Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of EINECS substances 200-xxx-x


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:35, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

List of EINECS substances 200-xxx-x

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This seems a clear violation of NOT DIRECTORY--it's a list of all chemicals commercially available in Europe. The numbers are not meaningful, they're simply arbitrary ID's, exactly like CAS numbers. There should be a field for these in the chemicals infobox, which is all that's appropriate for an encyclopedia. There's a good public search page for the database at. I am unsure of copyright status. The database pages give no indication of copyright. Whether such a database would be subject to copyright in the US is also unclear.  DGG ( talk ) 00:25, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment- U.S. copyright issue would seem to be covered by Feist v. Rural, that is, facts cannot be copyrighted, but presentation can be. A copy of the information is permitted, but not the display program (a screen shot from the source database would need permission). Dru of Id (talk) 01:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not quite so simple. Chemical Abstracts Registry Numbers are arguably protected by copyright, because of the creative elements of the way they are assigned to distinguish the different structures. Whether it would hold up in a court case has never been determined. There are long discussions, e.g.  and  with respect to their use in Wikipedia. These numbers have much less intellectual input, and so are probably not copyright in the US, whatever may be the state in Europe. I see no obvious   copyright statements or stated license restrictions on the relevant db access pages, but I haven't't studied them in detail. But, as I was saying, I don't think it's relevant: our use of them in the descriptions of a chemical is fair use, & this sort of direct reproduction of their downloaded table serves no encyclopedic  purpose.  DGG ( talk ) 06:23, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - the EC number system itself is notable, being used Europe-wide, and so adding EC numbers alongside CAS numbers to infoboxes of notable chemicals seems reasonable. However, a listing of all substances by EC number seems to me to be fairly useless... and as DGG has noted, a violation of WP:NOTDIRECTORY.  I have no idea why the Europeans couldn't just use CAS numbers, but I suppose that's a topic for somewhere else.  EdChem (talk) 01:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Regardless of the copyright situation, this violates WP:NOTADIRECTORY. In addition, it seems evident to me that WP does not need to duplicate existing databases. Please note that since this AfD was started, the lists 211-xxx-x to 220-xxx-x have been created... --Guillaume2303 (talk) 13:42, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: I've just added 211-220 to the AfD. I would suggest that the author refrain from wasting time creating more articles until this discussion is over.  &mdash;SW&mdash; express 23:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: The author has been temporarily indefinitely blocked after creating 31 of these articles and refusing to stop. Toddst1 (talk) 21:52, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - I don't know much about the subject, but it does seem to be a complete exposition of all possible details. A gargantuan, poorly-formatted, redlink-laden table of every chemical compound known to mankind is not helpful.  &mdash;SW&mdash; comment 23:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete As much as I am in favor of having more articles about chemical compounds, I don't see any value in a directory of the chemical compounds which have EINECS numbers. There is a field for EINECS number in chembox, so we can already incorporate EINECS numbers for all chemicals that we have an article about, but I don't see the need for anything more than that.  ChemNerd (talk) 14:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comments: I haven't finished yet. Nor have I written EINECS Directory yet.  How can you possibly decide whether to delte it if it isn't finished?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggg phew (talk • contribs) 21:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we can all anticipate the nature of the content of List of EINECS substances 271-xxx-x. ChemNerd (talk) 12:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: per WP:NOTDIR. Toddst1 (talk) 21:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.