Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals

The discussion here concerns all parts of the Chemicals WikiProject, including the infoboxes, lists, standards, includes/excludes, tools, contributors, etc etc etc. Feel free to add your comments to any section here, or start a new topic. Older and closed discussions have been archived. Topics not specifically related to the Chemicals WikiProject would be better served at other wikipages. If you would like us to work on a specific substance please add to the WikiProject Chemistry requested articles list.

Status statistics

The worklist shows the actual work to be done to achieve the goals of the Chemicals wikiproject. The choice of important compounds articles to work on has been finalized in an earlier stage of the wikiproject (around mid 2005), and no further articles are added, although we remain open for strong suggestions on this talkpage. The work these days focuses on improving the articles, from Chem Stub all the way to Chem A-Class articles. The table below shows that progress.

Worklist status, all articles grouped
	2005								2006
Grade	Jun	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Oct
Template:Chem FA	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	3	3	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Template:Chem A-Class	27	30	29	30	25	24	26	25	25	25	25	28	28	28	28	28
Template:Chem B-Class	71	72	70	74	80	84	85	86	87	94	97	98	101	115	121	130
Template:Chem Start	112	103	106	111	115	131	167	179	178	178	187	194	199	199	197	190
Template:Chem Stub	97	98	106	122	120	130	94	82	82	77	65	54	46	32	32	29
unclassified	76	74	59	45	44	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
Total	385	379	372	384	386	371	375	375	375	378	378	378	378	378	382	381
percentage ≥Chem Start	55.1	54.6	55.6	56.5	57.5	65.0	74.9	78.1	78.1	79.6	82.8	86.0	87.8	91.5	91.6	92.3
weighted progress, %	42.2	42.7	43.8	45.2	45.2	50.4	53.1	54.0	54.1	55.0	56.0	57.0	57.8	59.7	60.0	60.8

The percentage ≥ Chem Start was indicative of the initial effort. Now that we are progressing to more advanced progress, the weighted progress indicator is used, calculated as (Unclass*0 + Stub*1 + Start*2 + B-Class*3 + A-Class*4 + FA*4) / (Articles*4). We are aiming for A-Class, and humbly not for FA.

graphical

Overall Chemistry+Chemicals statistics:

Chemistry articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	1	3	5	5			14
FL	1	1	1	1			4
A				1			1
GA	3	12	19	27			61
B	26	109	198	197		6	536
C	41	226	718	1,382		41	2,408
Start	6	195	1,118	3,840		109	5,268
Stub		2	335	2,779		53	3,169
List	3	6	49	230	12	31	331
Category			1	1	2,252		2,254
Disambig		1		1	60		62
File					60		60
Portal					85		85
Project				1	38		39
Redirect		9	77	198	1,492		1,776
Template				1	653		654
NA				2	2		4
Other					101		101
Assessed	81	564	2,521	8,666	4,755	240	16,827
Unassessed			1	5		178	184
Total	81	564	2,522	8,671	4,755	418	17,011
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 56,723			Ω = 4.95

Templates and assessment lists

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

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

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

I have a few questions for the project:

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, the Chemicals template is an example of me being BOLD, if rather ineffectively :) The idea was to provide publicity for WP:Chem (which is, at the moment chemicals, and not chemistry).

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

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

I agree with Wim that it is a little bit of a nuisance having to click open the article discussion page to add/change the assessment, though normally you will just have read the article so you'll be close by. There may be some way of making it simpler/faster eventually. Regarding the importance, I simply put some of these in myself to test out the table - if you disagree with any of them please feel free to edit away. I tried to be objective, even though I was tempted to put dysprosium chloride as "Top-Class"! Also, please add in values where none exist at present. The "importance" will be used to help decide what goes in and what gets left out with limited-size releases. Thanks for the encouragement, we would like to see this system adopted by WikiProjects right across Wikipedia. Already Military History, Music Genres and Tropical Cyclones have been involved with the test, and are likely to adopt the system, so we probably have close to 2000 articles just there! We will start contacting other WikiProjects soon. Thanks! Walkerma 04:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

C2O

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

Dear friend than look at C3O2, another of the famous suboxides of carbon. They appeare in flames and in Mass spectrometry sometime and have no importance for people outside chemistry.--Stone 18:10, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. If nobody asked the article would have stayed the way for ever. Now have a look at both articles and everything will be clear!--Stone 19:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Stone. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 19:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Changing formula

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

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

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

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

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

• Support. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:24, 14 May 2006 (UTC).

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

Chemical awareness

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

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

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

Tetramethylammonium hydroxide

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

Same user (User:Sarosh) worked on TMAH (as acronym for Tetramethylammonium hydroxide). I would say, move it to 'requested pages' .. --Dirk Beetstra 21:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'm glad you see it similary to me. I moved it to out of scope documents. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC).

Structural formulas

I was wondering, why don't we add structural formulas to the {{chembox}} template as an optional parameter? I think it would be a great addition and programs such as ChemSketch (freeware) make it very fast and simple. —Mets501^talk 03:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you thinking of including a comment that suggests the use of a structure, especially for organics? We usually do include a structure for organics, but it's not explicitly mentioned - is this what you are referring to? Your suggestion sounds reasonable to me. You might also be interested in some of our recent discussions on structure drawing protocols, please join us! Thanks, Walkerma 04:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link! —Mets501^talk 20:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The optional parameter you are looking for is ImageFile: it can only be used in the main part of {{chembox}}, not in the sections. There is also a second paraeter, ImageSize, for images where the 200px default is inappropriate. Physchim62 (talk) 06:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Merging anions with their conjugate acids

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

I think it's a good idea. Separate articles in most cases just won't make sense. (I suspect though that many of them will return to stubs from redirects not long after you merge them.) --Ed (Edgar181) 10:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

We went round and round about a similar topic on hydrobromic acid vs HBr and decided against the merger. HBr and hydrobromic are a lot more similar than are conjugate anions and their parent acids, which are even more distinct chemical entities. A major challenge is that the mergers, e.g. Phosphite and Phosphorous acid require a highly knowledgable chemist, or the simple merge would yield a lot of redundancies. Also some anions, [BPh4]- being a one, do not have a conjugate acid. Finally, in favor of the mergers, species like phosphoric acid consist of three conjugate acids - do we want separare articles on [H2PO4]- and [HPO4]-? My recommendation would be to merge but to religiously include a subsection in each article on the conjugate anion.--Smokefoot 13:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I think those are good arguments against merging the examples you've noted. When it comes to carboxylate anions/carboxylic acids, it seems to me that as encyclopedia topics, they are quite inseparable - you really can't fully describe one without describing the other. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I concur with above thoughts. I would recommend merging stubby anions with their conjugate acid, and making the stubby anion page a redirect to the conjugate acid (or vice versa, and maybe also the other way around, acids with their conjugate base), there are many anions which do not have 'a life of their own'. I think Decanoate is a good example in favour of merging with Decanoic acid, it is not a 'common utility' or special reagent. But hydroxide, triflate, the weakly coordinating anions ([BPh4]-, [BF4]-, [B(C6F5)4]- etc.) more deserve an own page, either because of their specific relevance as an anion, or because the conjugate acid is not known or not of specific use (in these cases, a redirect from the conjugate acid to the base would be in place). Although I can not think of any specific examples at the moment, does this same discussion go for acids with their conjugate bases?

Is there a page with a full list of acids, with their conjugate base, and bases, with their conjugate acid, e.g. sorted by pH (the list could also contain some other usefull data, e.g. buffer-properties in H2O)? (I do not mean the categories, but more a list-page like 2006). The page might be handy (for chemists) anyway, and could be used in the merge-process. --Dirk Beetstra 14:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I like Dirk's middle line - we don't need (IMHO) separate articles for decanoate and decanoic acid, but we do need separate articles for HCl and chloride. Indeed, we have listed some common ions as part of the worklist at WP:Chemistry, though many articles are very short at the moment. I don't know of a listing, unfortunately. Walkerma 16:14, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The line I have usually taken is to include conjugate bases in the acid article for organic acids (exception: acetate), but to have seperate articles for inorganic anions. The logic is that salts of inorganic anions often have a distinct chemistry which can be usefully summarized in an article, whereas the relationship between the chemistry of organic anions and organic acids is fairly regular. However,I would hardly object if anyone merged selenate and selenic acid, for example, or decided to keep formate as a seperate article! Physchim62 (talk) 08:41, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Peer review of Alkane

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

Downgrading Propionic acid

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

property list vs datapage

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

My preference would be to have a little more data on the front page (common synonyms, abbreviations, CAS number) than what currently exists at glycine. If the infobox is not large relative to the amount of article text, there shouldn't be a need to move data to a separate data page. Although, I really like the layout of the amino acid data pages. --Ed (Edgar181) 12:36, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

This is not at all the way the data page was supposed to work! It was supposed to be an overflow because the old standard template was getting to be half a mile long. Take a look at toluene, that represents the way the system was supposed to work. I think this was someone's test of a new format for the data page that got forgotten about halfway through. I really like the format of the data page, and indeed I would support making something like this standard for data pages, but I agree strongly that the main information should be right there on the main page, in a full-sized chembox. Can someone who isn't sinking in a sea of Wikipedia 0.5 nominations (i.e., not me!) please fix this? Thanks, Walkerma 16:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

After looking around a bit, I see that Boris has made similar changes to a bunch of the amino acid articles. I've invited him here to comment. --Ed (Edgar181) 18:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Full infoboxes are cool (i'm not talking about the one i've created but in general), i love them, they provide very quick reference to the most important characteristics of the article's subject, but the big ones take too much text-space in the main article and i don't like that. Here on wiki, there are 3 things that:

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

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

Maintenance

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

Per Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, I don't think this should go into the article space, but on the talk pages. Femto 15:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

What part of it is the "self-reference" one? -- Boris 17:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The WikiProjects and their talk pages are Wikipedia-related meta-information that is not part of the encyclopedic content. Femto 17:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, i can easily make two templates one for the "article" page that puts it into the article class categories of the projects, and another one for the "talk" page that says who's maintaining it and does not puts it into the categories the way the current {{Chemistry}} does. Althoug it is easier to have all this done by single template, plus this way we'll have to make 50% less edits. -- Boris 18:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

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

Wim, first the template i've created can be used by anyone not just WP:Chemistry. Second, as i said i don't like when talk pages get added into categories - it's dumb - and that's what {{chemistry}} does when called from a talk page. And third, i'll change it so there will not be any references to the projects. But following you logic guys we have to clear all the stub and categories references b/c they are considerred "self-references" too. Funny, ain't it? -- Boris 06:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

At WP:1.0 we are coordinating a lot of these types of templates, which all use the bot, see the eclectic index of subjects covered. All of these projects put their templates and assessments on talk pages. I agree with a lot of your sentiments, I would love to see something like your template discreetly on the page, but we have to work with Wikipedia policy, which says that this info goes on talk pages. The idea of a multi-project template is very interesting, we are wrestling with similar issues at WP1.0. Meanwhile, you should take a look at Template:V0.5, which has some neat features. Oleg is soon going to adapt the bot to read "Importance" as a parameter too, if needed, though in our area the importance is a pretty static thing over time (Will HCl become less important? I doubt it.). Thanks, Boris! Walkerma 07:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

(moved new contribution to the bottom of the page. --Dirk Beetstra 17:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC))

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

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

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

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

Questions:

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

Lpatiny 05:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

No. While the polite request is appreciated, we don't do these deals. Wikipedia is about content in articles, not in links. If an independent editor used your page as reference, they may cite it. Mass additions of links, especially by a company, are not appropriate. Femto 14:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Some of the editors like myself add links to databases such as PubChem, OMIM, Entrez, Gene, UniProt, etc. anyway, why not to another database plus they are going to spoil "us" (which in this case is anyone who uses "Wikipedia") by customizing it for "Wikipedia". I'm sure some of the admins in this project will be able to guide you as how this can be done. I would hate to see "pop-up" windows after clicking the links though. -- Boris 18:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

There are already Google ads. Why not pop-ups too, if they would help to financially support Wikipedia? Wait, they wouldn't... Femto 10:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The admins in this project will guide you just the same to the external links policies, regarding what Wikipedia is not, and to reasonings "why not" just have another link (no offense by the 'spammer' link title). The pivotal goal is to create content here, not to lead away from it elsewhere. Even customized pages are way too low a bargain to let a commercial entity add its own links and benefit from WP traffic.

Chemical supplier catalogs should be only a secondary data reference for WP in any case. If you feel that having several additional links to chemical registries is always better for the articles, we might consider a CAS#-based extension similar to the existing ISBN and PMID and include ChemExper there. Femto 20:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Who's this "We" you keep mentioning? Femto, you've ever heard of the word "colaboration"? This is just the beginning, man. Look at the bigger picture - one day ther isn't going to be "wikipedia" or "chemexper", but just one big online "database" where EVERYTHING, that Homo s. has ever created and converted into 1s and 0s, is structured, organized and easy to find. I'd be more than happy to know that it all started on this talk page. Lpatiny, you people need to go and talk to the CEO, we are just mashine operators here. -- Boris 05:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I suppose the CEO will be even more opposed to selling out to external content. Femto 10:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Selling out?!? -- Boris 00:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOT policy: "Wikipedia does not endorse any businesses and it does not set up affiliate programs." A company asking to provide external content in exchange for links is out of the question. Femto 14:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Femto I guess that you know that ChemExper does not sell any chemicals but only compiles and provide chemical information that is submitted to us for free and that our database contains over 750000 compounds. We provide information and not only a list of chemical suppliers like bp, mp, IR (over 10000 infrared in which you can zoom in thanks to a unique applet), over 70000 3d models, 1000 NMR spectra ...) We don't make any money with this because we don't sell anything except maybe the google advertisement that is in the bottom of the pages and the fact that our company may be more known. Back in 1995 we had the first substructure search engine based on an applet on the internet. It seems to me interesting that there is a direct link to more information is interesting for Wikipedia users as you do currently for MSDS but I understand well that wikipedia is controlled by a small group of users that may not share this point of view. Lpatiny 20:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikichem Supplier Links

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

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

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

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

Best regards

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

Dirk, I'm at a conference this week and it may be hard for me to do a lot, but please feel free to copy over things I've written on this topic to relevant pages (just say where you got them from) if this helps. I'll try and give my 2 cents when I get a chance. Walkerma 16:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

OK Martin, thanks. But for now I will redirect all people here where possible (I guess this is the right place for this discussion), and start to repair wrong links where 213.188.227.119 has shown there is a clear problem. There is a truth in the remarks of 213.188.227.119, though I (almost totally) disagree with his reasoning. For now I think the best thing would be to remove the header 'suppliers' and merge the links into 'external links' or even 'references', or to rename it to 'external links to suppliers'. Moving to 'references' would be my option, it is why they were there in the first place. But I will refrain from further answering and leave the discussion now to people who have not yet taken part in this discussion, I'd really like to hear more from others (the subject above is related). --Dirk Beetstra 16:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

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

Aluminium chloride

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

I have seen more of these, and I recall that I have moved one or two vanadium compounds to a 'vanadium(#) anionide' page, making the old one a redirect. I support these type of moves, I think they are more correct, even if it is not the common name, it takes away some ambiguity (if you ask for scandiumchloride, everybody will give you ScCl3, but ScCl does exist, so the proper name of ScCl3 is scandium(III) chloride, and I would argue in favour of that even if there are no other chlorides known). --Dirk Beetstra 07:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Giving this a second thought. Scandium chloride redirects to Scandium(III) chloride, which is correct to my feeling, if someone wants to set up Scandium(I) chloride it is OK with me, but that is not common. But now for Vanadium chloride, that could redirect to Vanadium(II) chloride, Vanadium(III) chloride or Vanadium(IV) chloride (I don't know if Vanadium(I) chloride is stable), should Vanadium chloride become a disambiguation page?? It could state all 5 vanadium chlorides, saying that VCl5 does not exist, and give links to the ones that do exist. --Dirk Beetstra 07:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

If one of the chemical compounds is much more common than the others, I think it's safe to have it sit at the title with no number in parentheses. An {{otheruses}} tag can then direct interested readers to the less common compound. If the compounds are of comparable interest, a disambiguation page would be the best solution. I think Dirk's suggestion for a vanadium chloride disambiguation page is a good one, so I went ahead and created it. There shouldn't be any "metal(#) anionide" pages that exist without some kind of "metal anionide" page directing to it (either as a redirect or as a disambig page).--Ed (Edgar181) 09:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Seems OK with me, though I would just standardize, use the name "metal(#) anionide" .. I could think of moments where it would be useful, e.g. if I would try to find something about Palladium(II), I would just open up Google, and search for Palladium(II) inurl:en.wikipedia, I would miss some when they are not properly named, and I would have extra work when I would also have to go through Palladium inurl:en.wikipedia (see which ones were Pd(II)). --Dirk Beetstra 10:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

We have a few such disambiguation pages in nonmetal chemistry: nitrogen oxide springs to mind. However, I'm a little wary of going all out for Stock nomenclature:

1. even for metal compounds, the compositional name can be by far the most commonly used, eg titanium tetrachloride.
2. mixed oxidation numbers are rare in halides, but how would we extend this to oxides? sulfides? I'm not even sure at what title our article on magnetite is sitting at present!
3. purists of IUPAC nomenclature will point out that Stock nomenclature is not IUPAC. I am not such a purist, but I have discussions with them from time to time ;)

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

OK, I will leave it at the choice of the creator (except when dispute arises, e.g. when someone would have made 'Vanadium chloride' the page for 'vanadium trichloride' or 'vanadium(III) chloride', then I would have moved the former to one of the latter, making the first a redirect or disambig. I will make redirect/disambig pages where I think they are appropriate and when I encounter them, pages can be renamed later when need exists. --Dirk Beetstra 08:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

My preference (and incidentally, I was the "creator" in this case) would be to leave this at aluminium chloride, since this is the established name. A quick Google search establishes that a ratio for the chloride:trichloride:Stock in this case is roughly 1000:6:1, pretty clear I think! We can add a note mentioning AlCl to this page once we get around to writing a page on aluminium(I) chloride. Incidentally, I once took a sample multiple choice quiz from a major gen chem book publisher, and they asked, "What is the correct name for Al2O3?" I answered "aluminum(III) oxide" (note that the IUPAC spelling wasn't even offered!) and got it "wrong" (the only correct answer was aluminium oxide). I phoned the book's author, saying I would accept either answer as correct, and she apologised, explaining that she didn't write those quiz problems! Now you see why I don't like "canned" quizzes too much!

Guess that a 'see also' remark on top of such pages would solve this type of ambiguity (even if the other page does not exist, yet). --Dirk Beetstra 15:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, I don't have Greenwood & Earnshaw right now, but can you folks see what happened at germanium tetrachloride it got renamed recently as germanium chloride. I thought GeCl2 was known, at least I've heard of salts like CsGeCl3. Am I right? Thanks, Walkerma 14:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Moved it back to Germanium tetrachloride, and made Germanium chloride into a disambiguation, there is info on the internet on GeCl2, could not find a supplier this fast (not in Strem, Alfa Aesar or Acros), but did not look very hard. Some of the suppliers do sell GeI2. Guess this is the right solution. --Dirk Beetstra 15:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Definitely the right thing to do. Germanium dichloride is listed by WebElements as a white crystalline solid which decomposes (disproportionates) on heating, CAS# [10060-11-4]. Physchim62 (talk) 15:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

pyrowiki.com

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

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

There is additional discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

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

Hello

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

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

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

Images in {{OrganicBox small}}

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

Bridge

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

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

created some links to (non existent) bridge (chemical), hope someone will pick it up. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

NFPA 704 Images Deletion

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

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

NFPA 704 safety square
4 2 2

Uses only 1 image, takes up much less.

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

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

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

Absolutely disagree. Wikipedia is not short of 6K of memory, thank God! The server use involved in any change would be a little more significant, but still nothing more than we're used to. The SVG images seem to have a little teething trouble, but nothing that can't be fixed. Let's not change things just for the sake of changing them! Physchim62 (talk) 11:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC) (admin, for what concerns comments about WP administration)

Overruled. I have take it upon myself to remove all remaining transclusions of the old three-picture diamond template. --  Denelson83  08:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Wikipedia Developers

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

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

ChemSources

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

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

Front page

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

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

The actual page

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

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

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

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

---

Looks great to me! I wouldn't know how to set it up, though. Walkerma 16:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Me neither (that is, I can probably pick up how to write the php-script for it, but implementing ..). I have been looking around on the developers forum, but it seems not too easy to get things hardcoded into Wikipedia, except when there is someone within chemistry who is already capable of doing that. Where would be a good place to post a request to find a chemist that would have that capability (or does someone know someone who could help here)? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Getting a bit further, the page Special:Booksources has a master copy at Wikipedia:Book sources, that page contains a code 'MAGICNUMBER'. The Special:Booksources loads the page Wikipedia:Book sources, replacing every occasion of MAGICNUMBER with the ISBN that it is fed. So all we need is a 'copy' (or maybe .. more than one, depending how these things are coded) of Special:Booksources that does not load Book sources, but Wikipedia:Chemical sources (I have been so free to make a page that could contain the full list in time, please add things there). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

We've got to get hold of a developer who implements us a SpecialChemicalsources.php similar to the existing SpecialBooksources.php which will get executed each time Special:Chemicalsources is accessed. (er, the php gets executed, not the developer... no idea where to find one either) It should be technically straightforward expanding it to replace several variables instead of one, then the page can be invoked like [[Special:ChemicalSources&CAS=64-17-5&InChI='1/C2H6O/c1-2-3/h3H,2H2,1H3'&Formula='C2H6O']] and links can pick what data they need from a set of MAGICNUMBERCAS MAGICNUMBERINCHI MAGICNUMBERFORMULA. Femto 12:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I posted a message on Wikipedia Talk:ISBN, I hope one of the programmers of the ISBN pages is willing to help us. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have posted a patch to the Mediawiki site, proposing implementation of a Special:Chemicalsources page. I have it running locally, works as a charm (and I already find it useful to myself). The patch can be found here. I hope it gets implemented soon. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

A little clash with the way the drugs are named

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

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

CAS Information Usage Policy

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

I am not a lawyer, but these policies appear to represent an agreement between the American Chemical Society and authorized users of the CAS database, which Wikimedia is not. Wikimedia's use of intellectual property is governed by statutes, not by contracts. Shimmin 22:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

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

---

Among the relevant sections from the CAS policy statement are

These Policies apply to all forms of CAS information unless the licenses for CAS products provide otherwise. These Policies are subject to change at the discretion of CAS. CAS information is copyrighted by the American Chemical Society (ACS). All rights reserved. CAS' mission is to be the world leader in disseminating chemical and related scientific information.

These Policies define appropriate and inappropriate uses of information and apply to all forms of distribution (printed, electronic, CD, and other media). These Policies are meant to be read in their entirety, not taken individually out of the context of the other points. Search results delivered in computer-readable form remain the property of CAS. Recipient shall obtain CAS' specific written permission for any uses of computer-readable search results other than those listed under Authorized Use of CAS Information.

These Policies apply to scientists, engineers, librarians, information professionals, and others working in their organization that either search and retrieve information or ultimately consume the information.

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

CASRN or CAS Registry Number®: a unique numerical identifier created and assigned to a chemical substance by CAS.

and

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

Shimmin 19:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Round-bottom flask

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

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

Ammonia

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

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

Phosphoric acid expanded

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

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

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

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

PT Phase diagram

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

yes, sure. Go ahead. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC).

greate :D now does anyone know any good site for that?

Spelling

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

It's not a purely British recommendation, the American sulfur is used as well. http://www.iupac.org/reports/provisional/abstract04/connelly_310804.html Table I lists the IUPAC-approved names for use in the English language. Note here that alternative spellings in common use are explicitly designated as such, in the same way as alternative names are. It's necessarily a mishmash because it tries to fit all needs, but it's a recommendation for one internationally standardized English spelling nonetheless. Femto 13:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I agree. It seems to me that table is saying that the name for atomic element 13 is "aluminium" and another acceptable spelling is "aluminum." It doesn't explicitly say one is preferred over the other. I did a search over at J Phys Chem A (picked at random), and aluminum beats aluminium more than ten to one. I tried searching at ScienceDirect, but that search engine corrects for the spelling and returns the same article count each time.

My point is that going around changing articles to reflect this "international spelling" is contradictory to what WP's guidelines have always reflected. When there is more than one legitimate spelling, leave the original one in place. eaolson 16:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

What a surprise, that most authors in an American journal are using the usual American spelling! No doubt you could find older issues using columbium, preferred 10:1? The chemistry community on Wikipedia has had a clear policy on this since before I began editing, based on megabytes of discussion (now archived), and all of the active chemistry folks stick to it whatever their nationality. We don't want to spend hours revisiting this divisive issue, we want to write articles. The rules are simple, let's just stick with them:

• Sulfur for S
• Aluminium for Al
• Caesium for Cs Walkerma 17:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I did try to search European journals, as I said, but had no luck. And I have no doubt that there are older artices referring to columbium and wolfram. That's why this IUPAC document says these should be referred to as niobium and tungsten, instead. It does not say that the "aluminium" spelling is preferred to the "aluminum" spelling. I have no problem with a standard spelling (and, frankly, think WP should just pick a standard spelling for multi-spelled words, but it doesn't). My point is that this policy is attempting to use the IUPAC document to support a "standard international spelling" when that's not what the document says.

This is hardly a settled issue. There is a lot of vitriol over at Talk:Aluminium/Spelling, but no resolution. There is a poll going on right now about whether to move the article. eaolson 21:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I admit I'm not a chemist, don't have access to original publications, or know offhand where to find more concrete recommendations online. For some circumstantial evidence see this document http://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/1997/july/provisional.pdf stating that IUPAC (1990), as well as the (British) Royal Society of Chemistry (1992), adpoted "sulfur" as 'the' correct spelling for that element. Femto 12:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Hyaline oxide

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

No clue, gave it a wikipedia:chemical sources link, maybe more data turns up in time. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Now its on for deletion.Stone 14:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Periodic Table

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

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

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

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

Yes, you're right, I posted it there. —Mets501 (talk) 01:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Titanic acid

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

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

Analytical Chemistry

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

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

Chemical Sources

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

Aluminium battery

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

Organic compound stubs split

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

User:Bluebot is at the moment running a run where it removes stub-marks on a massive scale, I am not sure how 'he' decides, but I am up till now agreeing on all the edits I checked. But it may thwart your figures. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

If it depopulates the category below 800, then better still, it thwarts the need. If not, I can re-run after the next db dump and update the numbers. Alai 18:18, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Though given that there's over half a million stubs in total, I can give you a fairly statistically sound estimate of the likely effect of this right now (unless organic compound stubs are more prone to non-stubby stub tags than is the norm). Alai 18:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

You are right, did not see it that way. And no, I don't think that substances will be more prone to non-stubby-behaviour, the opposite, I think.

I guess we will have to come up with a way of splitting the organic compound stubs (I counted 881), I have seen your proposal, and I have made another one on that page now. Can you tell me what you think of it (and maybe some other chemists as well). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Chemistry templates

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

Cheers, looks good! May I add a suggestion. Now when one uses the template, it will make all the occurences of C in a page be a link to carbon, this is against the wikipedia regulations. Would it be possible to code somethings like a 'nolink' parameter, that switches between a linked and not linked version? By the way, I would love a {{ChemicalFormula}} template, which would convert {{subst:ChemicalFormula|CH3CH2CH2CH3}} into "Template:CarbonTemplate:HydrogenTemplate:CarbonTemplate:HydrogenTemplate:CarbonTemplate:HydrogenTemplate:CarbonTemplate:Hydrogen" (in stead of having to type {{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|3}}{{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|2}}{{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|2}}{{Carbon}}{{Hydrogen|3}}), but that may be quite a difficult task (I don't know if templates can take string-handling and programming). This is at least better than having to insert all the sub and /sub's. Cheers again! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a nice template, but I've never been a fan of links to elements from formulae - partly for the reason Dirk mentions, but also because I think the example above should normally like to butane, not to carbon and hydrogen. If you have a page like Baden-Powell House, you don't keep linking to brick! I think the only appropriate place for such links is in the intro to the compound itself, on its own page: "Butane is a compound of carbon and hydrogen" of formula {{{CF}}}. All other links from formulae should be to compounds, not elements: "burning to give CO₂ and H₂O." If someone reading an article generally doesn't understand the formulae after the intro (except with obscure elements), the formulae are meaningless anyway. Walkerma 14:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense, I concur with Martin. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Utterly. We have an article chemical formula which explains what these symbols mean, I really do not see the need to link elements in formula except in exceptional cases (modified isotopes, maybe). I have been known to remove these links when I'm in a really bad mood, I do not wish to encourage them. Physchim62 (talk) 13:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, easily solved, make sure the result of the template is not a link, tadaa! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Tagging elements with the template

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

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

Possible Addition to Info Box

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

I can see why this appeals, but I think as a piece of information that people would want to look up I think it's limited. First, when doing chemistry in the lab it is of little value - my students always want the molar mass for their calculations. Also, for a molecule like tri-n-Butylstannane, tin has ten common isotopes, carbon has two, even ignoring deuterium that would give 10 x (12 x 2) = 240 monoisotopic masses, of which at least 20 or so would be common. If you want to add this into the compounds data pages for some compounds, though, I think that might be helpful for some simple molecules. Walkerma 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Always worth considering the contents of the ChemBox. But like Walkerma, I work in the real world (the earthly one that is) of mixed isotopes. Also from the PR point of view, WE would lose credibility. However, for those species that are popular for single molecule analysis, one could still insert such data in the "related compounds" slot.--Smokefoot 03:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Would it be worth considering to put in the 'main isotope'-MW .. that is, the peak that is 100% in a mass-spec? By the way, I saw there is a {{chembox new}}? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I guess I could have been more clear. I was simply suggesting more what Dirk Beetstra suggested. I was not suggesting an isotopic distribution of all possible isotopic combinations, simply the mass based on the most common isotopes (This actually differs from what Dirk Beetstra suggests). In other words C==12 always, H=1.0079 always etc. I know there are some ~50:50 isotopic ratios out there in which case you choose the lighter isotope. I know this isn't very useful to undergrads in a practical sense but it is very useful to chemists who always observe isotopes separately such as in spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. I think it is important for students to understand that isotopes are fully resolvable and do indeed have different behaviors and activities. One of the most important features of the MW is the number of significant figures. This comes directly from the variation in isotopic distributions found on earth not from inaccuracies in measruing any particular quantity. Different elements have greater variablity in their isotopic distributions than others.--Nick Y. 16:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't a better approach be to place a simulated molecular ion cluster as an image in the article with a text explanation for those cases where such things are interesting (bromoform, for example, or choroform for that matter). With all respect, I cannot think of a single instance where I have wanted to know "hell, what is the monoisotopic mass of this molecule?", even having worked with labelled compounds... Physchim62 (talk) 13:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

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

Caffeine

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

Coenzyme A

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

Petermr 17:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Improvement tags

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

Wikipedia is for the general public and it has to be accessible to the general public. The only tagging I did was to mark it as uncategorized, which it was, marked it as a stub, which it was and marked it for wikification which it needed. If templates are doing all the work, then there is no need for the article stub, jsut redirect the article to an article with a set of chemical diagrams of all the chemicals in the template! All the other tagging was done by others. --- Skapur 19:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of marking the articles is to invite others to add and improve. It is NOT an act of supervision but a request for help! --- Skapur 19:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed BorisTM, first of all, the tags are there for quite some time, and they have their reason. I could live with the removal of the wikify-tag, which does not realy add, there is not much to wikify in the article, but the importance tag is there with the reason that the page does not state why it is important (why should people care about Bimatoprost?), and yes, it is a stub, there is just next-to-nothing in the article (it does not state much of properties, no importance, no uses). And people add those tags because they don't have the knowledge to further improve the article, and hope that others will. Apparently you use the page quite often (seen it makes your eyes itch), I have the feeling you know more about the compound, that you could share. Oh, I moved them back to the top, sorry, policy-thing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

No, i don't use it quite offen. -- Boris 10:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Often it seems that one article could be significantly improved (with content) for about the same energy requred to tag 10 articles, and the result would be more lasting and more beneficial to WE and its readership, it seems.--Smokefoot 20:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. -- Boris 10:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

New stub categories

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

Stile Guide for creating 3D graphics

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

I have added on my page a simple guide on how to create (hopefully) professional looking 3D images of molecules using QuteMol.

The guide is available at MakingMoleculeImages, and it explains step by step how i created the images in the below styles:

• 
• 

If someone will find the guide useful i will expand it, trying to better explain when and how to customize the high quality rendering effects of QuteMol to further improve the produced images.

ALoopingIcon 09:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Nfpa

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

Articles for deletion

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

Someone running a local wikipedia?

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

Why not ask the Jmol Wiki folks? They might be interested. --Bduke 13:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Did not know Jmol, but don't think it is the same. I am doing this for the wikipedia (and well, others that might be interested, like Jmol). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I have a wiki set up on campus, using Wikimedia software, with limited password-only access. I hope to open this up to the general public once it is fully set up (probably next year), but I'd be happy to let you use it, Dirk. The wiki is at [www.wikichem.org www.wikichem.org], and I set it up to (a) create a chemistry community around specific topics, and (b) create educational material that does not fit into Wikipedia. I'll let folks here know once it's open to all. Walkerma 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if this will help, but you can also look at the wikipedia test site. Walkerma 17:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Re:testsite: there are some pages there already (water, silenafil and toluene), but the test.wikipedia.org is a server which runs a version just in front of the en.wikipedia.org. I am trying to get things enabled there, now. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Water (data page) and worklist listing

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

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

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

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

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

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

Naming policies

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

I don't know the policy here at wikipedia but I would assume that these are likely exceptions. These older names are still nearly universally used for these very common salts. Similar to the formates (e.g. sodium formate) and acetates they are just too common and ubiquitous to change name quickly.--Nick Y. 20:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Formate and acetate are easier because those are the preferred IUPAC names. The bicarb example is more difficult to judge, I think, I could go along with either. For our naming policies, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines. Walkerma 21:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of what the policies are, a quick look at the organic compounds listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/AlphabeticalList will show that most Wikipedia articles use non-IUPAC names. So the bicarbonate names aren't out of place.--Ed (Edgar181) 22:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

bicarbonate and other similar names are non-IUPAC because they cause problems in French (and possibly other languages as well) and IUPAC names should be simply translatable. Their use on English Wikipedia should be a question of consensus (they are, of course, very widely used). My vote is Keep, but I would like to see the comments of other chemists. Physchim62 (talk) 12:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Keep bicarbonates. In the english language it is near universally used. We shouldn't be a trend setter there.--Nick Y. 18:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Keep for now as deeply entrenched traditional names: in both the Aldrich and Acros catalogs, sodium bicarbonate is used as the keyword, with sodium hydrogen carbonate listed as a synonym. Shimmin 23:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Special:Chemicalsources

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

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

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

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