Template talk:Isotope sequence

Intro
There has been a request for a sort of help file for this template. Since I didn't design this template, and since I haven't been working with it for very long, there are probably other people who know it better. Feel free to directly add to or correct what I'm writing. Ardric47 02:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Ardric47. I actually created this back when I was first discovering how templates worked. I saw that someone was using these ad-hoc, unmaintainable HTML tables, so I thought it was a perfect opportunity. I'm surprised it hasn't changed more. —Keenan Pepper 03:45, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Use
The template parameters work as follows: ).
 * lighter is the next lightest isotope of the same element; generally its mass number is one less.
 * element is the name of the element.
 * heavier is the next heaviest isotope of the same element; generally its mass number is one greater.
 * before lists the possible "parent isotopes": the isotopes that decay into the isotope that the article is about. Multiple parent isotopes can be separated with line breaks (
 * after lists the possible "daughter isotopes": the isotopes that the article's subject can decay into. Some isotopes can decay in several different ways, so the different products can be separated with line breaks as above.

Examples
On the article about Tritium one would use the following code:

which is rendered:

This means: Tritium is an isotope of the element hydrogen. The next lighter isotope is deuterium, and the next heavier isotope is hydrogen-4. Tritium is produced from the decay of hydrogen-4 (by neutron emission), and it itself decays to helium-3 (by beta decay).

Critique of the isotope boxes template
The traditional standard of scientific publications is that tables be accompanied by a caption describing them, how they are generated (thus allowing for their verification), and a glossary of the terms used.

When, like in an encyclopaedia, there are multiple tables of the same kind, a general "help file" or its equivalent is fully acceptable (if an explicit link is provided in the table's caption). Likewise, Wikipedia wouldn't publish either an illustration without a caption or a graph withou a caption and/or lacking explicitly labeled coordinate axes.

In the particular case of the isotope boxes, the "help file" should have shown "nuts and bolts" examples of how to construct a table for each type of radioactive decay and for stable isotopes.

Lacking both a caption and a glossary, the table-naïve reader is confronted with the task of interpreting (right or wrong) the meaning of the boxes in each one of the isotope tables.

The following two cases summarize such interpretations based on the face-value of the text included in the respective boxes.

Similar considerations apply to the tables generated for all other isotopes.

Case #1
For Carbon-14 this table was generated:

a. Nowhere Carbon-14 appears in the table or in a caption to the table. The reader is consequently puzzled.

b. The first column shows the isotope Carbon-13 in its heading, with a box that says "Produced from" Nitrogen-18 and Boron-14. The table-naïve reader lacks an explanation of what's the relationship of these isotopes with Carbon-14, the one that the article is about.

c. The second column titled "Isotopes of Carbon" contains a sole entry which is a link to "Decay chain" leading to "main decay chains (or families) ... observed in nature, commonly called the thorium series, the radium series (not uranium series), and the actinium sëries." Again, the naïve reader can't see the implications of these decay chains for the Carbon-14 isotope decay.

d. The third column titled "Carbon-15" says that it "Decays to" Nitrogen-14 which, again, it's not the article's object, i.e., the isotope Carbon-14.

e. Then the puzzled reader attempts to correlate the boxes in the table with the text of the article. Surprisingly, the article doesn't mention any of these: Carbon-13, Nitrogen-18, Boron-14. The only object common to the table and the text is Nitrogen-14 and the decay reaction given in the text doesn't appear in the table. Moreover, according to the text Carbon-14 is produced from Nitrogen-14.

f. The table doesn't state whether the given formation reaction applies to natural or artificial production of the isotope. Not a trivial matter for environmental isotopes.

Conclusion:

The table-naïve reader finds that the table and the article present contradictory information about the formation and decay of Carbon-14, and such a decay table as given appears to be of no use.

Case #2
For Carbon-13 this table was generated:

a. Nowhere Carbon-13 appears in the table or in a caption to the table. The reader is consequently puzzled.

b. The first column shows the isotope Carbon-12 in its heading, with a box that says "Produced from" Nitrogen-13 and Boron-13. The table-naïve reader lacks an explanation of what's the relationship of these isotopes with Carbon-13, the one that the article is about.

c. The second column titled "Isotopes of Carbon" contains a sole entry which is a link to "Decay chain" leading to "main decay chains (or families) ... observed in nature, commonly called the thorium series, the radium series (not uranium series), and the actinium sëries." Again, the naïve reader can't see the implications of these decay chains for the Carbon-13 non-existing decay since it's a stable isotope.

d. The third column titled "Carbon-14" says that it "Decays to" Stable, which contradicts the fact that the isotope Carbon-14 is radioactive, contradicts the information of the second column that says that "Isotopes of Carbon" have a decay chain. Moreover the reader can't understand why Carbon-14 is listed in a table which presumably is about Carbon-13.

e. Then, the puzzled reader attempts to correlate the boxes in the table with the text of the article, unsuccessfully.

f. The table doesn't state whether the given formation reaction applies to natural or artificial production of the isotope. Not a trivial matter for environmental isotopes

Conclusion:

The table-naïve reader finds that the table and the article present contradictory information about Carbon-13, and such decay table to be confusing if not useless.

General considerations
Before investing time and effort in the next version of the template, consider whether (not in order of importance & not a complete list):


 * 1) Is the generated table fool-proof ?
 * 2) Does the table summarize the text of the article re formation and decay processes ?
 * 3) Does the table contribute new information ?
 * 4) Can the table be correctly parsed faster or better than the text ?
 * 5) Can the reader reproduce the table ?


 * Great, now what are you going to do about it? —Keenan Pepper 15:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Indeed, many of these are important concerns that should be remedied. However, Wikipedia is a work in progress. It is not the way of such a work to censor information until it is perfect. To use a slippery slope argument, if users commented out every paragraph or even every table that still wasn't in its "final" version, there would not be much content left. While these issues are being worked out, we must allow the content to remain visible. Ardric47 19:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Comments after rewrite
I've rewritten the template to read clearly, after 2 years of (justified) complaints that the previous version was very confusing with no action.

I still have some criticism of the template.

Almost all isotope pages using this template also include the more widely used sidebar Template:Infobox isotope or related, which give similar information including decay chain. That template does not individually list the next lighter and heavier isotopes, though the Isotopes of  article is always linked, and the next lighter and heavier isotopes could be added to that template if desired.

This template seems to be used like a bottom navbox, but is not built on Template:Navbox or relatives, and looks less sophisticated. I did some work on a rewrite using Navbox, but reverted it as it is not complete.

The name of the template is rather general, not containing a description like Infobox or Navbox.

I would still recommend that the template be deprecated and phased out in favor of the infobox or better alternative.

--JWB (talk) 23:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree it's time to phase this out. The infobox is clearer & more comprehensive.  If we want info on the next lighter & heavier isotopes, let's bring up their addition to the infobox on the talk page of the infobox.  Note that it wouldn't require extra parameters (like this uses) since it'd just be adding & subtracting one from the number of neutrons.  This template is only use a couple of dozen times. J IM ptalk·cont 07:06, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization
Under the "isotope of" field, this template displays the pagename with a capital letter, which is incorrect. Is there an easy way to force lower case here? --John (talk) 20:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I came here to say the same thing. Art LaPella (talk) 17:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I fixed it, with this edit. Art LaPella (talk) 22:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It isn't incorrect. It's the first letter of a table cell and, for that matter, of a complete sentence. It looked really bad lowercase, so I put it back to uppercase. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:36, 29 March 2014 (UTC)