {{Talkback|username}} or {{Talkback|username|section|ts = ~~~~~}} templates to let me know (the second template points to the appropriate section heading on your page and adds a timestamp). I'll have look as soon as I get a chance. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:36, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I've added comments to the bottom of your sandboxed lead, the general thrust of which is to make the lead much more user-friendly and not to dive straight in to difficult science. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Ooops, my bad. I'm a bit tied up until Friday now, but I'll have a look then or before if I get time Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've had a look at the lead section, and I still think the same general points apply. Your opening paragraph is a bit daunting, I'd be inclined to to start off with an introductory sentence rather like that I put in my comments, to give a bit more of a human feel, give some examples of important products that are made by the process, and say that work in this area led to the Nobel prize.

Then you could give a version of your current para 1, followed by the history para (but link the two rare metals and Parkinson's).

If you move the Nobel prize bit of your current para 3 to the introductory paragraph, you can leave the details of what they got it for to the main text. β-ketoesters, α,β-unsaturated carbonyls, and ketones themselves isn't helping your readers, especially as you haven't linked anything.

As I suggested before, an image or two would make this friendlier. Noyori has an image you can use. Even the Aldol reaction had a photo of some lab kit

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I commented at the asymmetric hydrogenation FAC

Hi Bmalbrecht, I wanted to let you know that I posted a series ofcomments at the FAC, which was closed shortly afterwards. I apologise if my comments were what led to the closure, as they were intended to help the article not to kill the FA candidature. I wanted to draw your attention to my comments so you were might consider them before you make another attempt at FA. You might want to consider going for GA first, it's an easier hurdle and I know it helped me to prepare for the FA run for rhodocene. Regards, EdChem (talk) 02:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• I saw the comments, thanks. Don't worry about the FA closure, it was facing pretty fierce headwinds anyway. If you wanted to come back and check on it from time to time and toss in your input I would appreciate it. Regards, Bmalbrecht (talk) 19:00, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

More comments

I think the first two paras of the lead are OK, although the third is still too heavy. The key to getting this through FAC is getting the lead right, and I think we are two-thirds of the way there. Heterogeneous section looks OK. It's possible that your image might be taken as a chance to get in a pretty picture of peripheral relevance (I've been accused of that a couple of times, but that's something that can wait until FAC, and the Nyori pic could be used if necessary. If you can try to improve the readability of lead para 3, I think it might be worth my doing a peer review to see if there are any other significant issues that need to be addressed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:11, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Third para reads better, we can always fine tune later. Now, some referencing issues.

• The two last references, both books, need page number(s) for the relevant text. #87 needs a publisher and a publisher location. (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH ; Chichester : John Wiley 2010.) It looks a bit odd having a doi as well as an isbn for a book, but I'm not sure whether it's wrong
• You have a mixture of title case and sentence case for article titles, you need to be consistent, even if it means changing from the original
  1. 3, you don't need the acknowledgement bit. Also 1998–1998?
• It appears that all your references are to English-language texts. Is there nothing relevant published in other languages? It's always possible that you will get a speaker of German, Chinese or whatever reviewing this, so just as well to make sure there is nothing important that's been missed.

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:57, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, you could leave the case thing and see if it becomes an issue at FAC. If it does, you will have little option about fixing it then. There is a fair amount of leeway on referencing style, but consistency is often raised. For example, you don't have to have publisher locations for books, but if you do it for one, you must do it for all. Similarly, for initials you can have Smith, A. B. or Smith A B or Smith AB, but it must be consistent throughout Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Asymmetric hydrogenation

If you ever come back to Wikipedia, it would be a useful service if you could resubmit the artwork for asymmetric hydrogenation without any words. Wording could be put into captions but it gums up the presentation and limits the utility in other language Wiki's. Thanks, --Smokefoot (talk) 02:01, 17 June 2015 (UTC)