Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals

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Requested move for Alpha hydroxy acid[edit]

An editor has requested for Alpha hydroxy acid to be moved to another page. Since you had some involvement with Alpha hydroxy acid, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so).

Creation of missing chemical articles - importance[edit]

It doesn't seem immediately relevant to the worklist, but there are a lot of chemicals relevant to lab and industry that do not have articles yet. I asked about this in the teahouse since I didn't know where to go with it and was directed to the red links in List of insecticides, List of herbicides, and List of fungicides as a less overwhelming project than the huge scope of User:Graeme_Bartlett/missing_chemicals and one that is more likely to have a broader range of secondary sources. The list of missing chemicals directed me to Bromopentane from Amyl bromide, which has questionable usefulness compared to just creating articles for the few bromopentanes that exist and makes me wonder how many of these pseudo-disambiguation pages exist for different kinds of substituted alkanes... What approach should I take in cleaning up the missing chemicals, especially the simplersubstituted hydrocarbons? Reconrabbit (talk) 18:55, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, "there are a lot of chemicals relevant to lab and industry that do not have articles yet". There are a also lot of chemicals relevant to lab and industry that do have articles. Where did these articles come from? The predicament is this: the project has grand scope, pretty high standards, but few regular editors. These editors must curate a hefty flux of edits. The same handful of editors then must choose between improving what we have or creating new articles. We are also constrained by "notability" and reliability. So my point is that if you are suggesting that the Chemistry project is imperfect and incomplete, we know but we are proud of what we've produced.
A good way for you to start is to give us some detail of what is needed. Yours imperfectly, --Smokefoot (talk) 23:41, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize - I'm very new to all of this and have been (and continue to be) massively impressed with the pages that are here and how far reaching the scope is. I am not a subject matter expert - I tend not to spend too much time in any particular lab in my profession - but I would like to contribute to the project with the tools available. Many of the articles in the worklist have since been improved significantly since they were first listed, and I'm just looking to be pointed somewhere to start, whether it's adding Chemdraw images to pages without them or filling out the red links on the list of inorganic compounds. Reconrabbit (talk) 01:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you've just starting editing then I would suggest discreet small molecules to start with. They can be broken down into obvious sections (chembox, lead, synthesis, structure and properties, reactions etc) and cover all the key areas of editing. You could start from scratch or improve one of our stub articles - perhaps propyl gallate, that page is fairly basic but you've probably eaten some of it this week. I would stay clear of things like pesticides unless you have skills in understanding all of the toxicity issues, ditto medicines where we have very high standards for sources. We discourage people from citing their own work, but it is still good to start with what you know. Smokefoot is correct, our numbers are few, I would estimate the global pool of regular chem editors for the English language pages to be no more than 20. --Project Osprey (talk) 01:33, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are several backlogged queues of requests for chemical diagrams. Someone with chemical knowledge and a copy of ChemDraw could make a bunch of contributions without having to dedicate a large amount of time to lit research or learning too many subtle details of WP writing. DMacks (talk) 19:22, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I recall seeing that list of requested drawings but haven't been able to find it again. Do you have a link? It might be more helpful to start on the drawings that don't exist yet over the ones that just need to have a .SVG format. I previously had academic access to ChemDraw but don't know if it's still valid - using BIOVIA Draw right now. Reconrabbit (talk) 19:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They are tracked in several different places:
DMacks (talk) 19:48, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are established guidelines for drawing chemicals, so in theory the drawing package shouldn't matter too much wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Structure drawing--Project Osprey (talk) 22:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely true. Some are better/easier than others to actually implement that MOS. I only mentioned CD because it's one of the ones that's better at it (at a ridiculous cost!), and what Reconrabbit specifically mentioned in their original post. DMacks (talk) 22:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Reconrabbit I use BIOVIA Draw all the time, with Inkscape to convert its .emf image exports to .svg format. Ping me to your Talk Page if you have any issues doing the drawings. Note that our MOS linked by Project Osprey recommends using ACS document settings. My efforts are on Commons here. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:20, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Time to deprecate/kill ChemID?[edit]

{{ChemID}} is a CASNo lookup in the ChemIDplus database, which just appears to be PubChem. There are only a few dozen transclusions (Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:ChemID), all the articles being "chemical" or "drug" articles that would have pubchem ID in the infobox as standard. The ChemID is instead (from spot-checking) listed in External links, and I don't see the value of highlighting that reference (or leading readers to think it's something other than pubchem). Should we get rid of these uses, and then kill the template?

@Leyo: who created it (but obviously anyone is welcome to contribute to discussion!). DMacks (talk) 02:49, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's too bad that ChemIDplus was migrated into PubChem. In cases, where the template is just listed in the External links section, it may just be removed. However, it is also used as a reference to specific infobox values. In Hyaluronic_acid#cite_ref-ChemIDplus_1-0 for instance, the template could be replaced by a link to https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/3084049#section=Acute-Effects&fullscreen=true that contains the same information as originally the ChemIDplus entry. --Leyo 22:32, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I nuked the loose ExtLinks. DMacks (talk) 12:06, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All article-space fixed. DMacks (talk) 02:07, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Unfortunately, there are many more, just without that template: Special:Search/insource:chemidplus --Leyo 19:38, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Crikey, 162 in [mainspace articles alone:( DMacks (talk) 03:33, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know. I removed the (relatively few) occurrences in the External links section. --Leyo 20:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:ChemID[edit]

Template:ChemID has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. DMacks (talk) 13:31, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Alfa[edit]

This template also has a similar problem. The website is moved, and they have changed catalog numbers of chemicals. --Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 07:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

‎Category:Substances discovered in the 19th century[edit]

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Seems like questionable cat, in part because it will cover a lot of topics and in part because few really care. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

cover a lot of topics can presumably be solved by subcategorisation, and few really care does not seem like a policy we have? What about the other categories like Category:Substances discovered in the 20th century etc., created in 2018 by @Leiem? 1234qwer1234qwer4 15:05, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems a reasonable part of Category:Science by century. One could argue whether this is a defining characteristic of each substance. But it does seem like there is widespread (i.e., other fields of science) use of this overall tree, so I don't think chemistry should reject it on our own. If someone(s) care enough to maintain it, that's up to their use of their time. DMacks (talk) 05:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at 1,1'-Bis(diphenylphosphino)ferrocene[edit]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:1,1'-Bis(diphenylphosphino)ferrocene#Requested move 4 January 2024, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. DMacks (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC) DMacks (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Mitomycin#Requested move 31 December 2023[edit]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Mitomycin#Requested move 31 December 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. SkyWarrior 16:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maltodextrin[edit]

Maltodextrin is a topic likely difficult for the general reader to grasp readily, as the term refers to two different classes of food ingredient having the same name. Would appreciate chemistry editors giving this article a critical look with revisions as needed. Thanks. Zefr (talk) 19:37, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine#Requested move 13 February 2024[edit]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine#Requested move 13 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Bensci54 (talk) 20:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New student pages[edit]

Students enrolled of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology WikiEd program are starting to publish new articles on organometallic compounds. On the plus side, we at least get a list these days, and they're mostly restricting themselves to distinct small molecules. On the other hand, most of the compounds appear to be wildly exotic. Project Osprey (talk) 23:51, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think Douglas Adams would call these mostly harmless. They are also likely to be mostly unread. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These MIT-edited articles are now packed with minute details because that is their directive. One of the challenges to Wiki-chem, IMHO, is excess detail supported by numerous detailed references. For readers who seek an encyclopedic overview of a topic, such detail obscures the big picture. The MIT students used to add a lot of computational results, which are original research and should be removed.
There are other sets of homework assignments coming from UBC (undergrads!) and other schools. In none of these cases does the instructor have any track record of editing on Wikipedia. So, its the blind leading the blind. Yet, Wikipedia central (where ever that is) cheers on this crap. Oh well. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:42, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can we come up with a list of articles that we could ask them to write, something(s) that are notable? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:12, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've worked on list articles for fungicides, insecticides and herbicides, all with many redlinks which are virtually guaranteed to be notable. Not all need individual articles, since they fall into mode-of-action sets but that could be one place to point student editors. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:33, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I took a look at some articles produced under the same instructor's courses in the past - they're packed with sections based entirely off of primary research. I'm more concerned about the work on existing articles like phosphorus mononitride. Reconrabbit 22:09, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good for some, but our last class was organometallic chemistry; and an earlier one was main-group inorganics, so can we find anything in scope that is important? I suppose it could be to expand a section in an existing article.Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Found in taxon in infobox[edit]

Hi, s already tried some time ago, I think including "found in taxon" in the infobox would be valuable.

For more details:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Chembox#Relaunch_%22found_in_taxon%22 and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals/Archive_2022#Add_a_%60found_in_taxon%60_statement_from_Wikidata_in_the_chemical_infobox AdrianoRutz (talk) 06:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Writing articles about Sulfites[edit]

Hello WikiProject Chemicals! I'll save my introduction for another time, but anyways. I'm writing a draft on Cadmium sulfite, and as I write my first article regarding a chemical, cadmium sulfite is not a big deal in the world. It certainly is existent - I found a case of Cadmium being used to replace Tin foils and resulting in the creation of Cadmium sulfite.

The sulfites in general are not as widely written about as the Sulfates - just see their respective categories. Since some are more longer than others, and my article probably will not be as long, is there a guide, or a good reference, or convention for what articles regarding sulfite compounds should be like? And of course, how does mine look so far? ItzSwirlz (talk) 00:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia-Chem Project and warm congratulations on endeavoring to write an article. I would abandon the draft on Cadmium sulfite and move on to other topics if you are determined to create articles. The writing, art, sources are substandard. I dont think that the compound is notable. Sulfites are far more obscure than sulfates, and for that reason they do not rise to the level of notability Wikipedia expects. Sorry for the negative views, but if I were to write something on video games, it would also be substandard. --Smokefoot (talk) 02:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I somewhat echo Smokefoot...especially his welcome, but also his observation that this chemical does not seem to meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline to merit an article. It doesn't need to be a "big deal", but it does need to have multiple reliable sources cited. The detail you found--about toxicity via an interesting route of production and exposure--is not sufficient to make the chemical itself that notable. If you can find other details, such as niche uses, sentinel detection or as a marker for something, etc. I'd happily reconsider. We do have a (not that great) article on cadmium poisoning and of course an article on cadmium and all its modern and historical uses, so maybe your new detail could find a home in one of those? DMacks (talk) 03:07, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly, a search other than the information I found contained one sentence with a claim that growing cadmium sulfite could 'permit advances in technology' (http://www.jstor.org/stable/4468151). So, I'll abandon the draft for now. Is there an easy way to find compounds that are notable but yet to have an article? ItzSwirlz (talk) 20:05, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One approach is to read books, or read review articles in chemistry journals (This user page has examples), find any mentioned chemicals that don't have an article, and use those books/reviews as sources. Or if you have a specific chemical in mind, you can use Google Scholar (or SciFinder if you have access), search for a chemical and filter the search for only review articles. Michael7604 (talk) 21:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@ItzSwirlz: Here's what puzzles me: Wouldn't one create an article about something that matters and one knows something about? Instead it seems that you just dreamt up cadmium sulfide and then hoped that someone else would supply the backbone information?--Smokefoot (talk) 22:27, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see many potential sources when I search "cadmium sulfite" in quotations on Google Scholar and only show review articles: Search results here Michael7604 (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Never mind, looks like most of those are about CdS (cadmium sulfide). Michael7604 (talk) 23:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. And most are crappy journals and they are not about the chemical. They are about some complicated app.--Smokefoot (talk) 23:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More dubious stuff: Niobium(V) oxynitrate, ruthenium(III) nitrate, copper(III) oxide (now a redirect) --Smokefoot (talk) 00:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Revival of the page Wikipedia:Notability (chemicals)[edit]

The page Wikipedia:Notability (chemicals) is a failed proposal that is no longer accurate; we don't consider every possible chemical compound notable just because it has a CAS number. Instead the compound should be in secondary sources. Discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Notability (chemicals)#Revive this proposal. I have started editing the page. Michael7604 (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Using new chemical formula text formatting[edit]

Across articles I've been updating formula formatting to use the new "\chem" style of formatting instead of just using plain text. Are there any issues with this? I've been doing this for a bit. ItzSwirlz (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I feel strongly against this. I think the <chem> style introduces inconsistency in the text that is not only entirely unnecessary, but is aesthetically very unpleasing. The {{chem2}} template is much better. Marbletan (talk) 14:27, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also oppose the <chem> style for the reason given by Marbletan. --Smokefoot (talk) 16:31, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
should i revert my changes? ItzSwirlz (talk) 18:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you should revert them, since the format they are in now is much easier to convert to the chem2 template then what was previously there (with all the <sub></sub> tags). I've started changing some of them over already. Reconrabbit 19:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome, if I stumble across any that I've done or text using those tags I'll move them to chem2. ItzSwirlz (talk) 23:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Provocation, semantics, truth, or just dumb?: Oceans do not contain sodium chloride[edit]

What should we say? --Smokefoot (talk) 19:15, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So if a solid is dissolved in a solvent, it isn't "contained" in the solvent? Reconrabbit 19:24, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Something I've thought about a lot: if you dissolved two different salts into water, like lithium chloride and sodium bromide, would it really make sense to say "the water contains lithium chloride and sodium bromide"? Since the salts are dissociated into Li+, Na+, Cl−, and Br−, the solution is the same as if you instead dissolved lithium bromide and sodium chloride. Instead you should say it contains lithium ions, sodium ions, chloride ions, and bromide ions. So you can't go wrong by saying the ocean contains a lot of sodium ions and chloride ions (there are also many other ions in smaller concentrations). Michael7604 (talk) 20:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could it also be said at that point that the water contains sodium chloride, sodium bromide, lithium chloride, and lithium bromide? (I'm starting to think this is the kind of question that comes up on Stackexchange with some frequency...) Reconrabbit 20:36, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also think about what you would be left with if you boiled off the water. I think the resulting solid would be a salt containing a random mixture of Li+, Na+, Cl−, and Br−, maybe that could be called a mixture of LiCl, LiBr, NaCl, and NaBr (or maybe it would separate into four different crystalline domains of LiCl, LiBr, NaCl, and NaBr, dunno if this has been studied). Michael7604 (talk) 20:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Double salt Michael7604 (talk) 03:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I dont have any great answer. Evaporation of an aqueous solution made from NaCl and LiBr (no boiling required!) will give four products but their distribution will depend on solubility products and there will be a lot of doping as well. I was just wondering if editors think that we should "torture" readers with this aspect.--Smokefoot (talk) 04:12, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The English language doesn't always have the words we need to give a brief but perfect description. I think in those cases we should focus on readability. Facts are only good where they are useful, and for most discussions on seawater it is besides the point how the salt exists, we need only accept that it is there. Detailed descriptions can be added where needed. Project Osprey (talk) 10:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See sea salt. What most non-chemists think of when they speak of "salt" is indeed sodium chloride to a chemist. The fact that the sea, and hence sea salt, contains a number of other ions is largely irrelevant. Quantitatively, most of the "salt" in the sea is NaCl. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:01, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup[edit]

Hello, I have been cleaning up some of the earlier articles I had created (which are very poor in quality), and wanted to know if the articles below would be needed to deleted or redirected due to issues. It would be nice if people like @Smokefoot: could look at them.

I also found very dubious articles that I hadn't made, so I'll list them below.

Keres🌕Luna edits! 04:23, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I dont have any particular authority here except as an inorganicker, and several of these aren't worthwhile. We can deal with them on their Talk pages. As other editors are noted, it is often unclear why these articles were created. I guess that they do little harm except that they diminish the reputation of Wiki-Chem as a source of reliable info.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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