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Why would you do that? If even unnecessary, it may be kept, just for the day when we need it again. Not in the formal scale, but is common, and listed among the common nonstandard ones. Visit WP Albums and tell them to delete Future-class. And what if we offence the bots? All these negative sides seem to be crossed by the usage of it in future (I will use it). Not common even for the project, so what? We'll need it one day.
Sorry if anything looks offensive. IMHO--R8R Gtrs (talk) 18:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
For me, it would be fine, but I think that we should get a consensus one way or another before any action. My vote, however, is to remove it because I don't like how it breaks the automatic reports. I don't plan on using it, but I can see why people would or wouldn't, so I think we need a vote. Yankeesrule3 (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I think we have enough grades with stub/start/C/B/GA/A/FA. Prefer to simplify and get rid of B+.TCO (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
The names are still in the approval process, but it appears they will be officially named in May 2012. We can't change the names yet because they are still in the trial process, but will be renamed when they are accepted for widespread use. StringTheory11 20:56, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
This happened when Copernicium was named and will happen until all elements are confirmed. The name is mentioned in the text and when IUPAC is officially announces the two elements will be renamed (moved).--Stone (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
What did the sodium atom say to his friend after he got hit by a car?
Reading an article about one of the elements today, I was mildly surprised by the layout of the table on {{Compact periodic table}} regarding the way the Lanthanides and Actinides were included in the main table. I changed it to produce this, which is how I've always seen it presented (GCSE chemistry and also in the book The Disappearing Spoon which I've been reading recently). This was reverted with the summary "the current format has been in place for years. please bring it to WT:ELEM before changing so drastically." So, what do people think? Number57 16:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
We have it this way because technically, we have it the "correct" way. The other way is used most of the time because the correct way often takes up too much room on the page, but here the table is narrow enough that it can be displayed this way. Hopefully this clears up any confusion StringTheory11 16:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. And we have an expanded version also. It's been hashed over before and should not be changed without significant group discussion and consensus. Maybe we should protect the template as it affects a lot of very important articles and should not be susceptible to ad hoc changes. (The change was good faith, but we clearly know what we are doing here, too.)TCO (talk) 22:35, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Does "main group metal" include the alkali metals and the alkaline earth metals, since those are also in the main groups? If so, maybe "other main group metals" would work. But then "other metals" would be even simpler (like the green "other nonmetals"). Double sharp (talk) 07:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I donno, man. I'm used to thinking of the p-block elements with that term. But I don't know. Maybe you could say p-block metals? I can't really get that excited about it. I guess we should use whatever term is most common in industry/science (research it), even if the wording is inaccurate and just explain that in text. Like using the term American instead of USAian. ;-) TCO (talk) 17:19, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Is it a problem that the article only discusses the Sc/Y/Lu/Lr convention at length, leaving the Sc/Y/La/Ac, Sc/Y/*/** and Sc/Y conventions to the "Group borders" section? The topic (when this gets nominated for GT/FT) cannot just arbitrarily choose one convention to follow as that would not be NPOV. Double sharp (talk) 07:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
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Featured articles by each user in the Members' area
So who brought Zn and Xe to FA? They're the only two not listed under any user. Double sharp (talk) 08:02, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
You can figure that out. Go look on the talk pages for the articles and hit milestones-show, then click on the FAC nomination.TCO (talk) 08:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I added Zn for Mav, Nergaal and Stone. For Xe, it seems to have been improved by RJHall, who isn't on the Members list. Double sharp (talk) 10:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
There is a move discussion ongoing at Nitrogen group debating whether or not it should be moved to Pnictogen. Please take a look. Thank you, Double sharp (talk) 07:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
All-green and all-blue PTQs
When do you think we will see a PTQ with all articles GA or higher? What about all FA? Double sharp (talk) 05:06, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Added to list of goals. StringTheory11 00:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
TCO analysis
Looking just at just the 118 elements and using the year old table for insight:
FA: There were 16 FAs a year ago and 17 now. So...at that rate, take you a century to get everything done. Even if we tripled our productivity (which I don't see happening), still take 30+ years.
GA: There were 28 GAs a year ago. Now there are 46. There is one A, also. (A year ago the As were below GA, so not counting old ones.) So the change in GA+ over the year was (16+28) to (17+1+46) or 44 to 64. So that is about 20 a year and we have 54 to go. So at that rate about 3 years from now, we could be all GA or higher.
Net, net: It kinda says that GA is the answer. Or at least makes sense for now as a motivational thing. Blow off FA and concentrate on GA.
I think we could have Fluorine ready for another FAC try in beginning of March. I want to mess with it for a month and then I figure a month of peer review. 1-2 months in FAC would make it starred in April some time.
Was thinking of working on other halogens next and aiming for just GA. Hopefully there would be some efficiency in terms of overlap of sources and similar chemistry and the like. Probably just work straight down the column.
Then do you think we should put "getting all articles to GA" in the goals? We may also need a bit more time for the group and period articles and whatever new period 8 elements are synthesized before we get everything to GA or FA. Double sharp (talk) 06:19, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm kinda pessimistic about such predictions. Of course, I wish to see all blue one day. If (no, differently). IF (yeah, that's good) this is the target, the all-green should not be an intermediate target (maybe when 2/3 is blue (and the project is active!), that's, however, OK). I readily imagine the younger editors saying, "Everything's green? That's good. Not like there's much sense to turn green to blue. Orange to blue or even bright green to blue is always welcome, but this...I don't know. What's on TV?"
I think that TCO's analysis is not does not give very correct results (he understands that as well, just for everyone not imaging this as the 100% reliable eye into the future). A year ago, I was surfing the Internet when I found a small article comparing the world map in 1910 and 2010. In 1910, Russia (well, I'm a patriot of my country (yet writing in bourgeois' Wikipeida, meh)) was the fastest-developing country in Europe; this is quite true today as well. We were not as good as Western Europe in terms of quality of life, taking the intermediate position between the developed and undeveloped world, looking at Western Europe; we remain to be and to do so. But if you compare two maps, you'll miss the USSR. The superpower status (space, military, own block, so on). So you can't draw a straight line. This isn't correct (feel the analogy). Let's get back.
The first half of 2011 was amazing (I love you, children of Stakhanov). But we're not carrying out the rate. And even five years for (nearly) all-green is something too optimistic. Hope we'll get back to the rates one day and I'll be wrong.
Rather than talking, take an article, since there are exact plans to follow; you can do anything else as well. Periodic table, group 12 element, nitrogen, chlorine, there are a lot to do (a few random fresh names that may be interesting: gallium, sulfur, fleroviumununquadium). Help me on astatine (copyedit, general advice, any help always welcome).
following FAs: flourine (read above), astatine (one day; most content already added, speed... well, I don't know. It depends on how busy I will be in 2012). Add anything if you plan to (please) here. Always yours--R8R Gtrs (talk) 14:06, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I actually think that these events will happen in quick succession of each other. By the time we have all green, most of them will probably be FAs anyway, and most of the ones that aren't will probably be close. Anyway, for the green estimate, I would guess maybe 2-5 years, depending on the interest level and the number of new editors we get. All blue may happen within a year of all green. Well, it's nothing to get discouraged about; maybe newer editors like me will join soon and we can beat my predictions. StringTheory11 05:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Maybe we could make a page for what is currently being worked on. People in the project would add their article to the page and others in the project could give feedback on the article, sort of like a mini peer review (e.g. because I am working on periodic table currently, I would add it to the page and people could give me feedback on the article). StringTheory11 18:31, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I put in a request for an automated tool that shows which articles are getting activity. I will put it on the Project page.
Practical suggestions for you:
(1) write down what your plan is (what major work you will do) for the Periodic table article on its talk page.
(2) request help directly (user talk pages) and on specific needs. Or use the help desk (it has very fast response).
(3) Look through the history and see who did substantial work in the past...maybe you can draw someone back into the fold...by a direct user page request.
I was looking through the articles, and found some low- and mid-quality articles that could be good targets in the near future: group 12 element (seems fairly good and would make a GT), sodium (would make a GT), lanthanide (seems to have great potential and may make a GT), periodic table (our main article; currently working on now), boron group (seems like it has potential), silicon (germanium would be a GREAT model for this). StringTheory11 06:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Good job going after Periodic table. Sodium is a huge article in views and in importance to chemistry and man. Needs more content.TCO (Reviews needed) 07:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Darmstadtium, roentgenium, and copernicium
Were the names really only approved only on 4 Nov 2011? [1] I was under the impression that the names were accepted much earlier (Ds in 2003, Rg in 2004 and Cn in 2010). Or am I just underinformed? Double sharp (talk) 05:09, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
[2] (Ds approved in 2003), [3] (Rg approved on 1 Nov 2004) and [4] (Cn approved in 2010) show that the above article is mistaken. I will fix the Ds, Rg and (Cn, if it has the misinformation) pages. Double sharp (talk) 05:34, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
There is no mistake (but a little confusion) - IUPAC approved them earlier than IUPAP. Materialscientist (talk) 06:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Oops - I fixed it (Ds and Rg) this time properly. (Cn's been fixed already.) Double sharp (talk) 13:19, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
This is what I get for not reading carefully enough. The article had stated that it was IUPAP approving the names (not IUPAC) in the first sentence (but not the headline, which confused me). Double sharp (talk) 03:17, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
This file is up for deletion, but in my opinion it most definitely should not be deleted. Could you all visit the discussion (here)? Double sharp (talk) 02:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
I will check it out. And give my honest opinion. P.s. Someone will be by to scold you for WP:CANVASSing, but I actually feel it is more honest to state your opinion when bringing people in, not cloak it.TCO (talk) 03:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Of course, you should give your honest opinion! (I forgot to write that in the previous post.) I was only trying to get a wider audience for this discussion. Double sharp (talk) 03:15, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
There is no canvassing in inviting a relevant project (see WP:CANVAS); this is a common practice and it actually helps the deletion review. Materialscientist (talk) 03:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Natural occurrence of the elements
If you look closely at the "Natural occurrence" section of the article Astatine, you will see that "Previously thought to be the rarest element among all those occurring on the Earth, astatine has lost this status to berkelium, a few atoms of which can be produced by neutron capture reactions and beta decay in very highly concentrated uranium-bearing deposits." A cite is given. Shouldn't some elements past Pu change their borders in Template:Periodic table from "Synthetic" to "From decay" now? Double sharp (talk) 05:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
It would be nice if someone would look at the source (John Emsley's Nature's Building Blocks) and see what elements are natural. Currently we're only sure that H-Pu, Bk are natural. (I think all up to Cf - maybe even Fm - should be natural, if you're talking about extremely rare neutron capture and beta decays.) Double sharp (talk) 06:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Please note that this would be a very major change and that a lot of corrections and changes would need to made throughout Wikipedia. This may take some time. Double sharp (talk) 06:16, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
But then, the same kind of huge change also happens whenever an element is named (which last happened with copernicium). Double sharp (talk) 06:32, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
From a practical perspective, I think worrying about the odd atom that is transuranic naturally is not really worth it. — Preceding unsigned comment by TCO at 06:46, 29 December 2011
It's cited in Nature's Building Blocks, and could raise some questions if the astatine article states that berkelium is natural while the Wikipedia periodic table states that it is exclusively synthetic. Double sharp (talk) 07:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
See the thread below (titled "Natural occurrence"); I've reverted it back to H to Pu only as natural as a few atoms don't really matter and we only have a source for Bk, not Am and Cm. (The Am source on the Talk:Periodic table archives seems suspicious as Pu-239 doesn't decay to Am-239 AFAIK.) Double sharp (talk) 12:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I've asked about the natural occurrence of some transplutonium elements at the science reference desk, and it should get a reply soon. Double sharp (talk) 05:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
I have the book in question, and it states that a) All elements up to and including californium occur naturally in small amounts in "uranium-bearing deposits", and b) einsteinium and fermium did occur naturally in the Oklo natural reactor, but no longer do so. Nicholasb07 (talk) 04:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Natural occurrence
Can somebody here get Emsley's Nature's Building Blocks (2011 new edition) and see what elements are natural? p. 58 says berkelium is natural (see astatine article), but what other transplutonium elements are natural? (I think everything up to Cf would probably be natural - maybe even up to Fm). Double sharp (talk) 08:15, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Is anybody looking here? Double sharp (talk) 08:08, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
It's unlikely that such a recent book is readily available. I tried to find and (just as expected) failed. If you really wanna know, you can check the history (it was in Nov or Dec, I remember that clearly) and see who added the info. If a user, contact him or her. Also check archives of the talkpage of Periodic table. In 2010 or 2011, there was a ref stating Am is natural (I'm writing via my cell (very slow connect), and to be honest don't care, that's why I'm not checking myself).R8R Gtrs (talk) 16:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
DS, if you want to know, then go to your library and Interlibrary Loan the book and look it up. Or try the Reference Desk. I don't think anyone here will hunt it down. It is on you, man! I really feel that the "what is natural" for something about 92 is really obsessing on a categorization/labeling aspect rather than giving key info to the reader, so I don't spend my time on stuff like that.TCO (Reviews needed) 16:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
I've decided that a few atoms really don't matter, and so I've reverted the periodic table to only H to Pu as natural. Besides, we don't know if Am and Cm are natural, as the source only gives Bk as natural. (Talk:Americium and Talk:Curium show a source for Am being natural, but if you look at the decay chains, instead of occasional neutron absorptions, only Cm seems to have a possibility of being natural.) Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I've asked about the natural occurrence of some transplutonium elements at the science reference desk, and it should get a reply soon. Double sharp (talk) 05:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
I have the book in question, and it states that a) All elements up to and including californium occur naturally in small amounts in "uranium-bearing deposits", and b) einsteinium and fermium did occur naturally in the Oklo natural reactor, but no longer do so. Nicholasb07 (talk) 04:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, man. I got interested as I'd realized there may be primordial promethium (read the article). Like they say, "You don't give a damn until you participate." If one finds it, would Pm be natural, because there won't much of it (maybe "a few atoms")? Also, primordial plutonium isn't very common either, hardly primordial but still is. So as I get, there are three possible "a few atoms" cases: Pm (primordial status, future), Pu (primordial status), and Am-Cf (from decay status). Pm is not currently a case, Pu is positive, and the further are negative. There must a guideline for this. Well, I'm done. (By the end of the typing of this post, I'd realized that I already don't care; I'm just said).--R8R Gtrs (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm with R8R Gtrs on this one. Consistency is important for any encyclopedia, let alone what is obviously the best in the world (true). I feel that we should try go get everything as consistent as possible, including the natural occurrence of the elements. If we have technetium and promethium as naturally occurring, we have to have these elements as well. We could have a footnote of the sort that they only exist in quantities of atoms at a time, but I feel that the most important thing here is consistency. StringTheory11 23:32, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
In that case I think we should change Am-Cf to "From decay". For Es and Fm, a mention in the articles that they had once occurred naturally in the Oklo nuclear reactors should be enough. Double sharp (talk) 07:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Consistency is very important, and the way I see it, if we're going to use this book as a source, then what Double Sharp said is correct: Am-Cf should be marked as "from decay". Otherwise, we should remove the berkelium reference from the astatine article. Also, the Oklo reactor should also be mentioned in Es and Fm. Any thoughts? Nicholasb07 (talk) 11:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I think we should go ahead and update those elements. This book is very recent (a 2011 edition) and is probably up to date. Double sharp (talk) 09:28, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
When Template:Periodic table is edited, all articles that make reference to natural elements should be changed at once to minimize confusion for our readers. Double sharp (talk) 09:40, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Astatine, which I have been editing lately, is now OK. I even consider it "not bad." But is it just me or the article is really good? Is it ready for a copyedit (and a FAC later) or not yet? Do I need a PR or not (I could just start one, but I've had one lately)? Please, give me an opinion (and as I find time, I'll finally comment the metalloid). Thanks--R8R Gtrs (talk) 18:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Looks much better. It definitely rates the plus sign (now). :-) I would get someone to go over it for English language idiom (particularly choices on using "the" or not). It is much closer than before, but still could use a native speaker to go over it. Maybe try GOCE? Dianne? Personally, I would (also, and after the native speaker copyedit) do another PR out of caution. Make sure to get non chemists to go over it (for prose and format). The content looks good...you want to get the nitpickers to pick at it. After that, I think it will be fine to take to FA. It seems pretty clean and simple, so I think you can get it over the hump (although look how they made Mav sweat on Cf!)TCO (Reviews needed) 05:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Metalloid A-class review
Grateful for comments from members please, in addition to those from R8R Gtrs. Thank you. Sandbh (talk) 06:18, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Am, Cm, Bk and Cf
I am now changing these four elements from "Synthetic" to "Natural radio". Feel free to help changing these (citing <ref name="emsley">{{cite book|last=Emsley|first=John|title=Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements|edition=New|year=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-0-19-960563-7}}</ref> when needed). Double sharp (talk) 07:20, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Hot articles
The top ranking of Krypton to day makes me think that the hotness is a direct indicator for vandals.--Stone (talk) 16:06, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
We should protect a lot more. (I disagree with the very high hurdles for protection. I would have much lower hurdles. Just pull off the protection when someone is actively working on an article.)TCO (Reviews needed) 16:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm with TCO on this one. It is not great, but I feel that it is necessary for keeping the encyclopedia reliable. (I would be for protecting things like all chemical elements, all countries, all math functions, all deities, etc). StringTheory11 17:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
It only says "Dmitriev mentioned that we would wish very much to have the element 115 named as Moscovium". Materialscientist (talk) 04:11, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I should have phrased it more clearly. I meant that the team is thinking of proposing the name moscovium for element 115. Double sharp (talk) 05:52, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
It is image of light emitted by the sample. Materialscientist (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
In that case, it is probably not a good representation of the appearance of francium. (Should it be moved into the main body of the article along with the heat image File:Fr,87.jpg?) Double sharp (talk) 15:06, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Support removal. I actually expressed concerns about the usefulness of that image long ago, just haven't pushed it through. This image is hard to understand even for me (a person with first-hand experience with fluorescence imaging) and I won't use it anywhere until it is clearly explained. Lack of images does not mean we should use anything available. Materialscientist (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Would the current version be OK? (Both images are now in the "Synthesized" section). Double sharp (talk) 04:37, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
These images need to be explained. I was (still am :-) too lazy to read about them and will just throw questions which must be answered: (i) gas atmosphere (if there are gases in the chamber, they can be ionized and contribute to the emission); (ii) true color or false color images (left might be true, right is likely false)? (iii) spatial resolution of presented imaging (they can't spatially resolve the atoms and present some broadened spatial average. I see them a sort of plasma ball, excited by laser/heat (source of heat? self-radiation?), where individual atoms are moving around, and the camera captures some average in space and time. Green background is probably due to scattering of the exciting Ar laser. I believe the heat image is a false-color image, and its color coding needs explanation. Materialscientist (talk) 05:01, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Apparently, "galvanic metals" has also been used to describe non-group 12 elements, so we should not use that term for the group 12 elements. Double sharp (talk) 12:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
In the hassium article, under the reaction 248Cm(26Mg,xn)274−xHs (x=3,4,5), there is a mention of the "Viola-Seaborg equation". Does anybody have any information about this formula? If so, an article should probably be written. Double sharp (talk) 13:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
In some books it is called the Viola-Seaborg-Sobiczewski (VSS) formula. Here is a short description of the formula: doi:10.1140/epja/i2005-10142-y--Stone (talk) 11:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I am thinking of moving the whole template to the bottom of the article. IMO, it looks awkward where it currently is, and doesn't really seem to fit anywhere else (I have used preview for a couple of different locations, and nothing worked). Anyone have any objections here, or should I move it? StringTheory11 00:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
IHMO, it makes sense to leave it in its current position because it is then together with the text most related to it. Double sharp (talk) 03:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Article improvement
Could we do the article improvement (which worked for potassium) again? Since R8R Gtrs did K last year, someone else should work on the next article (probably Na for an alkali metal GT). Double sharp (talk) 05:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry if this sounds stupid, but since I wasn't around last year, what exactly do you mean by this? StringTheory11 06:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Don't please say I was the one to have "done" potassium. I did add some info, but generally, Stone's share is way greater. Credits go to him. As usually, he created a really good article.
(In fact, I'm busy. Won't be helpful, sorry. Call me after F is done)--R8R Gtrs (talk) 12:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
You put it as "minor work" on User:R8R Gtrs/To do ([5]), so I assumed that you had done it. Credits to Stone, in that case! Double sharp (talk) 12:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the credits. Only the elite pays in credits--Stone (talk) 12:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Improvement of the antimony article
Hi, I worked on the antimony article and I think I reached B-Class now. If anybody has a little bit of time it would be glad for some help with copy editing and tuning of grammar, wording and style. Thanks.--Stone (talk) 13:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I promoted it to B-class. Double sharp (talk) 09:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! --Stone (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Alkali metal
Could someone here help me with the "Characteristics" section for the alkali metal article? It is currently a mess. Double sharp (talk) 12:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Columns with poor quality
Group 11 (copper, silver and gold) is a major blemish in the PTQ, as not only are the elements here (with the exception of copper) not GA/FA (as most of the transition metals are), they are among the most well-known metals. (Even copper, which is a GA, has some comments by Smokefoot on the GA review that do not seem to have been addressed.) There should be work done in this area. (Iron, antimony and lead are also significant blemishes.) Double sharp (talk) 08:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
I head ya man. There's only so many people at this project board. Need to pull in other people from other parts of Wiki. I'm interested in the halogens, now. Let me concentrate on that.TCO (Reviews needed) 16:06, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Antimony is no longer a blemish (thanks to Stone). Double sharp (talk) 11:36, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I grabbed one of the underdeveloped ones and will try to get it to GA soon. The funniest I learned is that an antimony compound is the top choice if you want to have bird vomit (doi:10.2307/1369067).--Stone (talk) 12:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Should moscovium be redirected to ununpentium, now that JINR says that it would like element 115 to be named "moscovium"? Double sharp (talk) 13:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm all for this. Because Uuh is already pending a different name, and the discovers of Uup are thinking about moscovium, I feel it should redirect there. StringTheory11 19:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I'd rather suggest to make moscovium a sort of disambiguation page linking to both Uup and Uuh for the time being. This would be most informative to the reader. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Noble gas
Is it me or somebody managed to remove the physical and atomic properties section from the noble gas featured article and nobody noticed it in years? Nergaal (talk) 01:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Not you, The Thing That Should Not Be :-D (+some IPs around 29 Jan 2010). Restored. Materialscientist (talk) 01:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Bohrium#Natural occurrence states that "the occurrence of bohrium in nature in such minerals as molybdenite is theoretically possible, though highly unlikely". What process would allow Bh to occur in nature? Double sharp (talk) 12:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
The isotopes 271Bh, 271Hs, 267Sg, 267Db, and 263Lr have not yet been produced experimentally, which is why the decay chains (3), (4), and (5) seem highly hypothetical. They do not know the half life but assume from the energy of the alpha particle detected years ago that it must be long lived (making it a premodial element). Now they say 271Bh, 271Hs, are good candidates. This is crystal ball at its best, although it is pear reviewed it has no place in the article.--Stone (talk) 15:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Occurrence and stability of EE20Ca48
If you want to provide additional information about one of the more common elements you might find somebody to discuss the (neutron accumulation) process that resulted in the creation of the stable Z20 element EE20Ca48, which has 8 extra neutrons and a 0.187% constituency. Neither of the R or S neutron accumulation processes discuss this possibility of occurrence of this number of extra neutrons in such a low Z No. Element. And the fact that it remains stable with 8 extra neutrons is merely noted but not explained. Note that the B- instability factor of OO21Sc48 can be used to explain the second of the proposed doubleB- decay mode, but the absence of the occurrence of the first B- decay to get to OO21Sc48 is not explained.WFPM (talk) 22:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Transmendelevium elements
While the previous 48Ca deserves to be resolved, I want to raise your eyes on a larger problem.
Transmendelevium element articles are very hard to both write and read. You have to give/read details on each reaction ever produced a deutschmericorossiyium element isotope. While I do understand there may be not so much to write... look at ununoctium! It's so balanced (great job, Mav)! While I agree we need some syntheses (first ever and other important reactions, such as 270Hs studies), there's too much of it. A table would be enough. Or even too. We could concentrate on future/given properties instead.
Lool! You probably were not around in the old days. I wrote Uuo literally searching all the articles talking about the element and that is all that I could come up with before I put it though FAC. Later, some nuclear science enthusiast came and added all the nucleosynthesis information for all the d and p elements in the 7th period. That was a very neat thing for him to do, but I agree that it is also very hard to sift through. I did that for Rf before pushing it though GAN. What I did is copy-paste all the information on nucleosynthesis from the main article into the isotope one, and then slowly trimming down as much as of the clutter I could without removing the more essential stuff. Rf is kind a half-way-there now. Once the text is cleared up more there, and more on the chemistry is added, it can go through FAC also. Nergaal (talk) 18:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Part of the "larger problem" is related to the standard IUPAC format of the periodic table that doesn't allow the elements 118 through 120 to be included in the last periodic table group as is done in the Janet (and other) periodic tables. Thus we have to unnecessarily worry about the occurrence of the next 2 additional periodic element series, (which incidentally will each have 50 elements) when that is all taken care of in the Janet table format. And. given the chemical characteristics of the columnar groupings of the Janet table, there is hardly any doubt than the properties of the remaining 3 elements will be consistent with their predecessors. The "lesser" problem with EE20Ca48 has to do with a gaining of the understanding as to how the lighter elements are able to gain and then maintain a condition of excess neutron containment due to the nature of their structure, which might imply some kind of a stable structure configuration, in addition to the hazards involved with the dynamics of the kinetic energy of motion of the atom.WFPM (talk) 21:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC) See Charles Janet and Talk:Charles Janet
Tenth anniversary of this WikiProject
The page Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements was apparently created on April 27, 2002, which would mean that April 27 this year would be our project's tenth anniversary. I think we should all work on something for this important occasion. Since beryllium seems to have been the article that started it all (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements/Archive 1), the solution is simple. ;-) Double sharp (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
That is, try to improve it to FA this year. (April 27 is too close, but getting it to FA by the end of the year should be more reasonable.) Double sharp (talk) 02:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Wow - it has been 10 years. Where does the time go? An FA push for Be is in order. I have a lot going on so I'm not sure if I'll be able to help much. --mav (reviews needed) 20:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Seaborgium-269
Has 269Sg been confirmed? Should the atomic weight used for rutherfordium be [266] or [267] (267Rf has the longest half-life of all the confirmed rutherfordium isotopes, but 266Rf might have a longer half life than 267Rf and the unconfirmed 268Rf)? Double sharp (talk) 08:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I created the redirects cristallogen and cristallogens, but are they OK? Cristallogène is a French word for the carbon group, and "cristallogen" would be the English version, but I've never seen this word used before in English. (See the discussion here at the reference desk.) Should the redirects be kept, or should they be deleted? (It might be interesting to include information regarding the French word cristallogène in the carbon group article.) Double sharp (talk) 09:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Nothing that bad in them. Unless anyone is confused, keep it (my opinion is to have as much redirects as you can, 'til the make sense).--R8R Gtrs (talk) 15:57, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Atomic weights
The atomic weights of the elements have now changed: [6]. How do we put two numbers (see the entries for H, Li, B, C, N, O, Si, S, Cl and Tl) in periodic tables like the one in atomic weight? (Ge's atomic weight is now 72.63(1) instead of 72.64(1).) Double sharp (talk) 12:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
I can think of three alternatives
Choice 1. List the endpoints of the range on two separate lines
Choice 2. Use a hyphen to indicate a range in the last 2 or 3 digits
Choice 3. Repurpose the uncertainty notation with an appropriate footnote.
Choice 4. List the conventional atomic weight in the table with the range in the footnote.
Choice 1
Choice 2
Choice 3
Choice 4
5 B 10.806 -10.821
5 B 10.806-21
5 B 10.8135(75)
5 B 10.81
Footnote (for choice 1 or 2): The range of atomic-weights indicates the values possible depending on the normal range of isotopic composition.
Footnote (for choice 3): The uncertainty notation in this atomic weight does not indicate the normal dimensional uncertainty, but rather the values possible depending on the normal range of isotopic composition.
Footnote (for choice 4): The value listed is the conventional value suitable for trade and commerce; the actual value may range from 10.806 to 10.821 depending on the isotopic composition of the sample.
I started out prefering choice 3, but after looking at the possibilities, I'm now inclined to choice 4. With choice 1, it is possible to vertically align the text in a row without the clunky nbsp; I just haven't bothered to look up the right magic codes.
Oh, and by the way, thanks for kindly reverting my edit on List of elements. I don't know what happened, but I was so sure the footnote was hanging off of Hydrogen not Helium. Don't know how I missed it -- good thing there are lots of eyes looking at this! YBG (talk) 05:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
For choice 4, should we use the 2007 atomic weight values or do we round them off? Double sharp (talk) 10:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
The example I used above is the 2009 value from Table 6 from Wieser & Coplen referenced above; however, I have no strong preference. The essence of Choice 4 is to use some reasonable non-range value in the table and include the complete range in a footnote. YBG (talk) 12:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I'll change it to choice 4 with the 2007 IUPAC values. Double sharp (talk) 15:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Should the footnotes only be listed in the list of elements, or should they also be in our periodic tables with the atomic weights? They should definitely be in the infoboxes. Double sharp (talk) 12:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I can't insert the ranges in the infoboxes (the "atomic mass comment" parameter seems to override the "atomic mass" and "atomic mass 2" parameters). Could anyone who is more skilled in templates than me help? Double sharp (talk) 12:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Should we relax the ratings for the undiscovered superheavy elements because there is not much to say about them? Double sharp (talk) 08:35, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Just a point: looked at unbinilium. Generally, there is more to say, write calculated (not extrapolated) chemistry. More decay characteristics. And more refs, copyedits, and such. It'll be great, then. Do as you find it better (I'd leave this exact article C; I didn't see others).--R8R Gtrs (talk) 13:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Naturally occurring transuraniums
For your info, this article claims presence of transuranium lines in Przybylski's Star spectrum. I don't know what to do about that, but maybe Przybylski's Star pretty recently ate an envelope of an exploding supernova? Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 12:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
History section in the Lantanides articles
The history section vary a lot in this group. I looked for example in the europium article with 3300 characters while gadolinium has only 550 characters. The style and the used refs differ also in a huge way. I would like to create a history of the lantanides discovery which can be placed cut and than placed in all the articles replacing or upgrading what is now there. I would like to base the whole story on the article of Elvira Weeks.--Stone (talk) 23:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Superactinides colour
The colour for the superactinides doesn't fit the progression from light pink to darker purple for the lanthanides and actinides. Does anyone have a better idea for the colour? Double sharp (talk) 12:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Why should there be a color tendency? I don't see any. Color is determined by surface chemistry. If chemistry is avoided then by plasmon energy, which is a tricky measure of the energy separation between the two outer levels (say, 4s and 3d) and the number of electrons on those two levels (or one, it the separation is too large). While there are some rough tendencies in plasmon energy for alkalis and non-alkalis, it is rather erratic in other metals because of all kind of relativistic corrections. On top of that, superactinides are radioactive, that should normally add blue color (because of air ionization by radiation). Materialscientist (talk) 09:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I didn't mean the actual colour of the elements themselves, but instead the chemical series colour (such as red for alkali metals and cyan for the noble gases). The yellow shading for the superactinides (such as in Template:Compact extended periodic table) doesn't fit in with the pink and purple lanthanides and actinides and could be confused with the shade of yellow used for the halogens. Double sharp (talk) 14:17, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Materialscientist didn't mean the actual colour of the elements themselves, but the color for the series (and the idea seems fine to me, I totally support). (BTW, promethium also emits blue-green light in the dark, but is actually a silver metal). Halogens and the superactinide colors can't be confused, too different. Also, from my point of view, the enlarged template should go away. There is no proof that the table will go the way.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind using blue for the superactinides. Is extended periodic table (large version) what you mean by "enlarged template"? That list discusses both the normal version (based on periodic trends) and the Pyykkö model. Double sharp (talk) 05:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Well I see that you have your table organized for the "superactinides" and everything looks alright? And so you won't have any further troubles until you get to the end and find out that there should be 18 elements in this group (2+4+4+4+4 + 2+4+4+4 + 2+4+4 + 2+4 + 2) = (18 + 14 + 10 + 6 + 2) = 50 See Talk:Charles Janet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WFPM (talk • contribs) 20:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I've coloured the superactinides as #80a0e9 (the same as Template:Element color/8 - credits to R8R Gtrs). @WFPM: Since Lu and Lr behave chemically as lanthanides and actinides respectively even though they are d-block elements, Upt should also behave chemically as a superactinide. The current colour coding is based on chemistry, not physics. Lanthanide, actinide and superactinide are chemically defined categories (for the last one, the inclusion of Upt implies that it is chemically defined, and the superactinides (including Upt) are expected to show similar chemical properties), while g-block, f-block and d-block are not. Also, both the g-block and f-block period 8 elements are considered to be superactinides. (I agree that there are only 18 g-block superactinides, because the g-block is not a chemically defined category.) Double sharp (talk) 08:21, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Boron at GAR
It would be good if a few people of the project would give their opinion on the good article reassessment of boron! Thanks.--Stone (talk) 13:31, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Differences Actinides–Lanthanides and Actinides–d-block
I need some help from quantum chemistry experts with questions arose in Talk:Actinide#Actinides and Transuranium elements. First, how actinides are different from lanthanides? My guess would be that the 5f level is not so deep in 6d07s2 and 6d17s2 configurations as the 4f is in 5d16s2 ones, and hence 5f electrons can easier migrate to 6d shell to form a chemical bound, or can easier be stripped off. But I am not an expert.
Second question is about the difference between aforementioned actinides and d-block elements. Of course, all actinides are f-elements (with possible exceptions of 89Ac or 103Lr, depending on definitions), but this answer is trivial. Early actinides such as 92U and 94Pu behave like transition metals in that are easily oxidized beyond +3. But some remarkable difference from d-elements should exist indeed. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:51, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Some chemistry points on actinides/d-block diff (will compare W and U): W burns to form WO3, while U forms U3O8. W2 molecule has six bonds, while U2 has only 4. Very likely that some structures (metals/trioxides/etc.) won't match. Also, uranium's oxidation states below +6 are usually more stable than those of W (excluding stabilizing ligands compounds). Basically, these all can be explained by the same logic: W's electrons are not deep, while U's are, and thus are harder to extract.
An/Ln: In general, yes. Usually, 5f and 6d levels are closer in energy than 4f and 5d.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 16:09, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Periodic Table by Quality
I updated the Periodic Table by Quality. Does everybody spot the big change?
The only problem is that the asterisks in the cells for Lu and Lr are now in the wrong place. Nevertheless, I really like this change! (Can we get rid of the ugly orange spot in the d-block now?) Double sharp (talk) 14:38, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
As an experiment to test my hypothesis, when all the C-class articles in the d-block are gone, if La is still C-class, try switching it back to the main body and see what happens to it. This kind of switching might work very well for article improvement. If one day all the articles to Uuo are improved to a reasonable status, and Uue and Ubn are still at their low statuses, feel free to convert this to a Janet periodic table. ;-) Double sharp (talk) 14:44, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
BTW, has anyone really looked at carbon? I'm surprised no one has sent it to GAR yet. There should be a set of sweeps specific to WP:ELEM to look through old GAs (and possibly FAs, but I'm not very certain about FA). Double sharp (talk) 14:56, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Up to now nobody commented on the GAR of boron so this will end soon with a keep.--Stone (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Should we have a set of GA sweeps soon to inspect our old GAs? We had a rerating on 23 September 2010 and I think we should have another one now. Double sharp (talk) 12:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I will put the asteriks on the other side tomorrow. --Stone (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
I will change that.--Stone (talk) 07:02, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
TBH I'd say alkaline earth metal is the worst article we have in the entire project short of s-block and p-block right now. StringTheory11 06:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
The article is really in no good shape.--Stone (talk) 07:02, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
The carbon article is good with some weak points but there are others.--Stone (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Chemical symbols
Milkunderwoodsuggests using a different font for chemical symbols containing "I" (capital i) or "l" (lowercase L) to avoid confusion. For example, Al would become Al or Al. What do people think about this suggestion? Double sharp (talk) 05:34, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
What fonts are similar to Arial that also have the serifs on the letters? Times New Roman (Al) and Cambria (Al) seem like they would work. StringTheory11 05:46, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
But is this change necessary? It would require a lot of work to change the font everywhere the symbol is used and using two different fonts in one periodic table would look very unprofessional. An explanatory note next to the symbol (e.g. It has the symbol Al (capital A and lowercase l), and its atomic number is 13...) should be sufficient. (The elements that would require this treatment are aluminium, chlorine, flerovium, thallium, iodine, indium, and iridium.) Double sharp (talk) 05:52, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Your suggestions look like A1 on my screen. I won't bother, as this also depends on the default fonts used by individual browsers/PCs. I use this ℓ when it is really necessary (as in the miller index), which will become Aℓ, but I would strongly oppose any initiative to mass change Al (Cl, I, etc.) to anything else wikipedia-wide. Some other letters (π, italic f) also look bad in my default fonts, say, much worse than LaTeX but it's Ok. Materialscientist (talk) 06:00, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree. An explanatory note (only on the element article) would be sufficient. Double sharp (talk) 06:15, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I thought that using Al in an article is discouraged, you should use aluminium (Al) if necessary?--Stone (talk) 07:52, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but aluminium (Al) could still potentially be confused with AI. (I changed the font in this example to make it clearer.) Double sharp (talk) 07:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
If we mention it early in that article, that should be sufficient. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 15:15, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
There haven't been any objections, so Done. Double sharp (talk) 05:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't object to this, as it makes life easier for those spending time looking for something they'll never find. However, I'm still a bit sketchy about astatine; enough fermium has been collected to create a photographable alloy, but this isn't really photo of fermium as it's most ytterbium. And we have that "light emission" photo of francium, which isn't really a photo either. There is of course a possible that a "light emission" photo of astatine will arise. It is debatable whether this is a photo or not, much similar to the case of francium. Due to the decision with francium, it would likely not "count". Other than this small issue, I support this idea. Nicholasb07 (talk) 09:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Astatine
Can you guys help me to finish the reviewer's question (the isotopes one)? I simply don't know enough. Thanks in advance (also asked WP Physics)--R8R Gtrs (talk) 14:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
GANs
Our GANs are taking a long time to get reviewed. Compounds of berkelium was nominated just over a month ago but it hasn't been reviewed yet. Double sharp (talk) 12:28, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Non-members who have contributed a lot to the project
RJHall improved Xe to FA, and Sandbh is currently trying to improve metalloid. YBG has been monitoring List of elements. We might want to invite them to place themselves in the members' area so that they won't be left out of discussions. (Previously User:Materialscientist wasn't listed in the members' area, and it resulted in me accidentally forgetting him during the vote for a flagship article. Currently, he's listed there.) Double sharp (talk) 10:07, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
"Stock" references
The following references are being used very often (e.g. in alkali metal, group 3 element, group 12 element and period 8 element) to substantiate "stock" claims about how the superheavy elements would cause radiation poisoning or that the periodic table might end soon after the island of stability at about Z = 126. Could someone please check them out?
Donnelly EH, Nemhauser JB, Smith JM; et al. (2010). "Acute radiation syndrome: assessment and management". South. Med. J. 103 (6): 541–6. doi:10.1097/SMJ.0b013e3181ddd571. PMID20710137. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) (radiation poisoning by superheavy elements)
Xiao M, Whitnall MH (2009). "Pharmacological countermeasures for the acute radiation syndrome". Curr Mol Pharmacol. 2 (1): 122–33. doi:10.2174/1874467210902010122. PMID20021452. (radiation poisoning by superheavy elements)
Cwiok, S.; Heenen, P.-H.; Nazarewicz, W. (2005). "Shape coexistence and triaxiality in the superheavy nuclei". Nature. 433 (7027): 705. Bibcode:2005Natur.433..705C. doi:10.1038/nature03336. PMID15716943. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help) (end of the periodic table soon after the island of stability)
Is it possible to conduct a search for these references?
Please also check references #48 and #49 on group 3 element. These five references were all added by me when logged out last year, but I wasn't sure of their content and used the abstracts as a guide to what would probably be covered inside. (I had copied the first two references shown above from acute radiation syndrome, but I'm not sure where I found the third one. I think I found #48 and #49 while Googling, but I can't remember.) The old Visual Elements is gone and I haven't looked through ref #49 recently. Double sharp (talk) 10:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Will have a look tomorrow morning. Not sure to have access to all.--Stone (talk) 19:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Acute radiation syndrome: assessment and management is describing the ARS but does only mention ionizing radiation as cause, without mentioning any elements or groups.
Pharmacological countermeasures for the acute radiation syndrome is describing the counter measures of the cell especially those of DNA repair.
Shape coexistence and triaxiality in the superheavy nuclei is describing the calculations on the shape and stability of superheavy nuclei
Lanthanides and Actinides Michael Dolg is describing the quantum chemical calculations the chemistry and coordination type of Lanthanides and Actinides
Visual Elements of RSC ?
There is no mentioning of the radio toxicity of any particular element in this references.
We only have one FL. We have three former FLs. Shouldn't we try to get them back to FL? Double sharp (talk) 07:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Grading scheme
Should we rewrite the grading scheme I took from Template:Grading scheme to be more specific to this project? (The examples should definitely be changed so that they come from WP:ELEM.) Double sharp (talk) 12:06, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Support if the requirements will be decent and followed strictly.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 16:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
The two heretic question are: Do we need it? Is it worth the time? We are only a handful of editors and most of the time we work with a relative good scheme of what grading in our head. The few times I encountered a problem was with new editors, which did not stick to any rules, but only to their perception of right and wrong. So I would only do it if there is a certain point to it. --Stone (talk) 19:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
I have to agree with Stone on this one. I never really look at the grading scheme except to see the B-class criteria. I think it will simply be time that could be spent improving the articles instead. StringTheory11 00:50, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
What about the examples? Should we change them to WP:ELEM articles? Double sharp (talk) 13:19, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
This is OK. I only wanted to the point that investing a few days in rewriting the whole thing is a lot of work with only a few people noticing. --Stone (talk) 19:42, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Investing a few days? OK, we may have different views... but I'm still sure we don't it THAT massive. Changes I thought of could take under an hour. Here's my point: We can set the rules in stone, to be further able to tune them when needed. There are people who say that such tuning would be helpful under no conditions. I disagree simply because in that manner, the worse articles are better revealed (thus easier to pick). We will probably need massive re-ratings never again, but we may. In fact, I think the article has declared itself stubless too early. On this stage, we could set Start-class standards as high as it makes sense. [This version of Fermium was rated Stub the next day.] Look at some group articles (9, 10, etc.). There are just articles that can be set the minimum Start/C/whatever standard, but once they are, they get forgotten. But are still of low quality. If to leave them, then maybe on a more decent level. Not that poor.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 13:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with increasing the standards necessary for Start-class. Alkaline earth metal (I haven't looked through the d-block groups) would probably become Stub. Double sharp (talk) 02:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I completely reorganized alkaline earth metal today. Once it gets some references, I think it could probably be c-class. StringTheory11 03:13, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm thinking of trying alkaline earth metal after I finish working on and expanding alkali metal. It shouldn't be too difficult, as I would already have done work on a similar article (alkali metal). However, I wouldn't mind at all if someone decides to go for it first. Double sharp (talk) 14:33, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
PTQ problem
Does WP:ELEM/PTQ appear glitched to anyone else, or is my computer just behaving strangely? StringTheory11 21:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
It looks normal to me. Sometimes the wikitext PTQ can appear glitched with problems with the colouring and the alignment of the period numbers (this happened to me last year). After leaving the page and trying again several times, it will return to normal. Double sharp (talk) 11:33, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Flagship article representative of this WikiProject
Do we have one, like WikiProject Numbers? If not, I think we should have one. Periodic table is the obvious choice, but WikiProject Numbers chose a specific number (12) rather than Number, so I would like to suggest fluorine (credits to R8R Gtrs and TCO). Double sharp (talk) 12:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
What about beryllium? It was, as you mentioned in your previous post, the article which started the project. Or maybe titanium because it is our oldest featured article? StringTheory11 20:21, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Or just for fun, maybe some obscure element like erbium :D. StringTheory11 20:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
The lore about 22Ti Titanium is involved with the accumulation and retained stability of excess neutrons, with both 20Ca Calcium and 22Ti Titanium being stable at A = 48, with EE20Ca48 having 8 excess neutrons and EE22Ti48 having only 4, and with the center of a stability trend line A = 3Z - 18 passing up from +2 for EE20Ca42 through +4 for EE22Ti48 and also to +6 for EE24Cr54. This all has to do with the process of extra neutron accumulation.WFPM (talk) 21:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
For a chemist neutrons are a little boring, so I will not vote for an isotop as flagship. --Stone (talk) 22:43, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I doubt that Mother Nature was concerned much with chemistry when she created the atoms. And that's one of our sorting out problems.WFPM (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Vote for a flagship article
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
I copied this periodic table from atomic weight and changed the atomic weight to the number of votes for each element. You can vote more than once, and you should clarify which element(s) you voted for under the table. If you don't want to vote for any of the element articles from hydrogen to ununoctium, you can suggest any other article and place it below the table, where it can also be voted for.
When should we close the voting? (I'm starting to have some fun with this!) StringTheory11 05:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Let's wait until all the active members of WP:ELEM have voted. Double sharp (talk) 05:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
I've decided to close the voting by the end of 31 March. I've alerted the four members who haven't voted yet. Double sharp (talk) 12:36, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Fluorine because of its high quality. Double sharp (talk) 10:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
I also vote for hydrogen, oxygen and plutonium. Double sharp (talk) 11:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Also caesium, rutherfordium and ununoctium (let's show the synthetic elements some love). Double sharp (talk) 10:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
And samarium, to get a lanthanide voted for. Double sharp (talk) 03:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Also beryllium per StringTheory11. Double sharp (talk) 10:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
And finally seaborgium, as it is the only element named after a human that was publicly named in the namesake's lifetime. Double sharp (talk) 07:55, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Beryllium because it is what started the project and has reasonably high quality. StringTheory11 17:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Also copper, osmium, technetium, iridium, and silicon. StringTheory11 16:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Also neon, neodymium, astatine, and rhenium. StringTheory11 04:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
What are you, a shininess-chauvanist? Anyway, silicon is a "metalloid" because it's not a metal. It isn't ductile or malleable in the least. It fractures like anthracite coal. It isn't all THAT silvery. Take out your VOM meter and touch the probes to two sides of a chunk of 99.9999999% silicon and tell me what the resistance is. Don't let your fingers touch them. <grin> I think they should just just have called Si a non-metal and left it at that. Maybe a "dwarf-metal." SBHarris 16:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I have a passion for unusual elements. I like Os and Ir because they have some of the most extreme properties (such as density). Technetium is an anomaly due to its instability and copper has some unusual properties as well. Silicon is the first article I tried to improve on wikipedia (unsuccessfully), so I have a bit of a bias to it. StringTheory11 18:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
And 14Si Sodium is the second instance in the P series where a subdivision exists between the properties of the first 2 elements and the last 4. Another argument for such a consideration in the periodic table.WFPM (talk) 22:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC) See Talk:Charles Janet
Carbon because it is the basis of life. Or oxygen because it is probably even more important, and it is of high quality. Nergaal (talk) 19:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Helium gets my vote for its comprehensiveness, though fluorine is nice. The oxygen and silicon articles are also stable, complete, and visually fine. Hydrogen, boron, sulfur,bromine and nitrogen are very encyclopedic. If you want an odd one other than beryllium, gallium is complete, and fun. SBHarris 20:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Hydrogen. The best for me, given the quality and importance (reads the best, just slightly ahead of He). Helium and oxygen are also great, was also thinking about them. If you don't want a non-metal (metals are more common anyway), I can suggest iridium.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 15:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Was it Einstein or David Gerrold that said stupidity is more common than hydrogen? Anyway, I'm glad we have an intelligent hydrogen article! SBHarris 16:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
For sure, I can tell you that Einstein said about the only two truly infinite things, the universe and stupidity. He added then he was unsure about the universe. Never heard of the hydrogen interpretation, but I loved it! Also, sorry not to have this article written by myself (at least contents).--R8R Gtrs (talk) 16:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Hydrogen. I can't think of a more natural choice than good old #1. --Itub (talk) 14:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Hydrogen since, by a first approximation of atom count, baryonic matter in the Universe is composed of hydrogen. :) --mav (reviews needed) 14:41, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Oxygen and californium. Featured articles that have not lost their shine. As for hydrogen, it's not received a PR in quite some time. FreywaParclyTaxel or else... 13:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Hydrogen and niobium are my flagships.--Stone (talk) 20:48, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Carbon, osmium, mercury, californium and fermium, as these articles are quite interesting, and they would be suited to a flagship. Nicholasb07 (talk) 07:20, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
The rules for voting have been changed, so you can now vote for more than one element. If I have interpreted your votes wrongly, please change the table accordingly.Double sharp (talk) 11:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I've extended this for over a week, but there have been no further responses. Hydrogen is our flagship article. Double sharp (talk) 14:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Names of elements
On talk:periodic table, some IP brought up a really good point: template:periodic table does not mention the names of the elements anywhere at all. I was thinking we could have it so when someone rolls over the cell, it shows the name of the element, along with all the other info. Does this sound good to everyone? StringTheory11 19:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
I think it was not the template:periodic table but the article periodic table itself does not have a periodic table with the full name of the elements. The template is good, but in the article a PSE with full names should be used.--Stone (talk) 06:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm rather against. It won't work on many cells (including mine). As an alternative, you could try something like this. With atomic masses rounded, it could even fit into my screen (1280x1024) (moreover, it already suits into 1600x1200).--R8R Gtrs (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I did a calculation, and found that (on a scale of 1 to 10), this project's overall grade came out to be 75/14, or ≈5.357. I rated each FA a 10, each A an 8, each GA a 7, each B+ a 6, each B a 5, each C a 3, each start a 2, each stub a 1, each FL a 10, each list a 5, and rated supporting articles either as a five or a ten (they couldn't be less since they're not that important to the project), then took the average of all of them. So, according to this calculation, we are more than halfway to our goal! StringTheory11 03:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
GAR and FAR will do the the same what happened to copper, aluminium and chlorine, so we as a project will only get to 9.999999 and never to the 10. --Stone (talk) 06:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
We really should get Al and Cl back to GA. Double sharp (talk) 15:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I worked on both and when I will get the feeling that it is the time I will try it, but now I feel a little bismuth after being very antimony lately.--Stone (talk) 21:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I was hoping this low form of humor would be argon by now. Cobalt to your cave before we call the pun coppers on you. SBHarris 23:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I like it when we work down a group or across a period! It results in FTs or GTs. Double sharp (talk) 10:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
With help from Double sharp and some other eagle-eyed editors, I've restructured and improved the article in response to feedback from the first A-class review. Changes are:
Polished the lead by moving the more detailed paragraphs into the main body.
Main body now starts with a survey of the elements commonly and less commonly classified as metalloids.
Added an explanation as to the location of the metalloids in periodic table terms.
Added prose in front of and after the two properties tables.
Moved the properties tables from section 1 to section 4.
Added properties of metals and non-metals to the distinctive properties subsection.
Added redundant text, captions, and tags to improve accessibility.
Turned some of the very short bullets into prose.
Sundry style and content edits and additions.
I kept the properties tables in table form rather than turning them into text. Such tables are common in chemistry text books, as are tables generally in encyclopaedias—if memory serves, hard copy Britannica, for example, includes multi-page tables. The original issue with the tables was that they swamped the start of the article. I've addressed this by moving them further down the article as well as adding more before and after explanatory and summary prose.
The lead still has some citations. I gather the nub of the original feedback was that having so many citations in the lead was overwhelming. I've addressed this by pruning the lead and relocating the clippings to other parts of the article.
Despite my initial surprise in response to the first feedback I'm pleased to say the end result is a much better structured and presented article. The feedback was very helpful, insightful and thought-provoking in that regard.
Thank you, Sandbh (talk) 11:46, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Have requested a peer review to help with this Sandbh (talk) 07:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandbh (talk • contribs)
Good idea (maybe to be integrated in future if necessary). Sorry for forgetting about you earlier, I'll redeem my fault. Expect some time later--R8R Gtrs (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Thank you; have done some work recently to reduce the number of one-sentence paragraphs. Sandbh (talk) 02:50, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Roles of chemical elements
I have just started "Roles of chemical elements". I decided that the word "role" would likely be satisfactory both to believers in creation and to believers in evolution, and to both supporters and opponents of particular technologies.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:22, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Isn't the content here already in the "Applications" and "Biological role" sections of the various element articles? Anyone looking for the roles of a specific chemical element would probably search for the precise element that they were looking for and they would find the information they needed under the "Applications" and "Biological role" sections. Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The new article enables a reader to see the selected information together on one page, and to analyze and compare different roles and different elements.
@Ds: that is what all lists do. Nergaal (talk) 22:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Oops. Thanks for alerting me to this (it appears I was not thinking). I have no problems with the existence of this article now. (However, the "applications" and "biological role" sections would be great places to copy information from for this article.) Double sharp (talk) 11:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
I have been copying selected information from those sections.
Just wanted you to be careful where it touches biology. Plants, for example, need (not produce) O2 when it's night. And such... Good luck with the list anyway!--R8R Gtrs (talk) 18:01, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
This project is very heavily represented on this list & 2/3 I just checked & updated had seriously out of date classes - one went from Start to GA. Could you guys please check out the rest? Thanks, Johnbod (talk) 16:38, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Done For future updates, you can use WP:ELEM/PTQ as a reference. Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks very much, both. Very prompt! I don't look at that page normally & am unlikely to revisit. Johnbod (talk) 12:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Looking for the use of these sources within project pages and dealing with them, as appropriate, e.g. by checking facts, deleting unsubstantiated items, or getting better sources, etc.
Eventually we will write a bot that checks these and leaves messages about them, and suggestions on that on Talk:List_of_self-publishing_companies will also be appreciated. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 21:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I removed the Vantage Press citation from the metalloid article given there were some better sources supporting the same statement Sandbh (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:26, 25 April 2012 (UTC).
Thank you. There are many, many more. I will, sooner or later, write a program to generate a list of these. Also please see the discussion here for a drive to replace/eliminate these self-published sources, per policy where appropriate. History2007 (talk) 20:55, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
We still have one up from 18 December, and it's getting quite hard to read. Should we do something about this? StringTheory11 16:34, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Now it's so ridiculously bloated that it is longer than the TOC. Double sharp (talk) 08:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Documentation being added to periodic table templates
User:DePiep keeps adding documentation and changing the look of the periodic table on many periodic table templates and lists. However, the documentations are empty (because there is really nothing to document) and their content (usually just {{Periodic tables footer}}) could easily be encased in <noinclude> tags. The changes to the look of the table either don't look very good (e.g. Template:Periodic table, where the period numbers were changed to have the same background as group numbers, which might cause readers to confuse the groups and periods) or don't make sense (Template:Compact periodic table was changed to have a legend with larger text because it would be illegible when nested, but this template is never actually nested). Double sharp (talk) 06:40, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Adding /doc documentation to a template is serious and always an improvement. /doc is not empty. For example, it has the interwikis and categories, and it does separation from main code very well. Also it introduces sandbox and test pages. Great! Especially for a scientific template as PT's are, one could appreciate this. Apart from this, please check my recent edit in PT template (including the edit summary). Other edits by me re PT should be discussed indeed -- soon in this theatre. -DePiep (talk) 22:42, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
1- From Group# and Period into Group → and Period ↓ with arrows. Note the asymmetric used # before.
2- Use same background color for both Group and Period. Because vert/hor are similar. I cannot understand what "confusion" could occur. And after all it is a Table really. Column and Row are alike.
3- f-block had two linked words (e.g. Lanthanides (Lanthanoids)), quite possibly in two rows. I reduced it to one linked word, because having two would suggest there are two different links.
4- I put the footnote text into the table, with the same background color, because it should not confuse with the plain article text. -DePiep (talk) 23:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
IMHO, if the /doc does not contain any real instructions for template usage, it is practically empty as its content (just interwikis and categories) would not appear in the /doc. The same effect could be achieved using <noinclude> tags, which I think are a better solution because then you don't have an ugly black green space that doesn't appear to contain any information. I don't think these templates even need sandbox and test pages - they don't even have any parameters, and it is very obvious how to use them.
I think that asymmetry in the groups and periods in {{Periodic table}} should be better, as it is a very easy way to ensure that readers will understand. "Group" and the group numbers are all shaded, while "Period" and the period numbers are all unshaded. This seems to be a more obvious solution. Keep in mind that this PT template is probably the first PT on Wikipedia a reader who doesn't know anything about the PT but wants to learn about it will encounter, and so we should keep it as simple as possible to understand. (I like the arrows, but I don't find the new colour scheme as useful as the old one.) I don't have any problems with the two linked words for the f-block. (I'm not very sure if we really need both the -ide and -oid terms in the table, but that's a different issue.) The text in {{Periodic table}} is, in fact, usually supposed to flow as part of the article as some commentary on the layout of the table. Double sharp (talk) 04:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
"asymmetry in the groups and periods" is not the issue (I used that word because only one had the #-thing. That is assymmetric). The issue I point to is: Groups (horizontal) and Periods (vertical) are alike in the PT. In the table, they are the same. End of my point. So, in an PT Group and Period should have a presentation alike. (for those who do not understand: group=column-number corresponds to period=row-number). -DePiep (talk) 23:14, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and if anyone wants to know about Janet & Left Step: I say thay should be in view. -DePiep (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I just moved two templates. Really, there is just one PERIODIC TABLE. All here is variants. Note: they were not even in the "footer" (navbox). See: {{Periodic table (Janet)}} and {{Periodic table (left step)}}. -DePiep (talk) 00:23, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Double sharp. The new color scheme for {{Periodic table}} is not as pleasing to the eye as the original. I'm not sure in fact why the column and row numbers need a special background color at all. Oh, and the down arrow should go after 'Period' not on top of it. Sandbh (talk) 05:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
The group numbers would look slightly odd floating freely in the middle, but the period numbers are all right next to their respective periods and so they don't really need any background colour. Besides, colouring the groups and not the periods helps distinguish them. While the rows and columns may be of the same importance in most tables, they are certainly not in this one: group trends are quite a lot more important than trends across periods (with some notable exceptions, such as in the f-block). Speaking of the f-block, let's not even get started on the poor wording at the bottom "...the lanthanides (lanthanoids) and actinides (actinoids), which together comprise the f-block..." I thought lutetium was a d-block lanthanide? Similarly, inner transition metal is not always a synonym of f-block element, and should not redirect there, especially if there is no mention of the term inner transition metal on the f-block article. Double sharp (talk) 14:02, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
All good. I posted an edit to the template to try and address some of these other issues. Sandbh (talk) 12:57, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Project steering, again
Now (as at the time of writing) there are NO current GAN/GAR/FAC/FAR/PRs, which is bad. Hence, we need to discuss what things we should be working on now. The best bet is with the article about group 12 elements, as it looks like it has the most potential for improvement. The next thing on the roster would be silicon - a great material but an underdeveloped article on Wikipedia (it's only a C-class, and there are a lot of references to silicon in external sources). Start-class lanthanides like holmium are another possible candidate - maybe we should aim for all Cs? Whatever we decide to do, make sure it's sustained, as this project needs to get back on its feet - fast. FREYWA 16:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Since last time we had this topic we lost several productive editors and others are far less active than before. Most of the activities were focused on the GANs and the one FAC we had in the last weeks. The other two active spots are Silicon and Sulfur. As there is already activity we should help there.--Stone (talk) 18:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I have nominated alkali metal for GAN now, but after I finish with that, I was planning to work on Sodium, in order to make alkali metals a good topic. Maybe we should try to work on nitrogen as well in order to get period 2 elements to GT. I guess we could also try to convert all the stubs to start-class? Yankeesrule3 (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Stubs to Starts seems like a good idea. Since both nitrogen and sodium are very important elements in the real world we should work on sodium first (alkali metals are more important than period 2 elements). FREYWA 07:05, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
How about bringing Al and Cl back to GA? (There's some interesting material about superatoms with Al.) Since Uuq and Uuh were in the news someone might want to work on those too. Double sharp (talk) 08:50, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm interested in getting In up to speed. Or perhaps Cl or an alkali metal. There are plenty open though...don't hold back!TCO (talk) 14:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Group 12 seems to be getting close to B. We could improve it to GA using the same template of the other group GAs Alkali metal, Group 3 element and Group 4 element and using the comments on its talk page. Double sharp (talk) 07:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Periodic table also has comments on the talk page one could use to bring it to GA. Since this is the representative article of this WikiProject, it really needs to be improved from its current C-Class. Double sharp (talk) 07:35, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
We now have 2 PRs and 1 GAR. This project is not as active as it was last year, but we now have things to work on. Double sharp (talk) 04:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
"lost several productive editors": At least one of them (me) has since returned. But a lot more could have been done by those editors this project lost (such as barium improving to A-class). Double sharp (talk) 07:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, looking at this, we really did lose a whole bunch of editors, and the only consistently active members now are really me, Double Sharp, and Stone (sometimes R8R). StringTheory11 15:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Keep calm and carry on. This is the slogan I will follow. There will be new editors coming in and others will retire.--Stone (talk) 21:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
And a few returning retirees. (When will the Elements report be revived?) Double sharp (talk) 13:55, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
You need a few hours of spare time and good knows why - my account of spare time is running low.--Stone (talk) 20:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
OK, that virtually guarantees that it won't be revived until Cryptic returns. Double sharp (talk) 09:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Hey wait, there might be slight chance to find some time this sommer.--Stone (talk) 13:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Periodic table templates
I have recently created {{Periodic table templates}} to start a (WP-backoffice) overview of PT-related templates. When sweeping WP for this issue, I found some more related pages/templates. For now, they are in the "group:related" (of that overview template).
If there is a better position for them into the main template {{Periodic tables footer}}: please write. -DePiep (talk) 22:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I think most of the templates in the "Related" section (except the compact and nav ones) could enter the "Layouts" section. (Incidentally, that section really needs to be retitled; it has, for some time, contained PTs with different information, but which aren't layouts.) Double sharp (talk) 00:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Move from "Related" (parking area) into the footer template: pls go ahead.
About splicing "Layout" into "Layout versions of standard PT*" and "Content & detail versions of PT*" I agree. The proposed names here, marked with an asterisk*, are descriptive only. It's just that I support that splice. -DePiep (talk) 20:39, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Bad hardness data
Hardnesses_of_the_elements_(data_page) includes a very incorrect dataset (third column) for brinell hardness, that seems to originate with Wolfram. I have sent feedback on Wolfram alpha. I post here because the incorrect data is replicated all across the elements articles. The numbers are miles off, showing things like tin and silver softer than lead. It is kind of amazing how this single set of very wrong data has bounced around the web, gaining credibility with each republishing. Gigs (talk) 20:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Now the JWP is considering the claims for Z = 113, 115, 117 and 118. (Any guesses on which elements will be recognised as having been discovered? I think Uut and Uup are quite likely. However, given that the report last year was based on data collected before 31 July 2008, we'll probably have to wait until about 2015.) Double sharp (talk) 09:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
The thing reads more like, "Build your own nuclear plant model" rather than "We'll see again the last year's." The claimers'll have to re-claim, and given how little time they have or whatever other reasons, they may not want to. (Don't extrapolate dates: new people are in. Also possibly the IUPAC has more (or less) work than before). Let's see who'll re-claim: before that, we're only watching a crystal ball.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 17:23, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
I have left the runner of the stupid bot (user:Thehelpfulone) a message. [7] Hopefully he'll undo them. I don't see that the bot (user:Thehelpfulbot) was ever authorized to go through and add PROD or deletion tags of any kind. This is most unhelpful.SBHarris 22:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
<tongue-in-cheek>Why not transition to the WikiProject Polyhedra database system at Template:Uniform polyhedra db? It would have the benefits that (1) there's only a single line of code in the article for the infobox and (2) there are only two templates being used: {{Elementbox}} and the database, and that would conserve server resources! Never mind the fact that this is quite incomprehensible when you see it (it took me years to figure out how to use this and I honestly don't know how Salix alba thought of it) and nobody will understand how to edit it during transactinide article upgrades; we must think of the servers first! Besides, the sheer incomprehensibility of it all will help evade even the smartest of vandals! :-P</tongue-in-cheek> Double sharp (talk) 14:53, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
For those interested to keep our FAs up-to-date
Iridium has been oxidized to IrO4, and a IrF7 report is to be released soon. TcF7 has a chance to be synthesized. Proof.
See also the earlier infos) --R8R Gtrs (talk) 11:38, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. This is good too. Although I originally meant the other thing-- the element articles... Will take a look mb later--R8R Gtrs (talk) 17:30, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
No squeezing
Re this edit in {{Periodic table (Pyykkö model)}}. This is about handling wide tables in general. So the displaced element symbols are unbolded, to make the template a tiny bit smaller to fit onto a page. I think this not a good way.
First, the scrollbar is there when the template on the article page is wrapped like this: {{Wide template|Template:Periodic table (Pyykkö model)}}
So we have to add that by editing. Ths scrollbar disappears on screens wide enough (see {{Wide template}}). All in all: when we use that enveloping template, we do not have to worry about width any more. We don't have to squeeze the template itself: some tables it will not fit in a small page ever, and there is this better solution.
Second, removing bold from symbols (Pyykkö model) in the defies the purpose of the template! The template is about these elements, it's legend is even in the title (strangely enough). And then making them less visible, to save a few pixels? A bad compromise, and not needed.
So I propose to put those symbols in bold again, and forget about the "squeeze pixels & text width" argument in general. -DePiep (talk) 08:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Can someone explain to User:Double sharp that there is only ONE Periodic Table, and there are Many variants? Thank you. -DePiep (talk) 00:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Answered broadly elsewhere. And telling that the "standard" standard periodic table is ... a redirect. -DePiep (talk) 03:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Double sharp is right. Although we call the standard layout "the periodic table", there are, in fact, other periodic tables that attempt to look at different trends in the elements. See periodic table#Alternatives and alternative periodic tables. StringTheory11 03:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I can get that, but still what you call the standard layout has dozens of variants here at WP (clearly). I am perfectly fine with naming & specifying by Periodic table (layout X). And if I am correct, Janet's is called "... Periodic table" too right (the layout is just through other dimensions, Helium has still 2). Oh, and don't you think this is a hilarious name: Template:Compact extended periodic table? DePiep (talk) 05:35, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it sounds totally hilarious, although my intention in using that name was that it is a compact-style extended periodic table. (Yes, I created that template, using one of my former accounts, now abandoned.) What do you think of moving all the "Compact xxx periodic table" templates to "Xxx periodic table (compact)"? (Consistency would be desirable, so we would need to move them all.) Double sharp (talk) 10:58, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
We're closing in, but not yet OK. Now I'd say: (1) every PT template should start its name with "Periodic table". (2) Then a content specification should follow: "Periodic table (Allen scale electronegativities)" (with brackets). (3) Then, the format of that same PT content (wide? left-aligned?). So it would be: "Periodic table (Allen scale electronegativities) wide".
My meaning also implies that we split up the PT-navbox top group in {{periodic tables footer}}, because it mixes up formats and contents. E.g. I think "inline f-block" is mixing format & content. Must say, once we agree content and format could be split, we can make suggestions. -DePiep (talk) 00:11, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
I may have missed something but what do mean by saying 'One Periodic table, many variants'? There is no such thing as One Periodic Table, only many different ways of depicting periodic relationships amongst the chemical elements. One of these, the 18-column form periodic table, has come to be referred to in the Western literature as the standard period table, simply on account of its popularity. But that is not the same as being such a thing as the 'One Periodic Table'. Sandbh (talk) 06:32, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
I tried to say that earlier, but you've expressed it much more clearly. ;-) Double sharp (talk) 13:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
It is all variant presentations of the periodic table. One can add details per element, zoom in/out, use different colors to mark things - the same PT. It's just elements and their relative position. Like one can describe and depict the solar system in many ways, but it's still singular. -DePiep (talk) 15:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
I also think there's one table. The "standard" form is a variation. All of the tables have the same info, show the same relationships between elements. Even can be derived from each other with introducing no new info (other than the scientific rationale for the whole table). Look at the ideal gas law: pV=RTm/M and pV/T=const are treated as the same, as they describe the exactly same from an exactly same point.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 21:22, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Just think about hydrogen. When placed above the alkali metals, it shows its relationship to the alkali metals (both H and the alkali metals have one electron in their outermost shell). When placed above the halogens, it shows its relationship to the halogens (both H and the halogens have one electron short of a full outer shell). When placed above carbon, it shows its relationship to the carbon group (H and C have similar electronegativity, and both H and the carbon group have half-full outer shells). When placed freely floating in the middle, above the transition metals, it shows that H does not fit completely into any group. Each of these show different relationships between elements, and you can't derive them from each other without introducing new info. Double sharp (talk) 08:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I like the solar system analogy as it shows the difference between the two concepts. The solar system is governed, as I understand it, by a consistent set of laws of planetary motion. In contrast, there is (so far) no such consistent set of laws or best set of criteria that govern which groups elements such H, He, Al, La, Ac etc belong to and, consequently, their relative positions. Given this situation, whilst there is such a thing as "the (concept of a) periodic table of the elements" I would argue that there is no such thing as "the periodic table of the elements." Mind you that hasn't stopped the expression "the period table etc" being used as a loose expression of convenience. Sandbh (talk) 12:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Two periodic tables? No law behind PT? Publish it. A Nobel prize ahead for you, and we won't have to share. -DePiep (talk) 21:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Is there really a law behind the placing of the elements? IMHO, no. For example, there are arguments for placing La and Ac in two positions, and they are both equally plausible! But placing La and Ac under Sc and Y shows the relationship with Sc and Y, and placing them in the f-block shows the relationship with the other lanthanides. Double sharp (talk) 00:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Coming from physics: The only indisbuted law behind it is the number of protons in the nucleus, but this only gives you a long row of elements. The fully occupied electron shells might be a good point for a carriage return, but even this is disputed. Coming from chemistry: You make groups of similar elements and order them roughly by mass. --Stone (talk) 12:58, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't think there is a need to publish; Eric Scerri has already done a good job, and continues to publish work in this space, although there is no Nobel in sight. See The periodic table: Its story and its significance 2007, Oxford University Press. Here is a relevant extract from one of his papers: 'Chemists, physicists and philosophers of science continue to debate the relative virtues of different forms to display the periodic table itself. Some even question whether a two-dimensional table is the best way to arrange the elements. Chemists frequently express the view that there is no one best representation and that the question of representation is a matter of convenience and convention. More recently this view has been questioned by philosophers of science, some of whom believe that there may be one best way to arrange the elements in groups of columns. They argue that disputes concerning the placement of certain troublesome elements, such as hydrogen and helium, in the periodic system have one correct solution, even if this is not yet apparent to current-day science. (2008, 'The past and future of the periodic table', American Scientist, vol. 96, Jan-Feb, pp. 52–58.) See also, for example, Michael Laing (2009, p. 1184) in the Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 86, no. 10: 'I conclude that there is no perfect ideal periodic table; you choose the periodic table that shows the most patterns and relationships and is most useful for your purposes; you get back from your periodic table what you put into it.' Sandbh (talk) 12:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Some more food for thought. Jensen WB 2009, 'Misapplying the Periodic Law,' in Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 86, no. 10, p. 1186: 'The simple fact is that the periodic table is based on idealized electronic configurations rather than on actual configurations and in this fashion functions in chemistry much as the ideal gas law or the concepts of ideal crystals and ideal solutions.' Lavelle L 2009, 'Response to misapplying the Periodic Law,' in Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 86, no. 10, p. 1187: 'Regarding my sentiment on flexibility towards the periodic table, in my letter...that Jensen cites, I wrote, "Perhaps our university chemistry textbooks should include brief mention of the difficulties on having one form of the periodic table." To be clear, my position is that we use well-established forms of the periodic table (IUPAC, NIST, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics) in chemistry textbooks and classrooms, and authors and educators can discuss alternative placements of elements, as well as discuss the limitations of these widely used periodic tables. To suggest otherwise may result in a Pandora’s box of a never-ending multitude of different periodic tables.' Sandbh (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC).
The last two are closest to my views on the matter :) But the elements ordering, the elements' law should be existent. We can already calculate the properties (we may never check) of the elements (we may never synthesize). We can calculate energies for each electron in any position for any given Z, and energies of them all together. We then will (if not already) calculate electron affinities, ionization energies, and then (somehow) energy released after forming covalent bonds to O, F, etc., and then study on and on (chemists around here...right?) Extended periodic table already says about that element 139 may be not in the f-block. Seems like we'll get a law of the ordering, which will state all tables to be "variants"; seems like we won't get a second table, with a principal difference from the first (although we can invent the differentiating -- like the La/Lu position disagreement). The Solar system is not so complicated, thankfully--R8R Gtrs (talk) 18:21, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't quite understand what you mean by "invent the differentiating"; could you explain it more clearly? Double sharp (talk) 07:43, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Again: User:Double sharp (btw am I tailed?) changed the columm header colors back into full bright [8] as a minor, no explanation edit, after I used toned down color (with es of course) [9]. Whatever a single editor says (reading just one post)[10], Double sharp is not communicating. For them, it is "no changes from what I am used to see". -DePiep (talk) 23:59, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Firstly, I'm not tailing you. Secondly, if you tone down the background colour for the groups, you lose the contrast between the groups and the periods, and I think that might be somewhat more desirable because the groups and periods are very different chemically and we ought to show that difference (I've explained why I wanted the "asymmetry" above). (BTW, I accidentally hit "Save page" before finishing my edit summary, but the above is what I was planning to write there.) Double sharp (talk) 07:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I've introduced using {{Wide template}} to take care of tables that are too wide for the page (this page width depends on a users screen width and zooming level). The template (which envelopes a regular template) does this: when a template (think: some periodic table) is too wide for a users page, it adds a scrollbar below and limits the width (window) to the users page width. See: before and after.
Now User:Double sharp has reverted this, [11], with es: "(2) it's better to be able to see the whole table at once". This is a self-defying argument. Because: when the screen is too small, one still cannot see the template in as a whole. One still has to scroll (this time with the browser bottom scroll bar), thereby even moving regular article text out of view! Apart from this, I get the impression that the same user is blindly reverting most of my edits without even looking at the merits. Has it been discussed somewhere that the current version of the periodic table tables here are finalised and cannot be improved any more?
I propose to use {{Wide template}} as a standard for any wide periodic table template. -DePiep (talk) 09:29, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
OK, but for the one on periodic table (large version), there is a slight problem: the legend is so bulky that you may not see the scroll bar. So I would rather that one not use the scroll bar there, since the periodic table is the most important thing there anyway. The article text doesn't move out of view all the time, even: sometimes it's just the sidebar which moves out of view. But on period 8 element, I say the wide template is a lot better than on periodic table (large version). Double sharp (talk) 14:41, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I'll try to find a solution for that non-overview point. -DePiep (talk) 12:02, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Layout improvements: some other layout improvments can help to keep/improve the overview of periodic tables at WP. I propose:
1. Each PT should have an outer border that wraps up all parts (title, table, legend). Think a 1px black line. This way there is no visual mixup with regular text. Especially with wide tables: it gives another visual clue about the page outbreak we are talking about (the right-side border would miss) Example:{{Periodic table (alkali metals)}}.
2. Each PT has a title (bold, top line, possibly linking to an article).
3. This title(-bar) has the V-T-E box. (But note: Show/Hide button is not appreciated in Article space, many readers do not get that idea).
4. All legends are positioned below and left-aligned, not centered.
I have a suggestion for Bplus-class on the image PTQ that doesn't involve creating a new colour: simply use the GA colour, but don't add the + sign. This seems to fit, since Bplus is almost GA, but not there yet. What do you think? Double sharp (talk) 12:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Compositionally, a bad thing. The plus sign is not as easy to take a notice of as the color. Dunno what to recommend, although I find the wiki-PTQ scheme OK. A plus on light green is better than no plus on lincoln, anyway. Is the whole thing problematic?--R8R Gtrs (talk) 19:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
What would be gained by doing that? At least when there is a GA confirmation we an aim for topics, while B+s are jsut internal ratings. Nergaal (talk) 20:53, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Please undo. B+ (sometimes called Bplus, while speaking quality) is a grade at WP:ASSESS, but only non-standard (there is a color, btw). Why deviate from a standard? -DePiep (talk) 22:28, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
@DePiep: B+ is quite old here...it was officially adopted here in June 2011 (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements/Archive 11#A-class), but before that, we were hijacking A-class for it, on the grounds that there was in fact a rather large gap between B and GA (which you can see by comparing some B (e.g. nitrogen, phosphorus), B+ (e.g. arsenic, bismuth), and GA (e.g. antimony) articles (I've chosen examples all from one group)) that needed to be bridged. However, there is also a large gap between GA and FA, and we need A-class to bridge that gap. So we inserted B+ to bridge both gaps. And it works well with it. B+ isn't just a transitional status while the article is at GAN: as you can see from the PTQ, some articles at B+ have been there for some time without a GAN. So, since we have A, why not B+? It satisfies our needs, as it does for the other two projects that use it (WP Maths and WP Statistics). Double sharp (talk) 03:47, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
In addition, did you notice that the colour for B+ on WP:ASSESS is exactly the same as the colour for GA? Double sharp (talk) 04:00, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps useful for addition of content
On the German Wikipedia, (As, Ba, Pb, Yb,) Ga, In, Cl, Au, Na, P, Sr are FA or GA, but aren't at least GA here (the three in brackets are B+). The corresponding articles here are all B, except for the four in brackets (which are B+) and Na and Sr (which are C). Double sharp (talk) 12:40, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
However, the articles there are rather low on refs. Double sharp (talk) 15:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
We discussed this before (somewhere in archive 11) and decided that it was better not to, although I personally don't mind. (Some are already there as groups, like alkali metal, alkaline earth metal, halogen and noble gas). Double sharp (talk) 02:01, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Naturally occurring isotopes of transplutonium elements
Hope this helps, if you need to know anything else, just let me know. Nicholasb07 (talk) 13:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
If Cf-253 exists naturally, shouldn't its decay product Es-253 (with a similar half-life) do as well? --Roentgenium111 (talk) 22:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
That seems logical, but I'm not sure. (An extremely lucky U-238 atom might just manage to swallow 17 neutrons, becoming Fm-255, so it might even be possible that fermium exists naturally, but not in concentrations high enough to detect. No heavier element can be produced by neutron capture due to the fermium wall.) Double sharp (talk) 12:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm quite sure, if WP's information on Cf-253's decay is correct: Such an atom would almost certainly (99.7%) decay to Es-253, it need not be "extremely lucky" like the U-238 atom you mention. Maybe the experiment detecting the Cf-253 had no means of detecting present Es-253 as well, or the isotope is just erroneously listed in the book... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 14:50, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure which is correct, but there are some errors in the book regarding isotopes of At and Pu; see User talk:Nicholasb07#Naturally occurring isotopes of transplutonium elements. Cf-253 might be another error, but the first possibility (the experiment that detected the Cf-253 couldn't detect Es-253) nevertheless seems quite logical and possible. (The Cf-253 atom would most probably have been produced by neutron capture by U-238, right? So it would be a U-238 atom swallowing neutrons over a large interval of time, and not all at once like in the Ivy Mike test.) Double sharp (talk) 09:46, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
U-238 would not be able to swallow >4 neutrons "all at once" in either case, since no U isotopes above U-242 are known to exist. So it has to swallow some neutrons, beta-decay, then swallow some more, etc. But the rate of "neutron swallowing" was likely higher at the Ivy Mike test, so that even short-lived decay products could swallow more neutrons before decaying, resulting in higher elements. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 23:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Then the nuclear reactions shown in einsteinium and fermium need to be corrected, as they mention isotopes like U-253 (which aren't known to exist and would likely be too unstable to be reached without any β-decaying along the way). Double sharp (talk) 14:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Right, those reactions need to be fixed IMO; they are not (properly) referenced anyway (the einsteinium ref. states the possibility of U-253 production as a "dream", not that it was actually achieved). --Roentgenium111 (talk) 15:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I've removed the dubious reaction claims in those articles; I don't know if the actual reaction chain has ever been deduced, since it was of course no controlled experiment.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:10, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Roentgenium111, I think you are wrong. Absorption of several neutrons is highly nonlinear vs. intensity; it is only possible in a nuclear explosion, and can't be reproduced in a lab "even" today. Also, the product is unstable, and thus support for this chain can only come from theoretical estimates. At that time, Fermi merely speculated [12][13]. Materialscientist (talk) 13:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Wrong in which regard? You think that U-253 was indeed produced? I can't completely preclude this, but if there should be evidence for this, it should first be properly described in Isotopes of uranium before being claimed as fact in the einsteinium article. And certainly, "support for this chain" could come from experiments: Lots of unstable isotopes have been verified experimentally. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 10:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
It is not possible to reproduce multiple neutron absorption in the lab that would be equivalent to the Ivy Mike test - the process requires enormous neutron concentrations. Thus various isotopes could have been produced and not identified because of their rapid decay. Surely this is speculative, but Es and Fm have been synthesized in the explosion, and I saw no other model than neutron absorption. Materialscientist (talk) 11:53, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
As I said, another model would be consecutive neutron capture with some beta decays inbetween, as does happen even in nature (at a lower rate). Even if rapid multiple neutron capture can't be done in the lab, you could add neutrons "one at a time" in the lab, and repeat the process until half-lifes become too short. But apparently already U-243 doesn't exist, since it could have easily been produced by irradiating U-242 (the highest known isotope) with neutrons during the latter's 17-minutes-long half-life.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 12:31, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Sure. It was a split by Neergal, with an edit summary "splitting info from main article before trimming there". Materialscientist (talk) 11:21, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Don't merge back. A further trim would be better. An abnormally enormous section in an article is never good.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 15:37, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
So you'd prefer trimming the compounds section in the berkelium article? I don't find the section enormous; the "Synthesis and extraction" section is longer. Double sharp (talk) 02:51, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I'd leave as is. My point is don't merge. Even a trim would be better: the info would be covered in another article. Merging would result in an enormous section. There's no practical need to trim it. If there was a need to differ the two, then a trim would be better (or adding new info)--R8R Gtrs (talk) 16:13, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
The compounds article has extra information on stuff like crystal packing which is very much out of the scope of the main element article. If the Bk article would be put up for FA it would still need a bit more trimming in the compounds section. Nergaal (talk) 18:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Originally, when I was GA-reviewing the article, I was left unsatisfied about how it was cut. Thought, more could be done. Now, I'm not that sure. Given the level of detail in the article, I'd leave as is. Maybe a little cut on californium bromide. But only if FA reviewers won't like the size of the section just like you (nothing bad is implied). This is a well-detailed (but not overly-- sometimes it's better small but good) article in all aspects, including the questioned section. In fact, the whole thing is not very far from FA. Want it to remain so.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 20:09, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
What other articles do you think are not far from FA? Double sharp (talk) 14:35, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
I know I'm not R8R, but here is my opinion anyways: I believe that many of the transition metals are farily close to FA, such as osmium and molybdenum. Fluorine, of course, is very close to FA (nice job R8R!). No other element articles seem that close, but alkali metal and group 3 element seem to be nearing FA. StringTheory11 17:29, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for telling me about alkali metal nearing FA! I intend to get this to FA before the end of the year, and then go down improving the main groups to FA in sequence. I would love to see a periodic table with all the main groups at FA and the transition metal groups at least GA (the period and group tabs on the image PTQ are smaller and so don't receive as much attention). Double sharp (talk) 07:43, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
I think At is an A-class article. Nergaal (talk) 03:25, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
OK, let's open A-class reviews for At and Bk. (F never received one, but is obviously A.) Double sharp (talk) 09:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
If you're into the idea, you can try the latter (as I know, nobody's working on it). Notice that you may be likely the one to address the issues found (you started (well, maybe will have started) the thing, it's fair). Also, given the lack of popularity for the reviews, don't be afraid to attract others manually by writing on their talkpages. If you think that you can do it, go ahead and do. The project will benefit. Also, about other possible FAs. Berkelium is the easiest target, a few other GA actinides have the potential (although all have a place where I would add a little (only a little) info). And Neergal's rutherfordium. Radon, take a look too. (or you wanted something stable? sorry, without the possibility to read each article, it's too difficult for now) --R8R Gtrs (talk) 23:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm fine with the radioactives. :-) Thanks. Double sharp (talk) 04:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
I got a PR for Bk and fixed it according to the comments there. Now I've asked mav to take a look at it. Double sharp (talk) 13:05, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Comments on placement of the historical section?
If there exists a very good lede for the element (which is nearly always the case), the reader will have been exposed to the basics of the properties, appearance, occurance, uses, and so on, of an element, and will not be side-tracked by starting immediately with human history as #2. Unfortunately these guidelines suggest shoehorning "human history" between occurance and production, which is a bad place, since occurance, as minerals, leads very naturally into production. Nor is there often any other good place to put human history. It was stuck near the end of the bismuth article, where it interrupted the flow nearly any other place I put it, except to start the article after the lede.
Where do you begin an article? At the beginning! That's (after overview) history and etymology. Although this suggests beginning with the history of human knowledge of the element, then properties and chemistry. Rather than leave human history till after the "natural history" of the element in the universe (what made it after the Big Bang, etc). There's a reason not to delay human history and etymology, since once you start with the "natural history" in nucleosynthesis (and isotopes), that leads inevitably to abundances (and isotopic abundances) in the solar system and Earth, occurance discussion, minerology, ores, production, uses, and so on. Where then to interupt for the historical record, then? So, I think best to get the human history out of the way, before we start on the properties and chemistry, or at least right after these, since the rest is almost inevitable once you start with the natural history in the universe.
I would suggest that we change our guideline policy in this matter. I don't think any of these rules should be really firm, since elements differ in how well the sections naturally "segue." But for most, we still have the problem I encountered in bismuth, where the human history is left till way toward the end, before we get to biology and toxicology.
Comments? I have put this in the style TALK at GUIDELINES [14], but have gotten no feedback. SBHarris 00:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
cool idea. would you also have occurence before charactersitcs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.27.249 (talk) 14:11, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The properties should go first. They explain what the element is. They also make easier to understand the next parts, e.g. why sodium never occurs in nature. If one had read a text on its reactivity before he made it to occurence, it's getting easier to understand (really understand, i.e. being able to repeat in a day) why there is no sodium metal in the nature. Characteristics could also make clear why the metal was synthesized only that late and not by the Romans or in the Middle Ages. Apply to a selected element.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 17:47, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, characteristics and chemistry can go first, if you like. Then history of discovery. THEN Big Bang and nucleosynthesis and solar system abundance, minerology, production, uses, and off you go into the rest in natural order. SBHarris 03:04, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
That's good. I agree--R8R Gtrs (talk) 09:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I think the article is quite close to go to FAC (imo it is A-class). Anybody interested in chipping in to tidy it up so we can get it there? A-class review or something? Nergaal (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for telling me that! I just need to finish writing up a serviceable history section for alkaline earth metal (which I am currently doing at my sandbox), and then I can work on this article again. StringTheory11 14:42, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I currently don't have access to Greenwood&Earnshaw1st, which has proved to be a valuable reference for periodic trends, so I probably won't be able to finish the melting/boiling point and density sections of this article for a while. StringTheory11 18:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
chemguide.co.uk notes that there is no real trend, citing A. G. Sharpe's Inorganic Chemistry. (Be–Mg–Zn–Cd–Hg, though, shows smooth trends for the melting and boiling points, but not the density, in which Be–Mg–Ca–Sr–Ba–Ra is better. See group 12 element.) Double sharp (talk) 11:04, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Table background colors
Proposal overview
In various periodic table forms, we use many background colors to specify element (cell) properties. These colors are (or should be) in the legend. Apart from these, there are table background colors, like group column headers. These are used only to support a structure of the table, but have no individual meaning (no need to be in the legend).
In this post I propose using grey colors for these background colors. When there is interference with current grey legend colors (like for "Unknown chemical properties"), we should change these to a non-grey color (white proposed). Examples before {{Periodic table}}[15] and after: {{Periodic table/sandbox}}[16].
Colors in periodic table
In periodic tables, we use multiple background color schemes to show element properties &tc. These are explained in a legend (ideally). Also we use background colors to support or strengthen the table structue. For example, the yellowish column headers in the standard {{Periodic table}}. Such colors have no meaning by themselves, and are not in the legend. But colored table backgrounds, like the yellowish mentioned, are distracting from the main, significant colors. It is confusing. I may note that this effect is subtle, not even recognised by the reader (such a reader might not realise what is confusing them).
Proposing grey backgrounds
I propose to use grey colors for table background colors. They can be used in a standard way. When done so, the meaningfull cell bg colors are showing better. Also, the main table structure is strengthened (a periodic table itself being more of a tetris game halfway). Please compare this example in this, before and after the background was changed into a grey: before and after.
Grey cell color now in the legend
Clearly, some legend colors are grey, often when "Unknown". To shift these legend colors away from (new) meaningless background grey colors, I propose to use a non-grey color. When meaning "Unknown", I propose bg color white #ffffff;, which has no association with a rainbow color, and is easily recognised as "unknown".
Periodic tables affected
Changing into grey bg will affect the yellowish tables we have (example below), but also those who have a transparent background. A opaque bg, however light, already serves to structure the table. Any existing meaningfull grey bg should be resolved into a suitable color. No content changes.
Standard grey colors
-
Specification (1st parameter)
+ Available background colors for periodic tables Usage: {{Element color|table header}}
Examples
I created a change example of {{Periodic table}} in its sandbox: {{Periodic table/sandbox}}. There, I have also added a basic title for the table. IMO basically every table should have a title. the /sandbox titlebar also has the v-t-e links and the show/hide collapsing button. Not essential for the color stuff, just an addition.
An illustration of extensive using "bg=white" for "unknown" is here[17].
-DePiep (talk) 13:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC) minor addings -DePiep (talk) 17:07, 20 June 2012 (UTC), -DePiep (talk) 18:49, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I really like it! It's very nice and has a clean look to it. (A minor note: putting "unknown chemical properties" in white would conflict with "unknown", in which the element itself is unknown, as in the compact Janet periodic table. That's a rare situation, and only occurs once anyway IIRC, but what do you propose for that case?) Double sharp (talk) 10:32, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. And well, hm, yes. So both grey and white now are rightly in the legend at {{Janet}}. We can always break this new rule "no greys in the legend" (like I do not intend to change this grey either: Post-transition metals).
For this situation, we can introduce a second color for say "Unknown element", from the rainbow (i.e. not white-grey-black). For example this pale yellow. This is only to be used in this issue-tables like Janets. Detail: a pale color is close to white and off the hue (yellow) color, so color-associations are steered a bit in the right direction. -DePiep (talk) 11:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Partly done After this confirming edit, I indeed changed most periodic table templates into this grey background style. Changing backgound of an "Unknown" (in the legend) from grey to say white, can be done leter: no harm done by the changes. -DePiep (talk) 23:46, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Deletion proposed. See the TfD entry for the discussion. -DePiep (talk) 10:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
The TfD could use some attention. -DePiep (talk) 17:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Radium
I am collecting some material to improve the radium article and I come to the conclusion that the element radium is a historical element. I would suggest to change the structure of the article in a way that the History section is the main section with the following subsections: History development (What happened after the discovery and why Historic production (There is no indication that there is any production.)Historic applications (For radium I could not find any application in the 21 century worth mentioning.)--Stone (talk) 20:19, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Radium is still used in the medicine, fighting with cancers. A fast Google search told me that. Seems to be important enough to just take it in (at least, we should say it isn't abandoned now ("In the 21st century, the usage of radium is significantly lower than before, restricted to...") But I would make that a para. And a few more, you can explore it (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/radium-uses.html)
Your structure seems like we're gonna have three sections then: big Characteristics (not overly, but big enough already), the enormous History (which has endeavored to comprise the rest of the article), and tiny Precautions. We're getting a too big center with parts bound too poorly (poorly enough to be able to stand by themselves). This may be an overly step. I suggest saying somewhere in the beginning the rise of radium was in the first third of 20th century. Or something alike.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
For the record, I don't believe the "buzzle" site referenced above, is to be trusted. Radium and radon used to be used in brachytherapy of cancer, but only because there wasn't anything better. Nowadays, a number of artificially produced nuclides are available for this, which produce handy betas and soft gammas, and don't have the terrible long half life disposal problems of radium (which absolutely must be recovered) or the nasty problems of trying to work with radioactive radon gas (YOU try to get it into a seed without breathing it). I will go so far as to defy you to find me radium being used in any medical institution in the West, for any purpose at all, in the "present" (which I'll define arbitrarily as 2010 or later). SBHarris 01:03, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Radium melting point
Is there a credible source for the melting point of radium? Not a secondary one which all give three different numbers from 700 to 960°C. Has that ever been measured? --Stone (talk) 20:19, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
CRC Handbook (84th edition) and {{Greenwood&Earnshaw2nd}} both give 700 degrees. As does a small 1975 Lawrence Livermore Lab paper, "Phase Diagrams of the Elements."--R8R Gtrs (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
No good source at all, sorry. I want a paper with the measurement. Radioactivity applied to chemistry Arthur C. Wahl, Norman A. Bonner and Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Radioactive Waste Management and Environmental Remediation 97 give 960°C. So who is more credible? --Stone (talk) 06:04, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
The first mentioning of exactly 700°C come from a 1910 experiment of Curie. I can find not a single source for any further experiments and a publication from 1964 also gives 700°C. doi:10.1016/S0081-1947(08)60518-4 The publication only gives three books (T. Lyman, Metals Handbook, 1961; D. E. Gray, American Institute of Physics Handbook 1957; C. D. Hodgman, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 1961-1962) But I think they all go back to 1910. --Stone (talk) 20:15, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
You can email the working place of the people, in Berkeley, who give the 960 value (They already passed away, to my knowledge). Unluckily, there's no in-line cite after the sentence. Just an idea, don't know how to help. 700 seems a more plausible value, though-R8R Gtrs (talk) 23:16, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Cleanup list available (regular updates by a tool)
Notification: a tool lists all WP:ELEMENT pages that have some cleanup tag. Updates are made regularly. I have put the link here (and on the right here), but maybe there is a better place in these project pages. -DePiep (talk) 12:40, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, this will indeed be very useful. Double sharp (talk) 13:02, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Ununseptium decay chain pic deletion
Would love you all to have your word here--R8R Gtrs (talk) 00:49, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Category:Chemical elements
Category:Chemical elements lists all the articles about the elements as well as all the element subcategories. It would be more useful to readers if it only contained the smattering of non-element articles and all the chemical element articles are removed. It is no great hardship for a reader to make one extra click of the mouse to get the article. At present the non-article element are hidden amongst all the element articles. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:37, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
The elements are supposed to be in it. Maybe put them in a subcategory. -DePiep (talk) 09:43, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
User:StringTheory11 is behaving bad [18] in our project, including shouting. I'll leave them for now, for them to take a nap as advised. To no effect. Strange though. -DePiep (talk) 00:15, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
To give some more backstory to this, here is exactly what has happened. First, I improve p-block to start, and, as such, follow procedure and update our PTQ and articles page, as well as the announcements page as it was the last stub. DePiep then comes along and reverts my edits to the PTQ, stating that I was "shouting," (I had used all-caps in one of my edit summaries). I revert him, as p-block is start, and shouting does nothing to change that. I post a notice on his talk page stating my displeasure at this, and he posts a rather sarcastic remark on my talk page, which I remove. I then find that he has removed my remark on his talk page, and has reverted my edit to the announcements page. I swiftly change it back, as we do not have stubs. I then decide to update the participants subpage, so the active and inactive member lists are up to date. After I finish this, I find that he has reverted this too, saying that it was unjustified, which I revert back, as I had checked every member's contributions. I then place a notice on his talk page, saying that I am willing to take this to AN/I, and that gets speedily removed. He also reverts one more of my edits, which I change back, and then this shows up. StringTheory11 00:29, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
I tend to side with StringTheory11 on this one. The update was completely fine, and reverting it was definitely uncalled for (p-block is Start, and the edit summary doesn't change that). As for the "shouting" edit summary, Nergaal did that too before (check the history of WP:ELEM/PTQ), and besides this is just an edit summary and not even a talk page. Reverting the helpful edits that gave a clear idea of who is active and inactive in the project was also definitely not helpful. Double sharp (talk) 05:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
It is not about that edit itself, it is about about the edit warring and non-talking. After I pointed to the shouting [19], ST11 went personal and still no argument showed up [20], and ANI was announced before any talking was done [21], [22]. This removal is well allowed from their talkpage, but the es did show the advice was to the point. Discussing edits could be (should have been) on the talkpage, full stop. And it is not more acceptable when "someone else does it too". Now the talk was made nigh inmpossible through the positions taken by ST11. The attitude "I don't have to talk because" is not needed. -DePiep (talk) 09:31, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:SHOUTING only mentions talk pages, and this is an edit summary, and isn't really aimed at any specific person, is it? Even if this isn't allowed, you could have just mentioned it to StringTheory11 politely on his talk page, but instead you reverted his (constructive, BTW) edit and started I did not start edit warring with him. Also, there was in fact some talking before StringTheory11 got fed up and indicated his willingness to take this to ANI if it persisted. Double sharp (talk) 07:37, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
RE Double sharp, -DePiep (talk) 19:58, 2 July 2012 (UTC). I do RE RE in copytext. Double Sharp wrote:
WP:SHOUTING only mentions talk pages RE: no it doesn't. Your link says it its first line: all caps is "virtually never appropriate". Isn't really aimed at any specific person, is it? RE it is called "SHOUTING" for a reason. Even if this isn't allowed, you could have just mentioned it to StringTheory11 politely on his talk page RE: I did, diffs above, but instead you reverted his (constructive, BTW) RE: if it was that constructive, ST11 could have explained it on the talkpage, right? Don't turn it around, as if I am the one who did not want to talk edit and started edit warring with him a) I did not start ew, and b) ST11 should & could have started a talk. Anytime, any place. Also, there was in fact some talking before RE yeah great, some "talking" that was: the ST11 opening line is I'm kind of getting tired of your antics at WP:ELEM. I'm normally very patient, and don't lose my cool easily, but you're pushing me toward this.". What a way to start a conversation: nonspecific and personal. Is that the behaviour you prefer, Double sharp?. StringTheory11 got fed up How do you know? And what about me? and indicated his willingness "willingness" you say? It was threat. More general remarks from me later on below. -DePiep (talk) 19:58, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:SHOUTING redirects to the talk page guidelines page, so it does only reference talk pages. Also, your edit to my talk page was incredibly sarcastic, and completely unhelpful. I may have been a bit harsh with my first message on your talk page, and for that, I am sorry, although I have noticed that this isn't your first run-in with other members of this project; see above on the talk page when you threw some veiled attacks at Double Sharp when talking about how there is "only one periodic table". And you haven't exactly been polite to others here either. About the AN/I message, I was simply notifying you that if your unbased reverts continued, I would take the issue to AN/I. And yes, I did get fed up after you reverted my edit to the members page, as that had nothing to do with the rest of the issue, and it looks like you were simply reverting my edit because you wanted to tick me off. Honestly, you are shooting yourself in the foot right now. StringTheory11 00:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
"if it was that constructive, ST11 could have explained it on the talkpage, right?" So I guess correctly updating something is that controversial? Just for an edit summary which doesn't follow the talk page(!!) guidelines?! Of course the edit is constructive, which should be plainly obvious. IMHO you really seem to have gone somewhat overboard with "correcting" ST11's edit summary "error". "How do you know [he got fed up]? And what about me?" Well, I fail to see how someone can post a comment indicating his willingness to take this to ANI if this continued and not be fed up. I would recommend a nice cup of tea and a sit down.
TL;DR: Why don't we just work on articles instead? Double sharp (talk) 06:55, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I just noticed this, BTW. DePiep, could you please stop reverting edits based on their edit summaries? The edit summary does not change the content and quality of an edit. Vandalism with the edit summary "expand, cite sources, copyediting" is still vandalism. An edit that makes an article FA-worthy with profanities in the edit summary still makes the article FA-worthy. If the edit summary is really unacceptable, you could simply post on the user's talk page about it, but certainly not revert the edit (iff it was constructive, of course!) Double sharp (talk) 07:21, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure what the problem really is, but why aren't you guys using this energy on improving articles? There is a good momentum these days with WP:ELEM articles, and it would be a pity if some unnecessary editwarring stops that momentum. Nergaal (talk) 17:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
A pity, Nergaal, you did not get the essence from it all: the section title, the talks (pro an con present), and the diffs here. That is a pity. Now then to conclude: "I don't get it, so it is not relevant" is out of the pale. -DePiep (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. (Can we save Pb? It needs some citations by the 4th – the first anniversary of Cf becoming an FA – to become a GA). Double sharp (talk) 07:37, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Also agree with Nergaal. Nothing productive is coming of this discussion. Also, something needs to get FAd; the number of element FAs has dropped off recently. StringTheory11 00:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I have read the contributions, thank you all, and I am glad I could write my own ones on this. WP:TALK. Someone, maybe me, can move this section to archive shortly. -DePiep (talk) 21:39, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Could some more people please comment on the periodic table PR? It's looking dreadfully barren. StringTheory11 00:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Crystal structure in the element infobox
As you might have noticed, I have reorganised the parameter crystal structure= in the infobox (trying to catch the crystal stucture name, autolink it, link to a graph, all for a 2nd crystal structure too). FWIW, here are the element infoboxes that currently have either no crystal structure entered or entered explicitly "unknown".
The trans-einsteinium elements don't and won't (for some time) have known crystal structures. (Mt is a prediction.) At has an unknown crystal structure, see Astatine. Removing them from your list, we get:
Of which the crystal structures periodic table gives Np as orthorhombic and Es as fcc, which I have added. So now we have just B and C left. Double sharp (talk) 13:27, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
wiki-wise we should decide to add or remove the setting crystal structure=unknown consistently over all these. When added, the word shows up in the infobox. I have no opinion on this (apart from preferring consistency). -DePiep (talk) 15:02, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I would prefer to remove it completely for all the unknown ones. (I'll try to find B and C...) We don't put melting, boiling points, densities (unless predicted reliably) for the superheavies as unknown, do we? Double sharp (talk) 06:40, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Carbon struck: the word "diamond" was not recognised for autolinking, but now it is. -DePiep (talk) 13:41, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Es struck for the same. fcc, somehow the word was not recognised in my check. -DePiep (talk) 13:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Np struck: there were three mentioned, now single orthorhombic. So crystal structure defined.
Boron only now left to add its crystal structure. -DePiep (talk) 13:59, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Boron done – it's rhombohedral (like mercury). So we're done. Double sharp (talk) 14:59, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
And I removed input crystal strucuture=unknown, so that text does not show up. Afterwards I counted 27 element boxes that have no crystal structure set or shown.
Boron is rhombohedral. DePiep, could you please fix the template so that it understands this entry and doesn't convert it to triclinic? Materialscientist (talk) 23:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Done. As with bismuth. -DePiep (talk) 11:41, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Usu, Usb, Ust
{{Compact extended periodic table}}: Usu, Usb, and Ust are not superactinides. But what should we colour them as? There is no word for them. ("Eka-superactinides" is unofficial and was proposed by apsidium (yuck!), and thus has been banished with the truss and the electron configurations into "Bad Article Hell, profane not our Wikipedia with such again". –Association of Deletionist Wikipedians) Currently we have them (wrongly) as superactinides, which attracts innocent do-gooders who don't know any better to list them under Superactinide, and they're not superactinides. Double sharp (talk) 13:12, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
So the superactinide color should go from them, whether the other name exists or not. I suggest color some light blue (#E0 FF FF, lightcyan) (light for they are predicted, and not any reddish because a lot of red shades are used already). Also, the light background gives good contrast with their grey, not black, atomic number (for this reason we should lighten up the dark blue in superactinides too). For the moment, we cannot name them but we can describe: "Group 9 f-block elements"?
OK. I've added eka-superactinides #FFFACD to {{Compact extended periodic table}} (the light blue was too close to noble gases blue). If the color is OK, we can deploy it in other templates. The legend now is a red link: Eka-superactinide. Can someone create that page, as a redirect probably? (I would end up in the wrong place for sure ;-) ) -DePiep (talk) 14:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
How about the #eea8a8 used as Template:Element color/9? Since the others correspond to the valence element colors 0 to 8, this is a cute idea. The elements are not close to the transition metals on the periodic table, which is the only possible confusing thing.
Most importantly (to me at least!), your suggestion breaks the nice colour progression from lanthanides to actinides to superactinides; anything that keeps the colour progression would be good IMHO.
"Eka-superactinides", while unreliable, can be seen as the best "name", and the most logical name; "Period 9 g-block elements" would be to wordy.
BTW, I fully support toning down the current superactinides and my proposed eka-superactinides colour. Double sharp (talk) 06:37, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
I am not happy with the red one #eea8a8. The legend already has five reddish colors, a sixth one is dificult to recognise correctly (difficult to discern), and this is a legend. This red is too close to (#ffc0c0 post-transition metals). Many people have difficulty separating such shades. And then we are about to add some more red shades already, lighter ones, for the predicted properties. Also, since they are predicted we prefer using a lighter color. So, browing in web colors, in the yellow-blue-green ones, I found #FFFACD, #9ACD32, #E6E6FA, #7FFFD4: all light and non-red. -DePiep (talk) 10:10, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
I think #9ACD32 is the best. Double sharp (talk) 14:49, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
I've put #a0e032 in the compact one. This is a bit lighter, to keep contrast with cell text (grey and black). OK? -DePiep (talk) 22:48, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Now switched to green throughout. Double sharp (talk) 10:53, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)re Whoop: Yes, since it was just a proposal from me I did not spread it too wide. Seems accepted by now [23]. -DePiep (talk) 10:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
And right above, even before this paint has dried, I propose another route. -DePiep (talk) 19:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
I think this si one of these rare cases when everybody needs to put in a bit of work in this article so we can have one of the vital/lead articles in our project go through wp:FAC. I think we can use the peer review as an A-class review, or a pre-FAC review, so I have transcluded the peer review here. Nergaal (talk) 14:33, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I have been told that it is getting close to FA, and I would like to know what improvements could be made.
Quick comments: File:Atomic number to radius graph.png is hard to read without clocking. Try to change it to lines instead of separate spots. Also, when did the CAS labeling scheme fall into disuse? Nergaal (talk) 19:47, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
The new IUPAC nomenclature was proposed in 1988. The CAS labelling scheme must have fallen into disuse sometime after that. Double sharp (talk) 10:58, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Second point is Done, but for the first point, I don't have an image editing software on my computer (the closest thing I have is Autodesk Maya), and I know next to nothing about that sort of stuff. Is anyone else willing to make the image? StringTheory11 00:14, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Wow. I had a look through this article and found it to be quite a demanding read, compared to descriptive chemistry. Might partly explain the lack of feedback. Anyway, here are some comments about the lead. I've expressed them as questions and inconsistencies that came to mind as I was going, rather than as suggested changes:
'The periodic table is a tabular display of the chemical elements, organized on the basis of their properties.' Which properties?
Done, I think. I hope this is what you meant. StringTheory11 17:44, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
'The main body of the table is a 18 × 7 grid, with gaps included to keep elements with similar properties together, such as the halogens and the noble gases.' How do the gaps keep the halogens together?
Done, that sentence was even somewhat factually inaccurate; the gaps are there to keep elements with the same number of valence electrons together. Thanks! StringTheory11 17:44, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
'The periodic table accurately predicts the properties of various elements and the relations between properties.' As I understand it, accurately is an exaggeration; nor does the periodic table predict all the properties and relations between them.
'Mendeleev's presentation also predicted some properties of then-unknown elements expected to fill gaps in his arrangement; these predictions were proved correct when those elements were discovered and found to have properties close to the predictions.' Yes, this is so. However, if memory serves, and not to underscore his brilliance, some of his predictions were also found to be incorrect. Sandbh (talk) 11:36, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
I think that the Dirac discussion is a bit unclear. I think you can have neutral atoms above 137 or 173, but these atoms don't have electrons in the 1s shell; instead the 1s electrons occupy the next subshell in the with quantum number 6, 7 or 8. Am I correct? Nergaal (talk) 14:40, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
According to unsepttrium, a positron would be spontaneously emitted if the 1s orbital were not filled, which would quickly annihilate with an electron, forming an ion. This is referenced, so I have added the fact and the reference to the article. StringTheory11 00:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I also think there needs to be a small section on popular culture. The periodic table is ubiquitous in science highschool labs, and I am sure there can be a small section on that. Nergaal (talk) 14:43, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Don't get me started on how many times I tried to add a popular culture section to alkali metal (all those parties throwing alkali metals into water), and how many times it was deleted. :-( IMHO, both alkali metal and periodic table deserve a popular culture section. Double sharp (talk) 16:00, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Sounds to me that ADOMAH is an acronym. Can you find out what is it supposed to mean? Nergaal (talk) 14:48, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
For the origin of word ADOMAH, see V. Tsimmerman. "Perfect Periodic Table". Retrieved 6 July 2012. (at the bottom of the home page). Drova (talk) 18:08, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
RJH comments The citations will need plenty of TLC before you successfully take it through FAC. Believe me, they will check every little detail. Here are some examples of concerns I noticed:
"From elements to atoms: a history of chemical composition": is the bold-faced 92 meant to be a page number?
"Painless Learning Placemats: Periodic Table of the Elements": author? ISBN?
This fact is really hard to get a good ref for, as it is mostly common knowledge, so it isn't referenced in that many places. I hope the new ref works, although I have to admit it is a stretch.... StringTheory11 20:42, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Understood. Note that I wasn't suggesting that the citation should be replaced; just that it seemed like there should be additional details about the reference in the citation. Regards, RJH(talk) 20:45, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
The footnotes need to be made highly consistent and reasonably thorough, so it's worth going through the list a couple of times to make sure.
I won't be surprised to see the topic of WP:JARGON arise during the FAC because this article uses a lot of technical terms without explaining them. In some cases I'm not certain that just linking the terms will be sufficient.
In the lead it says, "These gaps form four distinct rectangular...". No "gaps" were previously mentioned, leaving a gaping hole in the description, as it were.
The first use of "quantum shell" needs to be linked because many readers won't have a clue what this means. Ditto with "electron sub-shells" and "electron shell".
Good luck with your FAC. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 01:38, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Fluorine
What do you think of this one: [24]doi:10.1002/ange.201203515. I know for years that blue calciumflurite contains fluorine. Why the hype now? --Stone (talk) 21:32, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Proposal to unify spelling in elements articles
A comment by VMS Mosaic brought me to this proposal: use US spelling in all articles on chemical elements (off course, retaining aluminium and caesium names per IUPAC). {{Elementbox}} uses "vapor ", "vaporization", "ionization", thus to preserve US/UK spelling we need to duplicate the template. While this is quite possible, only phosphorus (maybe one more, I forgot which one, anyone knows?) uses UK spelling. Our replication of rarely used templates is often opposed by template-wise people, thus unifying spelling is a more practical solution. Please vote (same problem actually exists for all chemicals using {{chembox}}, which contains odor, vapor, etc.; if you wish to discuss it, please start a separate thread at WP:Chemicals - I have no slightest idea about the number of UK-spelled articles on chemicals, and most of them have more serious issues than UK/US spelling). Materialscientist (talk) 04:26, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Strong oppose, this is the English Wikipedia, not the American Wikipedia. A template does not enforce the spelling preference on the rest of the article, and this is likely to end up in edit warring for certain articles - not to say that when an article is written in UK English where the article name has an element in it in the British spelling, and then changing over the rest of the article to US because of this bureaucracy (that this suggestion will create) will further enhance the discussion on changing the spelling of the element names on Wikipedia, away from our long-standing consensus to follow IUPAC. I am afraid this will bring more discussion then resolution. --Dirk BeetstraTC 05:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Consider this: our IUPAC conventions will stay unchanged (the proposal is about article text, not names). Only about 1% of elements articles use UK spelling. Materialscientist (talk) 05:41, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Only 1% of the element names are specific UK, that is also true the other way around, only 1% of the element names are specifically US. Guessing that sulfur- and phosphorous-compounds are equally distributed throughout the compounds, that percentage will also go for the total articles titles. The rest of the articles (98%) is language non-specific by title. Some will talk about sulfur or phosphorus compounds, but that is not going to be major only. So the only reason to change the language to one preference would be because the templates are, almost by definition, using a single language. Man, I would like to see the possibility of '__SPELLING_UK__' vs. '__SPELLING_US__' magic words (to be used in the article, which you could use to enforce a language in a template via a parser function ... --Dirk BeetstraTC 06:28, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Dirk, this thread is not about names of elements and compounds - they will stay unchanged - it is about spelling of prose text in elements articles. I don't mind it be UK or US, but it just happened so that only 1% of articles use UK spelling, and this conflicts with the rigid US spelling of templates (infoboxes). We didn't care about it before, but elements articles are close to GA level now, as a group. Materialscientist (talk) 07:06, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
That is easily solvable, we just make the template bilingual US English/British English. Pyrotec (talk) 19:04, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I know. And they should be in the language where the article was originally written in. There are two options for confusion: templates in one language - articles in the other, and a couple of elements where the IUPAC name of the element (which gets extrapolated when it is a constituent of a compound-name - Trimethyl aluminium/Trimethyl aluminum) conflicts . I disagree to the point that ALL articles should be in US English, or in UK English, we simply follow WP:ENGVAR - i.e., the language of the first major revision, even if that results in a 'conflict' with the infoboxes.
Moreover, this sets a bad precedent - if something like the {{Infobox Royalty}} would display parameters in US English, we would consider to rewrite the FA article Elizabeth II to use US English? Do note, that the UK English article-name Caesium (FA-status) seems to be written in UK English ("golden-coloured", not "golden-colored"), and has an US English infobox ("Heat of vaporization", not "Heat of vaporisation") and now it is a problem for GA status? That is simply ridiculous. --Dirk BeetstraTC 10:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I could extremi(s/z)e this - create a generally useful template which displays text in either US-English or UK-English, transclude it on many pages, and then say that because that template uses one variety, all the articles that use the template should use the same variety otherwise it would not pass GA status (and now I did not even start about articles who use both a template that uses US-English, and a template that uses UK-English ... like a UK-English infobox and a US-English navigation template). --Dirk BeetstraTC 12:15, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Support I guess I caused this, so I should weigh in. I just want articles to use an internally consistent spelling. If the only (i.e., likely to succeed) way to do it for this article, phosphorus, is this proposal, then I support it. I did look at modifying the templates, but decided that poking a stick into a bee hive was a very bad idea. Been there, done that, won't do it again. VMS Mosaic (talk) 10:13, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose to the death Moves like this undermine the spirit of WP:ENGVAR by marginalising British English. If you favour US English for the sake of consistency in a subset of all the articles on en.wiki, sooner or later someone will propose all the articles should be converted to US English. To me, the neatest solution would be to tag words like color/colour with some sort of markup so that the reader can select either British or American English and the article will be displayed accordingly. Is this possible? --Ben (talk) 11:27, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Could a parameter not be added to the infobox to display UK or US names for words where there is a difference, something like {{#if: {{{UK|}}}|vapour|vapor}}? That would fix the internal inconsistency without needing to ignore WP:ENGVAR or create two templates. Quasihuman (talk • contribs) 11:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose I started to expand the article a few years ago. It was started in British English and I continued using British English, with vapour, etc, so WP:ENGVAR should apply. Some of the more recent additions have been in US English and the article has suffered the usual vandalism. I have no real problem with Sulfur, but I prefer Sulphur, however the Royal Society for Chemistry adopted the use of Sulfur so we must accept Sulfur. Pyrotec (talk) 12:04, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose Terrible idea. This insistence on US spelling is a form of parochialism and cultural hegemony, not that it is intended that way. The result would be proclaiming to the world that the biggest chunk of Wikipedia is mainly for Americans and that others should submit or bugger off. Already we fight a battle where some editors assume that the (US) FDA is the ultimate authority on drugs and that a law in some California city is supposed to be gripping news. Also, I think that readers being exposed to various spellings is healthy, like eating diverse foods for the brain. --Smokefoot (talk) 12:37, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Support. Of course, by consensus we can always change an ENGVAR style per article, so that first edit rule can be overcome. On top of this, we could be bright and apply the essence of ENGVAR to all periodic table articles (or WP:ELEMENTS scope), to create a single overall language style. That would be an Übercool ENGVAR application. -DePiep (talk) 19:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
WikiProject Elements does not own the articles and some of these articles were created and expanded by editors that are not members of WikiProject Elements. They don't own the articles either, but this proposal seems to be more about this project grabbing ownership and overriding the principles on which wikipedia was built. Pyrotec (talk) 19:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Grabbing ownership? No more than the first editor of a page who uses a specific ENGVAR, and so owns the page (not). ENGVAR is explicitly about uniformity of language, and I am free to propose extension to a group of articles. Introducing the words overriding the principles ... wikipedia is not based on what I wrote here. -DePiep (talk) 20:39, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
No, you would need a Wikipedia-wide discussion to override on a specific subset of articles a long-standing consensus (even on one article). A local consensus does not trump a community consensus - you can have local consensus to violate a policy/guideline, but that does not mean that you can violate the policy/guideline and apply the change. --Dirk BeetstraTC 06:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
You too, Beetstra, stop accusing me of violating a policy or prove it.
And well, I did not say we'd find it here. And long standing is not an argument really, and consensus it is not, because it is just the rule (ENGVAR). Anyway, it looks like there are nationalistis fears involved ("until death", "parochialism and cultural hegemony", "burocracy", "grabbing ownership" -- laughable to me). Gives me an idea how IUPAC has to work. I stand by my first support post here. -DePiep (talk) 08:09, 21 June 2012 (U
I agree. Consensus in this case applies only to this article. That is what WP:ENGVAR requires, no more, no less. I was the cause of this, and my preferred solution would be to 'fix' the template to allow UK spelling, but if no one (I'm a cripple and no longer up to the task; these types of often friutless arguments are very life force draining) is willing to take the effort to fix the template, then the only other alternative is to fix the article. If someone steps forward to fix the template, then I will fully support them. VMS Mosaic (talk) 10:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose – straight-out flat "No!" Are we even discussing this? If fixing a template so that it can handle ENGVAR (long-standing guidelines with the vast weight of consensus) is "poking a stick into a bee hive", this idea, this can of worms, this Pandora's Box would be like taking your stick a wacking a grizzly bear with it. It would set a terrible precident. Just fix the template: we'd have saved a lot of effort if that had been done in the first place. JIMptalk·cont 10:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Then fix it already or find someone who can. I'm a cripple and no longer up to such a task. VMS Mosaic (talk) 10:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Another example of not knowing the word consensus when it is a step higher than just a page. -DePiep (talk) 14:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what you mean, DePiep, sorry, but what I'm trying to say is that the way ENGVAR works and has been working for years is on a per-article basis. It didn't have to be like that but this is the rule we've adopted. It's accepted and rarely challenged (this discussion is one of the rare examples), that's consensus. That's how consensus works. Consensus can change but I doubt that this rule is changing any time soon. JIMptalk·cont 01:28, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose – you could just insert a parameter like |engvar= into {{Elementbox}}, where "us" and "uk" would give what you want for the variety of English used in the article (handled with many {{#if:|}}s). Double sharp (talk) 10:35, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Then fix it or find someone who can. Doing it is far beyond my severely limited abilities. VMS Mosaic (talk) 10:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll fix it if someone doesn't beat me to it but it'll have to wait till tomorrow. JIMptalk·cont 11:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Question Is there a obvious improvement to use only one derivative of english? I hardly see the difference only if I look a second time I see the centre or center or the other minor diviations.--Stone (talk) 10:59, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
It's considered good style to be consistant. Inconsistant spelling grates on some readers your own laudable immunity notwithstanding. JIMptalk·cont 11:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
For those in agony in dying empires: see {{engvar}}. Hope you all get better now, and can defend your other fears ;-) I did not know ENGVAR suppresses that much. -DePiep (talk) 13:38, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't consider that statement "For those in agony in dying empires" is compliant with Wikipedia:Etiquette, or should that be "compliant (not)". Descending to gutter level is possibly an indication that the battle has been lost as far as DePiep is concerned. Pyrotec (talk) 15:25, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I was responding to the non-argumental remarks made here. These include your unbased accusation re grabbing ownership (still not based or withdrawn), now adding your battle approach. And while you were in armour, I actually solved the issue. -DePiep (talk) 15:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for solving the issue. Actually I was not in "battle" approach, I was at the National Archives of one particular nation trying to track down a departed relative who in the second half of the 19th century was in a "dying empire" (the British Raj in this case). Pyrotec (talk) 15:56, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I've just had a look at Phosphorus. I like the new infobox: well done. Pyrotec (talk) 16:07, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. -DePiep (talk) 16:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Affected words
Please list here which words we need to differentite, and in which template (infobox element presumed). It is only US or UK spelling, right? Or is there a GB page too? -DePiep (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
For the basic {{Infobox element}}(so available for all element infoboxes). Note: there was one vaprorization to edit, and four times an inization (where to check these?). No other changes. Default=en-US (no visual change then, check an element page). One actual UK page altered: added engvar=en-UK in article page Phosphorus as the editor should do. Any questions? -DePiep (talk) 16:01, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Oops, each individual element infobox must be edited to use en-UK. I only did the i'box phospohorus, see [25]. Any more infoboxes to be prepared for en-UK this way? - DePiep (talk) 16:39, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Why not use "vapour" (and "vapourisation") in the British version?--R8R Gtrs (talk) 19:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Don't ask me. I don't know anything about the difference. So, is there UK-word and an US-word? Write it down here crisp & clear, and I'll make the Infoboxes bi-lingual. -DePiep (talk) 21:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
OK. Vapor and vaporization are US, vapour and vapourisation are UK. The endings -or/-our are like -ize/-ise when it takes to the words coming from Romance languages, esp. French (such as color, vapor, tumor, humor, glamor, etc.), which is almost always the case (there also exceptions like hour or razor, spelled the same in both versions, the -ize/-ise exceptions also exist, such as seize or raise).--R8R Gtrs (talk) 21:35, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I get it. Will take a look shortly. Oh, those English. What they have done to the French language. Before, it was all Oc [OK] and Oui [yes], -DePiep (talk) 23:24, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Please listen. We do not do grammar here. Just tell me what words differ in en-UK and en-US, and I'make the templates show that in en-UK / en-US article pages. Right? -DePiep (talk) 03:53, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
"Ionisation" vs "ionization" is only half the story. There's also "colour" vs "color". It gets complicated when you go and combine these. It's not black & white "vapourisation" in the UK vs "vaporization" in the US. There's a grey area (or a gray area if you prefer) in which it's "vapourization" which is the spelling prefered in Canada and by the Oxford Dictionary. I mentioned above that I'd fix it if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Well, I was beaten to it but as the point I'm now mentioning wasn't actually taken into account (in fact -our varients were completely overlooked) it isn't actually fixed. Thus I'm taking the liberty to impliment the fix I'd had in mind. Note that my idea was to determine the output spelling by the spelling of the parameters rather than by a new engvar parameter but there's no reason we can't have our cake and eat it too here. I've designed a version which incorporates both options. JIMptalk·cont 00:42, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
So you are going your own variant afterwards? Thank you for understanding me. But don't you spoil a working solution. -DePiep (talk) 02:34, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
eh, you jimp already did change a working thing? That is NOT the way we work. -DePiep (talk) 02:40, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
User:Jimp, you are disrupting working templates and pages. Stop it. And you have no backing for doing so. If you want to improve {{engvar}}, for example, you come over and TALK. -DePiep (talk) 02:47, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Well jimp, looks like you were beaten to it. Now cooperate or shut up. If a 'point ... wasn't actually taken into account then write it here or on my talk, clearly. That is exactly what this section is about. Now, any words to be specified UK/US, jimp? -DePiep (talk) 03:01, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
At first glance it seemed I was beaten to it, yes, but on closer inspection I found that the job was not complete. Specifically
your {{{engvar}}}, DePiep, only changes -ization to -isation,
I thought I had written the point out clearly. In fact, I thought R8R Gtrs' explanation was already clear enough. Parameter {{{engvar}}} (if that's what we're using) should control -or vs -our & -er vs -re spellings not just -ize vs -ise. So I judged that I wasn't beaten to it after all. The job was unfinished. I went and finished it off as I'd said I would bringing the phosphorus infobox inline with with the spelling in the article. I was reverted and now we're back to colorless, center, vaporisation and vapor on a page which is supposed to be written in British English.
Yes, I did it my way. It wasn't perfect but, with due respect, DePiep, nor is using a metatemplate each time you want a simple optional spelling. If "cooperate" entails being constrained to using template {{engvar}} regardless of whether a better solution exists, then perhaps I had better "shut up". JIMptalk·cont 09:04, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Let me be clear. If there are words or terms that are ENGVAR-specific, then write that down here. How else could I know? -DePiep (talk) 03:48, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
The spellings which pertain to this template are as follows.
Thanks. Is there a element page in Canadian English? -DePiep (talk) 09:38, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
BTW, is phosphorus the only en-UK element article? Double sharp (talk) 04:53, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Other en-UK pages besides phosphorus I don't know about. When I edit Phosphorus I get a note on top that says: "British English", but I cannot find an overview (category) for other such pages. -DePiep (talk) 09:38, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I am very confused now. Someone added the correct engvar parameter (which didn't fix the hard coded spellings which I just corrected), so someone reverted the engvar parameter because it didn't fix all the spellings? Why is something so simple being made so complex? Unlike some of the global thermonuclear ENGVAR wars I've had the misfortune to take part in (hard to believe, but one has been at a cold war stale mate for years over just two words), no one appears to be disputing the spelling to use in this case. Sometimes I wonder if the effort to make Wikipedia articles even be slightly internally consistent isn't a completely lost cause. VMS Mosaic (talk) 10:18, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
The ENGVAR discussion is only about the visible text on the article page. There is no reason to change parameter names into bilingual, and I reverted such edit. Under the hood all parameters stay US english, and no reader will notice.
As forwhat is changed: at this moment an elemenet infobox can set engvar=en-UK in the article page (see Phosphorus). When this is done, these visible words change in spelling: vapour, -isation, colour (in about eight places). What is not correct? -DePiep (talk) 10:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I admit, VMS Mosaic, that your edits in the phosphorus template are to the point (writing "colour" in the visible text &tc), but jimps edits [26] were changing parameter names which is not done. In the revert the right ones got lost to, and you corrected that. -DePiep (talk) 10:53, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, please check for babies when you throw out the bath water. No, I agree that there was little point adding the option of controlling spelling via parameter names (were the parameter names to appear when editing the article it might make sense). JIMptalk·cont 15:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Check Phosphorus. I did not add en-CAN variants (or any other then UK / US), because I'd like to know if it is used at all (is there a page in canadian-english?). -DePiep (talk) 10:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Good. Think there's no Canadian article. About other UK, many our articles are mixed (given the punctuation and vocabulary differ as well as the spellings. Or arre some actually Canadian? Don't think ao, though). Many could be unified under any standard, if anyone's willing. If a BrE user goes ahead, more could use the British infobox. Also, there's the peer-reviewer tool that spots inconsistent usage of the two versions (http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/view/Peer_reviewer#page:Arsenic), but it doesn't notice things like serial commas.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 14:34, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether this is covered but there is an inconsistency in the use of spaces, commas and fullstops (periods for the US) to denote thousands and decimals so one million can be "1,000,000" but it can also be "1 000 000" and ten and half could be "10.5" or "10,5" and this seems to be a Europe vs the rest thing. Pyrotec (talk) 15:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
It's somewhat ambiguous, but WP:ORDINAL appears to allow either "1,000,000.01" or "1 000 000.01". It says the "." should only be used as the decimal point. VMS Mosaic (talk) 21:40, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, either the comma to the left of the decimal point or thin spaces either side. If you want to use thin spaces, use {{val}}, {{gaps}} or something equivalent, this give non-breaking thin spaces. JIMptalk·cont 15:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Some questions
{{Infobox phosphorus}} accepts the parameter engvar. Use {{Infobox phosphorus|engvar=en-uk}} and all's well. What happens when we omit the parameter? What's the default? Here's what we get: colourless, centre, vaporization, vapor and ionization. {{Infobox phosphorus}} doesn't default to US spelling nor does it default to UK spelling; it defaults to inconsistant spelling. Where's the sense in that?
If {{infobox phosphorus}} is going to accept the parameter engvar, this parameter should control the spellings of colourless and centre as well as those of vapourisation, vapour and ionisation. However, none of the other specific-element infoboxes accept the parameter engvar. Try {{Infobox hydrogen|engvar=en-uk}} and you get US spelling. If {{infobox phosphorus}} is going to accept the parameter engvar, why shouldn't all specific-element infoboxes do so?
Of course there would be no point having {{infobox hydrogen}} accept the parameter engvar since it is a single-use infobox. {{Infobox hydrogen}} is used only on the article Hydrogen which has US spelling. The option to use another spelling system would not be needed. There's no point adding an option which we don't expect to be used.
Similarly {{infobox phosphorus}} is a single-use infobox. We're only ever going to need UK spelling. So why does {{infobox phosphorus}} need to accept parameter engvar? Why not have {{infobox phosphorus}} produce UK spelling only (like all the others produce US spelling only)? Then on Phosphorus we could simply use {{Infobox phosphorus}} instead of having to use {{Infobox phosphorus|engvar=en-uk}}. JIMptalk·cont 17:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Jimp, so you edited fuckingly and now you complain it does not work? -DePiep (talk) 00:15, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I reverted, now it works as expected. Again. See my sandbox. What is your question now? -DePiep (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
jimp, it works fine & generic & according to documentation. If you have other theoretical ideas, propose trough talk or sandbox. -DePiep (talk) 01:15, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not complaining that it does not work. I'm simply observing that the way you've got it working, DePiep, makes no sense. Yes, it does work just fine if and only if you use {{Infobox phosphorus|engvar=en-uk}}. I have just had a look at your sandbox and it clearly demonstrates just what I'm saying. {{Infobox phosphorus|engvar=en-us}}, {{Infobox phosphorus|engvar=}} and {{Infobox phosphorus}} all produce the inconsistant spelling that I have described above. Don't you find it strange that this element infobox (and only this one) requires parameter engvar for it to produce sensible output?
"I reverted, now it works as expected. Again." By "Again" it seems you imply that it wasn't working as expected after I'd edited "fuckingly". (What exactly, by the way, do you mean by this strange and rather impolite expression?) I put it to you that it does not work as expected. There is no documentation on {{infobox phosphorus}} which mentions parameter engvar. There is no documentation on {{infobox phosphorus}} at all. None of the other specific-element infoboxes accept parameter engvar; there is nothing generic about it. There is no reason to expect that this infobox would requireengvar=en-uk.
So what is my question now? My question is the same. Why did you set things up in this convoluted way, DePiep? Why does {{infobox phosphorus}} require engvar=en-uk? Why not just have {{infobox phosphorus}} produce UK English without parameter engvar? Why are you reverting edits which simplify things?
Yes, I have other ideas about how this infobox system could be tidied up. I can't claim the honour of calling them "theoretical". What shall I do with these ideas? I should propose them "through talk or sandbox", DePiep, you say. This is what I'm doing. This page is a talk page. I proposed the edits in question here. I gave explicit reasons for making the said edits. I invited discussion. There was no discussion. I made the proposed edits. I was reverted.
Instead of having the points I'd raised addressed I was told that I'd "edited fuckingly", was shown a sandbox which only proved my point, I was asked "What is your question now?" after I'd already clearly asked my questions only for them to be ignored and I was assured that "it works fine & generic & according to documentation" which is simply not the case, as I'd already argued.
My arguments were dismissed with a if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it attitude. So what should I do with ideas on how to further improve how the infobox system works? I guess I should just go shove 'em. Since what's the point of tidying anything up when it works just fine? DePiep, as someone interested in science, don't you appreciate simplification? This whole system works, sure, but it's a mess. How could I not have other ideas? DePiep, are you going to be a sport and hear them out?
DePiep, you demand that I "cooperate". I suggest you try do the same. Please make a start by explaining to us why {{infobox phosphorus}} requires engvar=en-uk. Why on the article Phosphorus must we use {{Infobox phosphorus|engvar=en-uk}} instead of {{Infobox phosphorus}} in line with all the other elements? Why? Do enlighten me for I really cannot fathom this. JIMptalk·cont 05:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Another question, DePiep, you don't make a habit of adding useless bits of code to templates "just for the fun of it.", do you? JIMptalk·cont 06:38, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll describe from scratch, skipping minor sideremarks.
WP:ENGVAR: This thread is about en-US/en-UK language usage in element pages. It appeared that "all into en-US" consensus could not be reached, so en-UK is to stay. Fine.
The basic {{infobox element}}: So as for the element infoboxes, I added {{engvar}} subtemplate and engvar= variable (or parameter) option to the basic {{infobox element}}. This sets the basic infobox texts (labels) into a language. Default is en-US (vapor), option en-UK is available (vapour).
Template {{engvar}}: this subtemplate is available to resolve this language option nicely. It has provisions to use a default language setting, and fall-back logic to produce output for omitted languages (words). See its documentation. It is aimed to be useful in any template that requires such ENGVAR bilinguals.
If I understand you well jimp, you have no problem with this so far. Other solutions would be copypasting a second {{infobox element en-UK}} that would use en-UK labels. For template maintenance reasons, this is undesired. Another option could be using en-UK variable names (like colour=...), but that would be more clumsy (and still need a language switch somehow, though much more complicated and using implicit not explicit logic).
So: the basic template {{infobox element}} is prepared for bilingual usage.
Usage in all element infoboxes: Next step, we know, is adjusting the "intermediate" (element specific) templates.
Since the default language code was set to en-US by default (in {{infobox element}}), we do not need to alter (edit) all the infoboxes. So, setting an element infobox explicitly engvar=en-US is setting into the default value (a bit of double), but may be useful for testing (e.g. compare with en-UK). It appears that only {{infobox phosphorus}} needs en-UK (because Phosphorus is the only article in en-UK). Clearly, we only need to take a look at en-UK situations (Phosphorus and {{infobox phosphorus}}), given that the default en-US works fine everywhere without edits.
Article page language: Now this is the crux: ENGVAR is about article page language (not template space). So I built the option to be set in article page. Using the P template gives the option to set engvar=en-UK in the phosphorus article. Again, the template should not be hardcoded into a language, it is for the article to define. (Of course the P template is transcluded only once now, but that does not alter the principle).
The article sets the variable into en-UK, and the P template passes this through to the basic template. Now the labels are in en-UK (vapour) on the article page.
But also, the P template has individual settings (P-specific data entered), like appearance "colourless". For now, this can be hardcoded in the P template (as it is done), and all shows up well in the article.
Testing unused variants and future usage: If one would test the P template today to use en-US (like jimp points to in the beginning of this subthread), or using it in a future new article page that is in full en-US, we see this: the labels are set according to the input engvar=en-USin the article page (vapor) as intended. But the hardcoded values ("colourless") still are en-UK. This can be solved by adding this code to the P template:
{{engvar | {{{engvar|en-US}}} | en-UK=colourless| en-US=colorless}}. Note that this requires the variable (or parameter) {{{engvar|en-US}}}, which then should be present in the calling article or test page. So to have the test succeed, we need the variable (parameter) to be set and code added. At this moment, such en-US usage is not needed, so this omitted is not a problem.
Or hardcoding? On the other hand, hardcoding the language in the P template only (and not setting it in article page), is a shortcut that breaks the principle. That is why I did not code it thus the first place. Also, depending on hardcoding that way is mixing principles and therefor adding a complexity too (hardcoding vs parameter coding), not just simplifying. I can add that using parameters is good template coding practice. Also, since I produced the first code working correctly, for arbitrary situations I claim to stick with that way of doing.
Thank you for taking the time to respond at such length. Now I have some understanding of your point of view, though I might not be convinced that it is the best approach.
"It appears that only {{infobox phosphorus}} needs en-UK" you point out. Yes, this is true, moreover {{infobox phosphorus}} needs only en-UK. {{Infobox phosphorus}} doesn't need en-US any more than any of the others need en-UK.
"Again," you point out "the template should not be hardcoded into a language, it is for the article to define." Why then are all (but one) of the other templates hardcoded for US English or can we expect to see them sprout extra code which will never be used like {{infobox hydrogen}} has? Also {{infobox phosphorus}} is semi-hardcoded anyway or can we expect to see template {{engvar}} deployed here also?
Yes, the variety of English is determined article-by-article but I don't agree that that entails that there must be a parameter set in the article which determines the variety. If all the pages using the said template use the same English variety (and it is expected to remain as such), then the parameter is redundant. I don't agree that "using parameters is good template coding practice" where the parameters serve no purpose.
Simplicity, I argue, is the higher principle. The variety of English used in each of these element articles has been decided long ago. Just let the infoboxes produce the desired spelling without the need for excess parameters which will never need resetting. This is mere clutter that makes the articles less consistant and more confusing. Moreover this parameter might encourage vandals to try change the variety of English used on this or other element infoboxes.
Whilst on the subject of simplification, we may note that {{infobox element}} calls the metatemplate {{engvar}} eight times. All this adds to the server load. Yes, there are those who say "Don't worry about performance." but then there are others who add "... until performance becomes a worry." then there are those of us who say "Performance is a worry." You mention two other solutions.
"copypasting a second {{infobox element en-UK}} that would use en-UK labels"
This, I agree, would be very undesirable.
"using en-UK variable names"
This may be somewhat cumbersome but it does give editors a simple and logical way of controlling spelling. Of course, in this particular case it isn't worth the bother since these names don't appear in the article anyway.
The list is, of course, not exhaustive. One obvious possiblity overlooked is using an #ifeq. Instead of using
and send u=u for -our and s=s for -ise? This latter option would make coding Canadian/Oxford, if ever needed, very simple but the real benefit here is far simpler code. Instead of engvar=en-UK which must then be interpreted send along exactly what we want to appear. As we simplify the code we reduce server load making pages quicker to load and allowing more templates to be transcluded on them. (My suggestions lead to a reduction in the preprocessor node count, the post-expand include size and the template argument size; the difference isn't huge but small savings add up.) Simplified code also makes editing easier.
Please explain what you mean by "Also, depending on hardcoding that way is mixing principles and therefor adding a complexity too (hardcoding vs parameter coding), not just simplifying." I'm sorry I just can't seem to make heads or tails out of this one.
I have a certain problem with the statement "since I produced the first code working correctly, for arbitrary situations I claim to stick with that way of doing" (actually doubt can be cast on this but that's beside the point). I don't believe that this is a very fruitful way of doing things. This way of thinking stifles potential improvement. If we were to follow this idea, the place would very soon be a clutter of bad template code. Let the best code win.
- Server load is not an argument at all. NewPP is not near its limits. "Reducing" server load is not an issue here. {{engvar}} is called eight times you couned -- well, there are eight engvar words clearly. What do you expect?
- Do not stumble over unused code, excessive parameters. These templates are full of unused code (just think about the empty parameters in there). Since my edits produced a working and systematic result, such arguments do not weigh much. I can add that bothering with "unused code" and "server load" complicates & clutters your argumentation into a standstill. Your main points get hidden.
- My last line says what it says. I can understand you might take issue with that, still I maintain that claim.
- More on "useless bits of code": I edited {{Infobox hydrogen}} precisely to check your claim on wrong texts, this time in an untouched template to get the fresh situation.
- Your code suggestion to use {{#ifeq|{{{engvar}}}|en-UK|vapourisation|vaporization}} is a reduction of all the options (and en-CAN cannot be added).
- Now the more major stuff.
- Question: what exactly is the issue with using {{engvar}} in the inner template {{Infobox element}}, as it is now? OK or why not?
- What is wrong with this current logic: There is the option to use en-UK/en-US in the base template. And editor can set that option in the page. This option has a default value (well chosen and working) so that all ~125 en-US templates do not need an edit. What's the problem? One template uses en-UK, and is edited to do so (both by the var and in hardcode). Anything wrong? Since it is article page based, the editor of that page can set the engvar language. Right? Then, in the future if someone wants to test or use a template in a opposite language (say on of the 125 in en=UK or Phosphorus one in en-US) one can edit the individual template and go ahead (code example provided above). Also, if one wants to add the en-CAN option: can be done (this too without having to edit any other template that wants to keep using say en-US).
- Now, please answer first: Exactly what is the problem with the current way? Because first, top of this subthread, you complain that the P-template does not work correctly when using en-US. And later on you complain, multiple times, that there is unused code and useless bits. That is a contradiction. So please explain what it is you look for, and leave out what to me looks less relevant. -DePiep (talk) 10:56, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
It seems we've arrived at a deadlock. We're basing our respective arguments on different principles. I base my argument on the principle of simplicity; simplify the code and it becomes easier to work with. You've got other principles which you reckon trump simplicity. Neither of us will accept the other's point of view unless we first accept the other's basic principle but this is probably not likely.
No, server is not a main issue here. The reduction in the NewPP is only on the order of 1% of the infobox (but it is a reduction). Jimp 27 June 2012
RE (by DePiep (talk) 08:42, 28 June 2012 (UTC)): We agree then.
Yes, the balance may tip in my favo{{{u|}}}r but only slightly. JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm afraid I find the argument that since these templates are "full of unused code" we'd best not "stumble over" it when more is added unconvincing. It's much akin to saying "Well, the streets are full of litter anyway so it's okay to throw my rubbish on the ground." We're better off cleaning the code up rather than adding more unusable code. Jimp 27 June 2012
RE: Unused code is not litter. It is more like parked cars. Anyway. I won't stumble over this (I just can't see the real issue behind it), but it seems to distract you. DePiep 28 June 2012
If there is no reason to expect that these parked cars will ever be used again, they are abandoned vehicles. They may not be in your way (else you'd not have parked more of them) but you and I are not the only ones driving down the street. Why are we not better off towing these abandoned vehicles away? (It's not a question of whether they are in working order or not, noone's going to drive them.) I'm just saying that the more we simplify the code the easier it is on editors. Chunks of code that serve no purpose serve only to make the templates harder to get one's head around. JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
I didn't expect you to give up on the claim in your last line. I too stand by my counter claim. Which will win out in the long run? Which is best for the project? I hope that these turn out to be the same. This is much like our difference in the principles we base our approaches on. Jimp 27 June 2012
RE: If there are killing arguments, I am very well able to concede. So far, I have not seen a convincing one, so that's when the arbitrary comes in. See also my closing note below.
Killing is strong. If there be a sway my way, if the balance tips in my favour, you still won't concede until your approach is dead and cold? JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
If your edit to {{infobox hydrogen}} was precisely to check my claim on wrong texts, why not {{infobox hydrogen/sandbox}}? Jimp 27 June 2012
RE: Irrelevant in this, distracting. DePiep 28 June 2012
Fair enough but it does exemplify the excess code that I'd prefer to cut. JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
If we were to use {{#ifeq|{{{engvar}}}|en-UK|vapourisation|vaporization}} and it became necessary to add en-CAN, then this could be changed to {{#switch:{{{engvar}}}|en-UK=vapourisation|en-CAN=vapourization|vaporization}}. {{engvar|{{{engvar|en-US}}}|en-UK=vapourisation|en-US=vaporization}} similarly would have to be edited. However, as I've mentioned, my actual preference would be for vapo{{{u|}}}ri{{{s|z}}}ation which would need no change at all: just send it u=u only and you get "vapourization". Jimp 27 June 2012
RE: This does look like a core point. This indeed might work (too), although limited to these known situations, and as it is now. I see no benefit to use parameter u= to switch spellings. 1. The spelling switch is implicit, not set (so second interpretation needed when reading code), and it is set in multiple parameters. 2. Parameter names for as spelling variants - complicating. Next time a switch for a "z" may be needed -- how would such parameter z= be (mis)understood, in an element template? And it cannot cover contrary changes, like "use -s here and -z there", or the "-re/-er" swith, in some language. Another construct would be needed (note that the template is still changing and expanding). 4. Using {{engvar}}: although hidden in the cellar of the templates, the spelling variant is visible & checkable when any editor sees: "en-UK=vapour". Self-documenting code here, and no interference with other parameters or code. DePiep 28 June 2012
Simplicity, again, is what I contend to be the benefit here: send a "u" get a "u", no need for metatemplates nor even #ifeqs. Mulitple parameters, yes, that does weigh against the idea of simplicity. Still, though, I don't quite get why {{engvar}} is better than an #ifeq. An editor can understand what the #ifeq is up to without having to go and look up the doc of a metatemplate. JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
My issue with using {{engvar}} stems from my principle of simplicity. To use a template when simple code (a simple #switch, a simple #ifeq or (better still) a direct inclusion of a parameter) would do is an unnecessary compliction. What, if I may turn the question around, would your issue be with using the far simpler vapo{{{u|}}}ri{{{s|z}}}ation instead? Why is {{engvar}} better than vapo{{{u|}}}ri{{{s|z}}}ation? Jimp 27 June 2012
RE: Simplicity yes. But here also opposing principles weigh in, like: be generic, not ad hoc. And use structure, not a flat all-in-one solution. Working solely towards simplicity leads to all hardcoded pages. We would not have templates at all. Look at the extra complicating layer those ~150 element infoboxes create. They could be in the article page straight away right. That would make it simple. But that would be a horror for maintainability (maintainability, includig overview & editability, another opponent of simplicity). And there are more reasons to create a structure (wich might introduce complexities indeed, but good ones I'd say). For example: once {{engvar}} is deployed, it is self-contained and does not bother with other code. Nice. And someone looking for ENGVAR issues, can dive into it and locate their points easily. Another reason: using a generic template. I created {{engvar}} template for this topic here, but it could be reused elsewhere. Yes it is a complicating template layer, but yes too it adds simplicity (one point of entrance). Roundup: simplicity is good, and so is having a structure. In template world, simplicity means: have one template to do just one thing, and make it doing it right. DePiep 28 June 2012
All the other parameters that these element infoboxes send to {{infobox element}} are tucked away & not seen on the article, isn't it non-generic and ad hoc to have this parameter on Phosphorus? I don't agree that simplicity leads to templatelessness. Templates simplify things, giving consistency, allowing multiple changes to be make at once, keeping repetitive code in one place, etc. Using the 150 odd element infoboxes simplifies the article code. I won't go so far as to say {{engar}} is all bad. I see some possible potential in that the wide array of dialects can be covered with one hit. An infobox using this template could handle dialects that the template coder hadn't though of or hadn't considered worth adding. However, this consideration is not all that important here. What's the likelihood that anytime soon we'll have an element page in anything other than US or UK English (i.e. Canadian/Oxford 'cause the rest of us spell these words like the Poms & the dialect code, in my view, would be tucked away on the element infobox)? JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
My issue with using the option to set the spelling on the page, again, stems from my principle of simplicity. This is an option which will never be needed. Cut useless complexity, I say. The requirement to have engvar=en-uk on the Phosphorus page adds clutter. Compared to the ammount of wrangling it would take to over turn the decision to change the page to US English rehardcoding the infobox to do so would be exceedingly simple (note that simply deleting engvar=en-uk won't give US spelling). These are single-use templates which have no need for the option to change the spelling. If in future someone wants to test the infobox in US English, they can use a sandbox. If in future they want to use the infobox on a page in US English, we can cross that unlikely bridge if ever we come to it. All these options you're offering us amount to nothing but useless complexity. Jimp 27 June 2012
RE: No it does not add clutter. No it is not useless: clearly it is used right now, and not idle. It is a parameter setting in the place where WP:ENGVAR wants it to be. Reasons for this complexity explained above. The fact that it is a single-used template now does not imply an exception from good coding practices. Might look useless only for one-dimension hardcoding. DePiep 28 June 2012
"Useless" not in the sense that it's not in use but in the sense that if the template were fully hard-coded (not just half hard-coded) it wouldn't be necessary. Hard-code and you can remove it from the article. We could streamline but we choose to have excess code, that is want I'm calling "clutter". WP:ENGVAR doesn't want it to be there. WP:ENGVAR doesn't say anything about how we manage it, it just says to pick a dialect and stick with it. WP:ENGVAR would be quite happy with hard-coding. No, the fact that it is a single-used template now does not imply an exception from good coding practices but I'm not convinced that this falls into that category, sorry. Why should {{infobox phosphorus}} default to US English (albeit only half-heartedly) just because {{infobox element}} happens to? JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
{{Infobox phosphorus}}doesn't work with engvar=en-US: "colourless" and "centre" are hardcoded. There is a lot of code here which is completely unused and will likely never be used. These are both true statements. Where's the contradiction? Yes, getting engvar=en-US to work {{infobox phosphorus}} would entail adding more code (which will never be needed) but this is not what I'm suggesting. I say forget parameter engvar and hardcode {{infobox phosphorus}} simply to produce UK spelling only, this is all it will ever need to produce. All the others (except for {{infobox hydrogen}}) are hardcoded, why not this one? Jimp 27 June 2012
RE: I already asked: what about your contradicton? You complain about the extra code, and you complain that the test did not work. Which way do you want it? (Note: this issue solely stems from the fact that these infoboxes are two-layered). DePiep 28 June 2012
I'd prefer these element infoboxes fully hard-coded to conform with the article's style, sorry if I have failed so far to make that clear. I'm making the point that the test doesn't work to emphasise that using parameter engvar on Phosphorus is implying a promise that we're not keeping. Parameter engvar works as promised on one element infobox and one only: {{infobox hydrogen}}. I'm not keen on the idea of having the requisite code added to the other 150 odd element infoboxes to get it working everywhere else when in all likelyhood, this excess code would be, like the code on {{infobox hydrogen}} & {{infobox phosporus}}, a fleet of abandoned cars. JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
RE: I added my RE's in between. In general, even if the proposed alternatives might work in this situation now, I do not see trumping argument(s) that shows the {{engvar}} construct being inferior. When these show up, I am very well able to concede. Maybe we should ask other editors to help this further. -DePiep (talk) 08:42, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
I've added replies after the REs. Yes, asking for the opinion of others would be a good idea. (Let 'em call us lame.) Neither of our agruments are necessarily wrong but perhaps we're just arguing from premises. JIMptalk·cont 09:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
"These two will never agree, they are arguing from different premises." (Now who was it who said that?) Double sharp (talk) 13:42, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Post-transition metals, poor metals, and aluminium
In the current classification system of the elements, we call the elements between the transition metals and the metalloids, the 'post-transition metals'. We also count aluminium as post-transition metal. Does anyone know why (a) we count aluminium as a post-transition metal; and (b) why we deprecated the use of the term poor metals? I would argue that: 1. aluminium is not a post-transition metal; 2. what we call the post-transition metals would be better termed poor metals; 3. the poor metals include aluminium; and 4. post-transition metals are a subset of the poor metals, not including aluminium. Grateful for other views on this. If memory serves, the post-transition metals used to be called 'other metals', which I do agree is a less than desirable term. Sandbh (talk) 08:23, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
This whole classification thing seems to be a bigger deal in Wikipedia than in the real world where few care deeply how it is classified. It is however not a transition metal because the d-orbitals are not involved in the bonding. Yes, it acts a lot like ferric ion. And even the exact classification of a transition metal raises some people's blood pressures. Chemists by and large ignore these classification as a form of bean counting. We even ignore IUPAC unless it suits us.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:23, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Poor metals isn't a very official term, and so we good Wikipedians have an allergy towards it. ;-) That's what caused all the nonsense with poor metals/other metals/post-transition metals. "Other metals" is strictly correct, but is certainly less than ideal. Double sharp (talk) 12:54, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Nature doesn't categorize itself in an ideal fashion. Maybe this project has the goal of avoiding being strictly correct or maybe it's a project goal to actively remove the strictly correct and replace it with one of many possible incorrect choices. But I do think most wikipedia editors would prefer strict correctness as a better course of action. An encyclopedia can reflect the dastardly lack of ideal categorization in nature or it can make crap up. Flying Jazz (talk) 02:32, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
I would prefer "poor metals". At least it's correct, if not very official, and anything to avoid the horrible "other metals". (Unfortunately, we can't get rid of "other nonmetals" for now.) Double sharp (talk) 11:44, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm struggling with this due to combination of (a) very inconsistent uses of the term 'poor metal' in the literature, including related concepts such as 'weak' or 'chemically weak' metals; and (b) the present hybrid system used (in Wikipedia) for the different categories of periodic table elements. For example, some authors count beryllium as a poor metal. If we so color the box for beryllium we lose the cohesiveness of the alkaline earth metals category. Double sharp, you've alluded to the same issue (further down below) wrt to the classification of astatine as a metalloid. Showing astatine as a metalloid potentially 'disrupts' the halogen category. Yet no one bats an eyelid about the pnictogens or the chalcogens not showing as discrete categories of elements. On top of this is the equally horrible category of 'other nonmetals'.
Looking at the literature, Silberberg (2006) avoids these kinds of issues by classifying the elements as metals (main group); metals (transition); metals (inner transition); metalloids; and nonmetals. This is better, but still a little too simple and lacking sufficient differentiation, in my view. I like the approach taken by Cox (2004) some more. He uses: pre-transition metals (Groups 1 and 2, and Al); transition metals; and post-transition metals, and also discusses the different chemistries of each of these categories. He also identifies the lanthanides, actinides, metalloids and nonmetals. I like the way he categorizes the metals using the transition metals as a point of reference since they represent so much of metal chemistry.
Neither of these authors do anything about the 'other metals' bugbear however. Looking again at the literature it seems to me that there are three basic categories of nonmetal identified therein: metalloids; typical nonmetals; and noble gases. The category of 'typical nonmetal' is not completely consistently used in the literature so, for example, carbon is sometimes identified as a typical nonmetal (chemically) but is sometimes also identified as a non-typical nonmetal (physically), on account of, for example, its relatively good electrical conductivity. But at least the term 'typical metal' is used in the literature and there is reasonable agreement as to which elements are in this category, noting some variations around the edges. I don't much mind the carbon is/isn't a typical nonmetal thing since even within a category there will be some outriders (e.g. although selenium is a typical nonmetal within this construct it's almost a metalloid and arguably less typical a nonmetal than e.g. bromine). The noble gases are also nonmetals (of course) however I don't regard them as being typical nonmetals and for this reason am happy giving them their own category.
There are probably still logic errors in the above major categorization construct but it looks like it fixes the Al and At issues, and the chemistry spectrum is reasonable. I don't know for sure; this is the best I've got to so far. Sandbh (talk) 14:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Cox PA 2004, Inorganic chemistry, 2nd ed., Instant notes series, Bios Scientific, London
Silberberg MS 2006, Chemistry: the molecular nature of matter and change, 4th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York
Headslap! A category named 'typical nonmetals' won't do since hydrogen isn't ordinarily regarded as being a typical nonmetal. Failing anything better than the unhelpful term 'other nonmetals' I suggest the term 'core nonmetals'. Dictionary definitions of 'core' include:
A small group of indispensable persons or things; 'five periodicals make up the core of their publishing program.'
The choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience.
The central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work.
A body of individuals; an assemblage.
The most important part of a thing; the essence; as, the core of a subject.
A central part of different character from that which surrounds it: chiefly technical.
In the absence of an official or recognized term for nonmetals that aren't either metalloids or noble gases I think 'core nonmetals' offers a pretty good alternative. Sandbh (talk) 09:41, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
I love the idea, but wouldn't this be WP:OR since it's your categorisation scheme? (I really like it, though.) Double sharp (talk) 16:04, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
It can be construed as OR, at least in a technical sense. On the other hand, as far as I can tell, 'other nonmetals' (in the way it is used here) is OR too–I haven't been able to find an earlier supporting reference for it in the literature. The closest I can find in the literature is 'typical metals' but, as noted, this can give rise to cognitive dissonance when it comes to hydrogen. The best I can do is to say that 'core' is a synonym–via 'quintessential'–for 'typical' and combine that, if needs be, with the precedent set by 'other nonmetals'. Sandbh (talk) 11:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, it does not require much research to come up with "other nonmetals". Your categories definitely required quite a bit of thinking about to come up with and are not simply obvious like "other nonmetals". So I doubt we'll be allowed to use them. :-( Double sharp (talk) 06:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. Well, as noted, I can't actually find an original reference in the literature for the expression 'other nonmetals', in the conceptual sense in which it is used in Wikipedia i.e. as a subset of nonmetals between the metalloids and the halogens. The only references I can find post-date Wikipedia usage (I could be wrong on this point and am happy to be corrected). I don't think 'other nonmetals' is necessarily obvious. I found it confusing the first time I encountered it here. Whereas, of the two new categories I suggested, 'pre-transition metals' complements 'transition metals' as well as 'post transition metals', and can be found in the literature; and the concept of 'core nonmetals' can also be found in literature albeit under the badge of 'typical nonmetals'. I've almost finished the picture showing what an eight category table would look like (nine categories if you include 'unknown bulk properties'). Sandbh (talk) 08:24, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, they're the remaining nonmetals on the PT which aren't already under some other category. Usually tables are sloppy like WP used to do and called them simply "nonmetals", but we were concerned that it might lead people to (wrongly) think that the halogens and noble gases aren't nonmetals, so we changed it to "other nonmetals", whose meaning is quite obvious (the nonmetals that aren't already under another category). Double sharp (talk) 08:27, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Redirected now. -DePiep (talk) 18:25, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Discovery details in infoboxes?
I haven't managed to find any of the element pages with the 'discovery date', 'discovered by' data in the infobox. It would be great if this was included for each element as standard as it's a very interesting key fact. Any thoughts on this?Nozzleberry (talk) 17:30, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I have to admit the idea is great (more important to an average reader than (say) speed of sound of a thin rod), but also it ruins the scientific numeric spirit (little a loss) and it's something I would be too lazy to do myself. More opinions?--R8R Gtrs (talk) 18:03, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Like it.
Bit of a segue, but why not get 28bytes to make some periodic table gif (like he wanted to for phase change versus temp, but is already done), but for date of discovery? Would get him out of the gnomey shit and mallcop patrol. I know the kid has a content creator buried in there...
Can someone cut the crap out and explain what this is about? So: leave out the personalisations I ... too lazy and get him [who?] out of something: not helpful. As I understand it, there could be added parameters for these two, and no opposition so far. -DePiep (talk) 21:09, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok, Mr. Toughguy. We're havin' some serious bizzness here. I'ma be gettin' straight to the point, alright? We could add the parameters for discovery, dammit, year and people. Gotta be clear, crap be cut outta here. No opposition in here, no expected. Are you with us or are you 'gainst us? Reply fast, don't press on my balls, man!
To your wondering: "he" is user:28bytes. What do you have against people suggested as being useful? And I have a question (to everyone): If the system is applied, what date would be shown? For example, fluorine gas was synthesized in 1886, while the element fluorine (the fact there is an element "fluorine") was shown three quarters a century before. The gas synthesis was rather a proof than the idea in first place. May we need four parameters (suggested man and year, discovered man and year), opinions?--R8R Gtrs (talk) 21:54, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Date of isolation. Moissan. 1886.69.255.27.249 (talk) 22:04, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I think my question has arrived. Oh, and now that we have some content related talk: a gif is worthless in this. -DePiep (talk) 22:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
There are plenty of places to use it. History of the periodic table. History of chemistry. Chemical element. Right now, "History of the periodic table" has two different graphics with colored by date of discovery. A gif would be nice there. Also, do a Google search on "element" AND "history and you will find timeliness of the element discoveries are of interest to others. 65.199.61.220 (talk) 23:28, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The four parameter system suggested sounds good (predicted and discovered, person and date). Using 'Isolated' instead of 'discovered' is probably more scientific, although 'discovered' is easier for the layman to understand. Which do we think is best? Other interesting headings could be 'first use' and 'oldest sample', for elements known since ancient times (got this idea from here Timeline of chemical elements discoveries).Nozzleberry (talk) 00:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
"Isolated" specifies that it was the pure element that was discovered, but that's somewhat obvious (it is the article about the element, after all).
For ancient elements, just ignore the predicted man and year. Just put the discovered year, and then some explanation.
(I think we should have the year before the man, but that's a minor issue, except for the ancient elements, where it ensures that the year doesn't get buried in mountains of text.) Double sharp (talk) 02:10, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Good point - so "discovered" is definitely better here and I also agree that the date should come first. Any thoughts on having "oldest sample" but leaving blank for more non-ancient elements?Nozzleberry (talk) 11:21, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
I remember there being a consensus a couple of years ago on adding the discovery year and discoverer into the template, but I think nobody got around doing it. I think isolation is the least ambiguous choice. I worked on Discovery of chemical elements a while ago until I gave up due to too much work. Nergaal (talk) 02:27, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I'd really love to see a phase change vs. temp gif, as I would a discovery gif, on WP, but both have been created on other websites already. Double sharp (talk) 10:38, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I'd be happy to start doing the job of inputting the discovery/suggested dates/people for the elements but wouldn't want to mess with the Template:Infobox element as I'm very new to all this. Can anyone here edit the template?
By the way the phase change vs temp and discovery gif sound great. Personally I think they should be on WP even if they are available elsewhere.Nozzleberry (talk) 00:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
How exactly do you create an animated gif? I'd like to try if possible. Double sharp (talk) 09:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
If you've got Adobe Photoshop CS2 or higher, write to me, I'll give you the instructions--R8R Gtrs (talk) 14:19, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Then I suppose that if this is going to be done, I'm not going to be the one doing it. :-( Double sharp (talk) 05:32, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Don't worry, it's not the only way (my favorite, though). You need to first draw all the layers. (Here, layer is a picture of a given year you wish to use) All animation-making methods I am aware of require this. Even cartoons are still drawn similarly. You can modify old layers to get newer. Then, you can pass them to someone who can help. The Internrt can also be helpful, but I never checked such a cite. Try something easy first. http://picasion.com/. --R8R Gtrs (talk) 10:30, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Does anybody here have the know how to edit the Template:Infobox element to add the fields for discovery info? I'm happy to trawl through the elements adding the details for each one if the template gets altered. Should I raise this point on the talk page for the template?Nozzleberry (talk) 23:17, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
The only one of the existing sections it could go under is "miscellanea". Ideally though there would be a separate section labelled "History", which could be placed at the bottom of the box I suppose (underneath the "Most stable isotopes" section). There is an argument for placing it near the top though because it's a short section and of interest to scientists and laypeople alike. Any opinions about this?Nozzleberry (talk) 16:16, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Working on it. -DePiep (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Working version in sandbox. You can play in {{Infobox niobium/sandbox}}. Parameters added, all optional (SEE BELOW for actual list):
First question: please confirm that these parameter names are OK (or not). If so I can deploy them into real live, and you can start adding them to the infoboxes. Note: all other layout issues (location in the box, the comment-position, exact label names & wikilinks, history-header) can afterwards be altered without having to change the element boxes. So, if these parameter names are OK and used, we can fine-tune their presentation cheaply. -DePiep (talk) 18:50, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
That's fantastic - Many thanks! The parameter names seem perfect to me.Nozzleberry (talk) 19:15, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Done: From sandbox into real world [27]. -DePiep (talk) 22:44, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Great work DePiep! Thanks again :) I'll start putting some data in. RegardsNozzleberry (talk) 23:02, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Enjoy (like I do). Minor remarks: 1) I suggest you add the new params at the bottom (not on top as I did in the niobium sandbox). Consistency. 2) The discovery comment= does not show related to Prediction. If that is unwanted (it could cover all), please contact. -DePiep (talk) 23:14, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Remarks noted, thanks - The comments being related to the "discovery" only seems absolutely fine so far. I'll contact if I come into any problems.Nozzleberry (talk) 01:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
While looking for something else, I saw you used comment for "Named by ..." in H. If there are say five such, we could make another row. -DePiep (talk) 01:04, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll let you know if I get anything repeated often. Actually, from scanning over a few of the elements it seems that "first isolation" will come up a lot. What do you think about having "prediction", "discovery" and "first isolation"? (going from top to bottom)
Nozzleberry (talk) 01:54, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Adding an extra row for "First isolation [by, date]" (sp?) is easy and does not interfere with other rows. "Prediction" can stay as you say (unused=invisible so OK). The "comment" will stay below, and with the "Discovery' label then. Quite easy.
A problem starts when these (predicted - isolated - discovered) are nested, that is, related or dependant. We can do still, but the logic must be clear beforehand (need to know all situations: when "A and B then show C"). Not impossible, but takes a lot of comunication.
Another idea: we could also allow the option: history note label=... (left column text) and then history note=Person X.
Or maybe best: just finish the sweep, later more. -DePiep (talk) 02:03, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
after ec: pred - disc - first i: OK. Where does the comment go? After p/d/fi row? separate row? -DePiep (talk) 02:05, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I think a separate row will be best now. Also do you think we should use past tense for all? (e.g. "predicted" instead of "prediction"). Finally, is "first isolated" needed or just "isolated"?Nozzleberry (talk) 02:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)x
Late reply. Clearly I missed this last note completely. Well, I answered by action: separate row: done. Past tense: dunno, me limited in Subtle English (that includes cockney btw). Had been better probably. I wish a scientific native English speaker decided such things (but all they give me is more options ;-) ). "first isolated": is correct this way, and yes could be shorter. But then this: in the documentation, the list of parameters is very long. I am happy we kept this "first" word, because that reduces the need for documentation (and documentation reading). With the word "first" there, there is less to explain. "isolated" is such a lonely word, you'd have to ask someone what it means. Less so our way. -DePiep (talk) 22:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Notes:
1: "discovery comment" deprecated, all comments go in history comment=.
2: history comment label= sets the left-column label in the template.
3: History cmt takes its own row.
4: It is Live now in {{infobox element}}. Test & try at {{Infobox niobium/sandbox}}.
-DePiep (talk) 02:32, 25 June 2012 (UTC). Example: Helium.
That's great. Thanks once again! will start adding in some more data tomorrow.Nozzleberry (talk) 02:50, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Following DePies's skilled modifications to the infobox template, I've entered the discovery details in the infobox for the first few elements(Hydrogen,Helium,Lithium,Beryllium). It would be handy if someone could look over it and check my usage of "discovery" seems correct. I've been taking it to mean the date when it was first found to be a distinct element (e.g. hydrogen was identified from spectral lines). Any feedback would be appreciated before I proceed with the rest. ThanksNozzleberry (talk) 10:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I am proceeding with entering the rest of the discovery details for the elements. All comments and feedback are welcome, I am starting at the beginning of the periodic table and working through so let me know if you spot any problems.Nozzleberry (talk) 21:15, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi all, I've been adding the history section to the elements but have realised I need a little advice on something. I have all of the parameters listed above available (after DiPiep implemented them) but it seems to me that I also need "Recognised as an element by" (person and date). An example of where this would be needed is Phosphorus where the "discovery" was by Hennig Brand in 1669 but it was Antoine Lavoisier who realised it was an element in 1777. Any input would be much appreciated. ThanksNozzleberry (talk) 00:56, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
(I understand you cannot use the use-as-you-like Historiy comment for this?)
In general, I think this addition we better not do. It adds another "sometimes used" parameter, only used for just some elements. This will reduce the structure of the infobox because it makes it more verbose, and less stable (i.e. less the same over the elements). In other words: to me it sounds like a a "trivia" in the table. The detailed timeline of elements history can very nicely be described in the text. -DePiep (talk) 07:11, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi, sorry I haven't responded until now. I've been away and can't seem to edit Wikipedia from my phone! I completely see your point. I will carry on with the existing parameters and use the custom parameter for this when it comes up. Mostly I was getting confused about how to define a "discovery" - sometimes it seems more logical to use it for when it was first found and other times it seems more logical to use discovery to mean when it was realised to be an element. I think I've figured it out now :)- I'll raise a discussion if there are any specific elements I'm confused about. ThanksNozzleberry (talk) 01:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Progress
I got bored and decided to look at the PTQ at the time I started lurking here, and look at the progress we've made since then. We've made a lot of progress. Hopefully we can keep this up! StringTheory11 02:55, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
caps "PNG" was the clue. -DePiep (talk) 00:22, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Done For quality: High = FA, A, GA; Mid = B+, B; Low = C, Start, Stub. For views: High = over 20000; Mid = between 5000 and 20000; Low = below 5000. Double sharp (talk) 09:01, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Analysing the image, we see that we have quite a lot of treasures (low views but high quality). Our main targets for the average reader should probably be Na, Mg, Ca, and I. (Fl and Lv are "temporary blemishes", only getting to high views because of their naming.) I used the June 2012 page views and qualities. Double sharp (talk) 09:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I will probably try to update this every month. Double sharp (talk) 16:01, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Proposal: move the electron shells image in the infobox
Currently, the image of the electron shells is in the element infobox, catched like a tetris in the periodic table. I propose to move the graph to below: where the electron shells are mentioned. Also, I suggest the image to be bigger, so that it has some significance at first sight (that is 3 to 4 rows of text then). Preliminary examples: {{infobox boron/sandbox}} and {{infobox lead/sandbox}}, tweaking needed. Source is in {{infobox element/sandbox2}} (yes 2 that is). Background is the move of the crystal structurte image, I did last week, to its crystal row (and doubling the size to 50px). Good idea? -DePiep (talk) 00:00, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Good idea, but it's still kind of hard to read. Could you try enlarging it a bit more? Double sharp (talk) 13:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Thought of that. See the sandboxes now: I'd say even with 150 px (square), the top text of the image is hardly readable. I'll add a second proposal shortly: the image in a show/hide box. -DePiep (talk) 18:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
And the show is on. See the boron and lead sandboxes. Of course, the colors will go, caption may change, and we'll keep only one of the two. Essence is that the folding one uses the width of the infobox, but does not push it wider. (my connection is bad, so I cannot edit that easy enough; more later on). Any ideas? -DePiep (talk) 21:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Nice. I think the main one (the one that doesn't need the [show] to open) is better. The top text of the image isn't really necessary – it's a duplicate of the text already in the "Electrons per shell" entry in the infobox. Double sharp (talk) 05:16, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree, the text is not necessary, but now that it is there we have to deal with it. The font is not well chosen (sans serif would be better), and whenit is too small readers still are tempted to click it up. I've removed colors, added {{Ubn/sandbox}} to the examples (no image situation). So this is what they will look like.
Anyone else an opinion? -DePiep (talk) 12:22, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Issues: (i) number of electrons per shell is duplicated in the image; (ii) there is a perpetual edit war over the shell filling in most elements with incomplete d,f shells - we need to mention that the configuration follows the Madelung rule (all our el. configuration images do). Thus a multistep suggestion: (i) merge two cells "Electron configuration" and "Electrons per shell". (ii) Name this cell "Electron configuration(Madelung ordering)" (or "Electron configuration (Aufbau principle)"). (iii) Remove the line "2, 8, 18, 32, 18, 4". If possible, do all this data reshuffling in the parent elementbox template, without the need to change individual templates. Materialscientist (talk) 04:01, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Will work on this, can work out examples. Q1: Can you name some test elements for this (incl extremes)? Q2: iii) Remove the line 2, 8, 18, 32, 18, 4 is that rm the text, or from image? I'd like to remove all text from the image (because that is image support stuff, not image content). But the old 2006 bot who made them looks retired, and they are used in onther lang wps too. For now, we could accept the repetition.
Final Q: can you agree on this step first: roll out the proposed move of the image, from top to the cell "Electrons per shell" (the static one, not the show/hide one)? That move would not change the text/content at all (so not introducing new faults). The improvements you point to we can do afterwards. In development, that would be easier (they are independent steps, so can be approeched separately). -DePiep (talk) 09:06, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I would fix it in one step, because there is always a chance something goes not as planned, and multiple runs through all infoboxes should be avoided by all means. There is no rush in such changes. Editing svg images may also bring unexpected results because of different parsing by the wikimedia software and custom applications/browsers (I have it all the time :-). Thus my answers are Q1: any element (doesn't matter); Q2: remove nothing from daughter templates, but deprecate the field responsible for the number of electrons per shell in the parent elementbox template. Q: decide the final result and implement it in one step. Materialscientist (talk) 09:42, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Maybe you misunderstood my last question. I suggested we: 1st, imply the move of the image (from top of the box into the elctron shell cell), as is proposed in the example (My Q was: can you agree on this?). Tested in sandboxes first. 2nd, we'll decide the text and cell changes later on. 1 is independent of 2.
As for how to do it: for the 1st (image move) no sweep needed. Change needed in the {{infobox element}} basic one only. The 2nd: I will first try to do the changes in the basic one only, so no changes in the individual element boxes needed. Will use sandboxes again.
A sweep is only done to check for wrong inputs (already existant) in the element infoboxes.
As for the images, for now we say the images go untouched (we accept possible double mentioning). -DePiep (talk) 10:57, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
OK. Move of the image looks agreed. Now I merged the cells as proposed by Materialscientist. Example sandboxes: {{boron}}, {{lead}}, {{unbinilium}}. Source is in {{infobox element/sandbox2}}. Remarks anyone? -DePiep (talk) 16:14, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
The result looks Ok to me (better than before. I haven't look at the coding, and hardly will.). Materialscientist (talk) 23:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. And code check not needed indeed. -DePiep (talk) 07:29, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Do they all follow the Madelung rule? The chromium and lawrencium images certainly don't! Double sharp (talk) 07:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Do I understand you right: these two would need a different text in the lefthand cell name instead of "Aufbau"? We can make that an option, so that it shows: Chromium: "electron configuration (Foo principle)" + current text & image. Or do we expect two configurations (by two principles) at the same time, so an extra parameter (row) is needed?
Related: now it only says "Aufbau principle". Shall we add the other name too, e.g. "electron configuration (by Aufbau and Madelung)"? Could be clarifying for the reader. Current wikilink could stay. -DePiep (talk) 07:29, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Another question: in the top there will be more whitespace (the image is gone from the periodic table). What do we do with the ZSymbol (82Pb) text? I'll try to center it more precise. We could move it out of the periodic table, even into the header. -DePiep (talk) 07:42, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I think we shouldn't even include (Aufbau principle) or (Madelung rule) in brackets. Cr and Lr are certainly not the only two: the Cr, Ni, Cu, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, La, Ce, Gd, Pt, Au, Ac, Th, Pa, U, Np, Cm, and Lr images all don't follow the rule, following the (empirically measured) electronic configuration. So I think it should be left as plain "Electron configuration".
About the ZSym: current position looks fine to me. The elements beyond Uuo don't even have an electron shell image anyway (at least, not yet). Double sharp (talk) 08:26, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
(moved text)As a proposal, I've changed the top lines in the sandboxes. Improvement? (Note: replaced this text after bad placement by me, DePiep. DoubleSharp was referring to the old positioning, ZSymbol being in the periodic table). -DePiep (talk) 08:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC) (moved text) -DePiep (talk) 09:24, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
The top line with ZSym looks a bit odd and the table looks a bit too empty IMHO. Double sharp (talk) 10:37, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
elements beyond Uuo don't even have an electron shell image: so I added: when no image available the infobox will show the electrons per shell (maybe predicted) as text row. See the Ubn sandbox.
Related note on current logic: if there is a predicted configuration, and and image, the word "(prediction)" does not appear. Don't know if we have these situations now. -DePiep (talk) 09:35, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
My bad. I haven't looked into the images (I was under impression they follow the Aufbau rule rather than experiment, like for Ni, but many indeed do not), thus better remove the "(Aufbau principle)". Materialscientist (talk) 09:06, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
"Aufbau" text removed from electron configuration row. -DePiep (talk) 09:24, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I asked NikNaks to make the over-118 element images. They should be done so.
BTW, actually everything from 105Db onwards is predicted. It's harder to measure electron configurations than chemical properties! Double sharp (talk) 10:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
If we show these graphs, and not the text, what to do with the invisible "(predicted)" notion? (it is in the mouse-hoover text). Usually, the word is also in the text line above (electron configuration), but implying "that also for the image" is a stretch. -DePiep (talk) 12:06, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Is it necessary to keep the top line of text if we are putting them in a box with that information already available? Shall I make the +118 ones without it to see how it looks, perhaps? NikNakstalk - gallery 14:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I sure would like to go that way, then we will add the text (electron shells) in straight text as it was. But for now, I'd say: follow the old way, so that all ~125 images can be treated alike (otherwise we must add a switch to add/hide the text). Later on "we" could do all of them, stripping the headers and changing the template once. Possibly change the file name (create new file, not overwrite - won't disturb usage elsewhere/in other wikis). btw, already there exist some: File:Electron shell 004 Beryllium - no label.svg. -DePiep (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I like it better without the text in the image. Just keep the old text under "Electrons per shell". That way we can more easily show that the Db-and-above ones are predicted. Double sharp (talk) 07:05, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
NikNaks, so if you do create the new 118+ without the text, please name them File:Electron shell 119 Ununennium - no label.svg. That way the series are differentiated correctly. Since existing ones (001-118) are used elsewhere, we should not change them because other places (other language wikis) may depend on the text being there (they will not get 118+ old way then).
I've changed the infobox sandbox to recognise this. The ...- no label file will show up at {{Infobox unbinilium/sandbox}}. For testing purposes, the {{Infobox boron/sandbox}}) also shows the unlabeled one for now (that file already exists).
And a question, NikNaks: would you like to create all other ...- no label ones (001-118) later on? If so, can I help by providing a good list for that (e.g. with all names & numbers, in flat text)? -DePiep (talk) 11:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Colors: Double Sharp, you have asked NikNaks to use the darker colors. But since they are (predicted) properties, shouldn't we use lighter ones here too? I've proposed them above. -DePiep (talk) 13:49, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I made a mistake. Changed on his talk page. Double sharp (talk) 15:59, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
"Colors" issue solved. -DePiep (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
For now, we use the old style file naming over all: File:Electron shell 119 Ununennium.svg will show (if it exists). When different filenames exist in the future (eg with - nolabel), we can adjust the template. And I've put the text electron shells back in the cell. Two reasons: the text in the image is difficult to read, and the word "(predicted)" should be visible when used. This makes it irrelevant whether the text is in the image or not. -DePiep (talk) 12:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
And a question for Double Sharp, do you still oppose the new postion of ZSym in the top? {{example}}. -DePiep (talk) 14:04, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't really mind the new position of ZSym, but you've already moved it to live anyway. Double sharp (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I didn't think it controversial, the main stuff was fleshed out (expanded pt, bigger electron shells image). I'm still open for improvements. -DePiep (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Done. Moved from sandbox to live. -DePiep (talk) 11:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest removing the excessive whitespace above and below the image that seems to exist for all elements not in the 7th period, if possible. No need to leave space for absent shells there... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:15, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, that space is not in place. At the moment, it is part of all the images, but a cleanup of the images is being discussed at the moment. As it is factually not wrong (just a layout issue), I think we can leave it as it is, for now. -DePiep (talk) 10:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Fm to Lr
If Fm, Md, No and Lr have never been produced in macroscopic quantities, why do we know their melting points? And if we know No's (half-life only 1 h), then why don't we know Rf and Db's? They have longer half-lives than No! Double sharp (talk) 07:02, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
My guesses: I suppose you can measure melting points "microscopically" by looking at a collection of some 10 to 1000 atoms and look whether they stick to each other or not (somewhat similar to how chemical properties e.g. for copernicium have been determined on an individual-atom basis). And you can probably produce higher amounts of No than of Rf or Db because of the lower atomic number, which might more than make up for the lower half-life. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:09, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Transperiodicity
Well, it's time I returned to this project. Ah... what now? A transperiodic highway looks like it needs just one more article. Polonium, in other words. Somebody open a GAN for the article - but wait, are there any major issues here and there? I don't see any. FreywaParclyTaxel 20% Cooler 07:28, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
The Detection section has not a single reference.
The History section is only the discovery and even the discovery is not fully explained. There must be also a historic usage and impact on the chemistry and physics incorporated.
A polonium brush image has to be in the article.
Stubby sections.--Stone (talk) 09:28, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Should it go back down to being rated B (without +), then? Double sharp (talk) 02:49, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
No, but this has to be fixed.--Stone (talk) 20:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Getting most-viewed articles high quality
To get the top 15 articles to high-quality (GA+), we'd need to get Au, Al, Fe, N, and Ag to GA. That would make the main transition metals (i.e. excluding the period 7 ones) a solid block of FAs and GAs. Double sharp (talk) 09:38, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Also, we need to get Mg, Na, Chemical Element, Ca, Br, Th, and Halogen to B so that the 50 most-viewed articles are all B or above. StringTheory11 20:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. Also, it seems like polonium is mislabeled on it. StringTheory11 16:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
No, it's not. I had to use the June 2012 page views and ratings, because otherwise we don't yet have a complete month for July 2012, even though the article value table was only revived last week. There have been enough rating changes to make things confusing for now; it'll be current again next month. Double sharp (talk) 09:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Do you think we should add a template version of the article value table as well? What about the page views table? Double sharp (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Personally I prefer table over image, because it is clickable and better maintainable by anyone. However, I do not know where to get that data from (is there a bot doing this?). And I myself do not use them often as a place to look for what page to improve. -DePiep (talk) 13:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Wait, what does mass number do? Also, I think there was some sort of previous consensus to remove the DE from the infobox, and add nuclear spin instead. Nergaal (talk) 00:24, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Mass number is the total number of protons and neutrons. It's rather basic, but many readers would still find it useful. I had a brief look at several talk pages and didn't see any relevant discussion. I am new in this wikiproject; could you please elaborate how this relates to having or removing DE or nuclear spin? --Farzaneh (talk) 02:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Finding the DE is horribly difficult. Yes, we should get it replaced with nuclear spin.
Why add a separate column for the mass number? It's not necessary. The first column ("iso") gives you something like 118Sn. The superscripted number is the mass number. The space allocated for the table is so small that we shouldn't be giving redundant information. Double sharp (talk) 09:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough; the information is already there. The fact that users cannot easily find it is part of a larger issue with a lot of technical articles on Wikipedia IMO. --Farzaneh (talk) 04:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I would think that if you even know enough to look at an isotope template, you will know that the number after the symbol is the mass-number, ala U-235. I'm adding a vote for nuclear spin, which is available in all the isotopes of element Z articles (like isotopes of tantalum), and would useful to have in the element box for main element articles, at least for the common isotopes shown there. I've been thinking of adding a column for stable isotopes (or at least primordial isotopes) regarding their nucleosynthetic origin in the universe, since I have that data on hand. I take it that DE is decay energy? We can add them as we find them. For most of the nuclides, we either will have a DE or an origin process (like r-process), but not both. There are only something like 33 radioactive primordial nuclides.
Say, won't it be cool when one day everything available in the CRC Handbook is available on Wikipedia, and thus any smartphone? Of course, the CRC people will hate it. Rub out the Rubber Book! SBHarris 23:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Periodic table PR
Well, the PR finished. Nergaal, do you think the de facto A-class review passed? StringTheory11 02:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
It certainly looks like it has, seeing that the statuses have been changed (by Nergaal, then me) on Talk:Periodic table. Double sharp (talk) 04:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Done Double sharp (talk) 06:21, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Refractory metal
Titanium · 
Vanadium · 
Iron group
Period 2 element
Fluorine · 
Partly done After this confirming edit, I indeed changed most periodic table templates into this grey background style. Changing backgound of an "Unknown" (in the legend) from grey to say white, can be done leter: no harm done by the changes. -DePiep (talk) 23:46, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
(Now who was it who said that?) Double sharp (talk) 13:42, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Template:Periodic table (full) has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. DePiep (talk) 11:46, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Done. Added params (all optional):
![[28]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/3/3f/20070322224001!Periodic_Table_by_Quality.PNG){kind=link}
![[30]](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/File:Periodic_Table_by_Quality.PNG&namespace=4&hideredirs=1&hidelinks=1){kind=link}