Talk:List of inorganic compounds

A need for standardisation
Does anyone agree with me that we need a standard format for entering things into this list? Right now it is very disorganised in that the formats range from item to item, some redirects are listed some are not etc.

Opinions anyone? - Ryan Jones 11:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, you're quite right. I think we should have the following for a compound where the article is called "Compound name".

or if there is a common "Alternative name". For example: and
 * Compound name – M2X3
 * Alternative name (compound name) – M2X3 and
 * Compound name (alternative name) – M2X3
 * Tin(II) chloride (stannous chloride) – SnCl2
 * Stannous chloride (tin(II) chloride) – SnCl2


 * How does that look? This page often pops up in Google searches, and helps when the article itself hasn't yet been found on Google (some take a long time to be picked up on Google).  I didn't appreciate the value of the formulae until I started looking for compounds in other languages. I also realised that for non-chemists the formula may often be helpful too, especially where lots of alternative names exist.


 * A more significant issue IMHO is expanding this list to make it more comprehensive. Currently we probably have less than half of our inorganic compound articles listed here.  We need to go through each element in turn from Category:Chemical compounds by element and find every compound we have listed. Inorganic_compounds_by_element may also be helpful in spotting things - the first half (up to lead) is pretty comprehensive, and may catch some uncategorised articles.  About a year ago I spent about two months of my wikitime creating List of inorganic compounds and the organic list too, these were originally all together on a huge (growing) page called List of compounds which also included a lot of unsuitable articles.  If you have time to take on a big sort of this list we'd appreciate it, I admit to being rather tired of this page myself after all that work! If you can't, perhaps we can at least standardise the format. Thanks, Walkerma 02:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Search for compounds
I am starting a list hereunder with searched categories (i.e. for e.g. Category:Scandium compounds I do a Google search in Wikipedia for all pages containing the word 'Scandium', adding them to the appropriate categories if they are not in there. After that I update the List of inorganic compounds from the Category. People who would like to participate, add the Category you are searching, and when finished close with 'Finished' and your signature.  When you decide to re-search the category, remove the previous signature (to keep the list readable). --Dirk Beetstra 17:27, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Decided to put things into a table --Dirk Beetstra 17:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * And made the table complete (played a little with a spreadsheet) --Dirk Beetstra 18:09, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on the Talk:List of inorganic compounds
Running into a dilemma .. is a mineral that contains Scandium a 'scandium compound'? Formally they are .. aren't they? Can somebody please comment? --Dirk Beetstra 17:42, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This is excellent work, thank you for it! Make sure you check Inorganic compounds by element as well, it's still a bit incomplete, but things often appear there first (it was designed that way), particularly as I have known Google take as long as 6 months to find some WP pages.  As for the mineral question, I have seen these listed sometimes, but often not.  We should probably discuss it.  My inclination would be to include it in the category, at least where it is a principal ore of the compounds.  Of course we would have to be careful with something like Category:Silicon compounds!! Thanks, Walkerma 02:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I hope others are joining me in performing some element searches (the word 'titanium' shows up in 1,137 articles with the internal search ([[Special:Search?ns0=1&search=Titanium&fulltext=Search], the one I used now), when you use Google, results vary from about 29,000 with  and about 26,800 with ).  I am wondering if I could use the Google engine to cut down on the number of results, without missing articles.  Is iron going to be the champion (resp. 28,524; 2,000,000 and 2,010,000, and then I am probably missing ferric and ferrous ..)?
 * I did not think about the silicates, indeed. I will now at least put them into the Category:Silicates, but indeed, silicon compounds is going to be huge, then.  If the verdict is positive about putting everything in Category:Silicates into Category:Silicon compounds, there is some work for a bot-programmer.  In principle the bot should then also add Category:Titanium compounds to all pages with Category:Titanium minerals.  On a next search I will make try to put the 'metal minerals' at least in the 'Category:metal minerals'.  By the way, I include only those minerals where the metal is a reasonable constituent, indeed  (i.e. where the mineral would not be the same mineral if the metal would not be there).  Maybe the opinion of a mineralogist would be in place here?  --Dirk Beetstra 07:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Talk to User:Vsmith, who is knowledgable on mineralogy and chemistry, and a very experienced Wikipedian. The usual situation with categories like this is that you would only need to list something like muscovite once, since there is a hierarchy Phyllosilicates -> Silicate minerals -> Silicates -> Silicon compounds.  Therefore maybe we should just list the individual minerals under the appropriate mineralogy section, and the hierarchy should take care of the rest.  Sorry if I'm contradicting my earlier comment, but I hadn't thought deeply about this topic until now.  Incidentally, there is a list corresponding to this one called list of minerals, in case you hadn't seen that.  This summer I may be able to spend a bit of time helping you out - if you like I can do lanthanides which are an area of interest to me. Cheers, Walkerma 15:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I have left a message on Vsmiths talk-page. I'll wait for his reply.  Is there a help page somewhere in the Wikipedia about hierarchy in categories?  --Dirk Beetstra 16:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've thought a bit :-). I see a problem with overcategorization if done without some thought. I started categorizing minerals basically according to the Dana system in fall of 04. Still working on it gradually as new mineral articles are written. User:Jaraalbe this past winter decided to add more categories, for example in muscovite he added a potssium mineral cat, an aluminium mineral cat and a hydroxide mineral cat - which to me was a bit of a clutter. Assuming these element mineral categories remain it would be quite easy for you to place them into compound cats for instance Category:Aluminium minerals would be under Category:Aluminium compounds as well as under Category:Minerals. That way you wouldn't have to search through all the mineral articles to recat, just the mineral element categories which are now under Category:Minerals. Seems that would save you a lot of digging as Jaraalbe has already done much of the work for you. Walkerma mentioned the list of minerals - it is only a partial listing and many minerals with wiki articles are not on the list. For a more comprehensive listing of the 4000+ minerals see List of minerals (complete) which I and the webmaster at Mindat.org developed a year ago. You'll see a lot of red there. Considering rutile and its three polytypes along with other ore minerals. I had thought of classifying the various significant ore minerals into a Category:Ore minerals which would be under Category:Mining and Category:Economic geology, but haven't followed up on that. Of course that would lead to a proliferation of subcats such as Category:Iron ore minerals. On, and on and... :-) Hopefully I've given you something useful to think about, feel free to ask for clarification or further info. Vsmith 23:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

OK - just added Category:Titanium minerals to your Category:Titanium compounds in line with Walkerma and my comments above. Vsmith 23:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC) And ... changed Category:Mercury minerals from Category:Metal minerals to Category:Mercury compounds. I feel the metal minerals cat should be depopulated and removed as it is far too general to be useful. The vast majority of all minerals contain metals - few are made only of non-metals. Didn't start out to do this - just one thing leads to another ... endless connections :-) Vsmith 00:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * A leads to B .. B leads to C .. C leads to D .. D back to B .. err ..
 * But let me see if I get it right now.


 * All element "X" compounds, that is, everything with element "X" that is built up of distinct units (unitcells, e.g.) where element "X" is a (essential) part of ('a countable number of') the unit(s) (hope I give a scientifically reasonable description), now go into the Category:X compounds . Are alloys compounds?
 * All tags Category:X mineral should be removed.
 * No - they are valid. I do see that the metal minerals cat was dleted ok as it was superfluous.


 * The text on the category page Category:X mineral should be changed so that people know where to find anything that contains element "X", or it should redirect to Category:X compounds.
 * No, just add categ.X compounds as a category for the subcat.


 * Someone should probably build into a bot the check, that if somewhere a tag Category:X mineral is used that it either is changed to Category:X compounds, or is removed if the latter catagory-tag is already available.
 * Don't need a bot - there aren't that many cat:X minerals to add cat:X compounds to. Vsmith 12:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Pfff, OK, when I am bored again I will go through another element (if I feel up to it), and see if there are category-tags missing, and add them. When they are in categories, it is at least more easy to find them (and can then be reassigned if necessary), and there are still many that are not in any category, so I think a manual search is still necessary.  Is this page the right place for the above table, or should it have a place closer to the chemistry or inorganic chemistry pages? --Dirk Beetstra 07:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I am getting the hang of it. I will go through the categories this evening.  Cheers!! --Dirk Beetstra 13:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

anyone use this?
Does this serve a purpose as an article?TCO (talk) 03:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Rare Earth "alloys"
Back in 2008 an editor (no other edits) added a number of putative intermetallic compounds/alloys of cerium, erbium, lanthanum and yttrium, with (I infer) non-stoichometric formulae. Are these (all) real? and should they be in this list? Lavateraguy (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Make the list into a table

 * The list is too long. If we change it into a table, it looks shorter.

Example: --Leiem (talk) 08:48, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * zh-wiki has made it into a table, and it looks good. --Leiem (talk) 08:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Water under W
This list seems to be organized by atomic symbol, instead of an alphabetical list of compounds. I don't understand why water would then be categorized under W. To me it seems that organization by atomic symbol instead of the spelling would place water under H instead of W (the symbol for tungsten, since water consists of hydrogen and oxygen (and in its chemical name dihydrogen monoxide, hydrogen comes first). Nine hundred ninety-nine (talk) 16:48, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Other compounds
What about seaborgium hexacarbonyl and other heay compounds? Dont those count? UB Blacephalon (talk) 05:46, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria
What are the inclusion criteria for this list article? Is it "has bluelink" (making this page a directory of other WP articles), or the lower bar "chemical actually exists" (with enough ref to find notability sufficient that an article could be written), or at least "has been studied theoretically" (again, with ref sufficient for stub-article), or simply "writing a cation and anion to make a formula"? DMacks (talk) 08:18, 5 June 2022 (UTC)