Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Symbiosis (chemical)


 * 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   Keep. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Symbiosis (chemical)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Reason This article appears to be original research. The concept is not found in textbooks (at least the ones this editor has checked). The authoring editor has a recent record of promoting the work of a certain Anthony Nicholl Rail such as Rail's (the author of this article?) PhD thesis, which is one of the key supporting citations in this article. Smokefoot (talk) 00:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep (or maybe merge). This is not original research; these terms (at least I'm sure about antisymbiosis) were published by Pearson in the 1970s and I remember seeing them quoted in some other places (including a paper of mine from 2008 ;-). They may not have much current use today, but are at least should be of historical interest. --Itub (talk) 02:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Wikipedia seem to want to steadily delete all my ('Whitenob') contributions because over the past couple of weeks I have focussed on the work of one person.  This is just because I recently read through some of his work, and considered it valuable.  I will endeavour not to be so subject specific in future.  This particular article does deal with Lewis acids and bases and classical views of bonding that are closer to Nevil Sidgwick than Linus Pauling.  The article could be improved with diagrams, which, as a new boy I cannot upload.  There is some justification for merging it as a sub-topic within Lewis acids and bases, but the article as it stands does have a distinct character. S.W. ('Whitenob').
 * Comment. It is disappointing that the article was written in a self-standing manner vs a component of HSAB theory or some other previously written article.  The pattern indicates lack of perspective or failure to understand that there is context to consider, in my view.   Whitenob might bear in mind that Sidgwick might have been an important chemist 60 years ago.  Ditto for Linus Pauling, almost.  I guess that Wikipedia does have a role as archiving historic footnotes.  I also think that crafting an article by quoting the PhD thesis of one's friend indicates a serious (pathetic, in a literal sense) lack of perspective.  Especially when no component that friend's thesis was ever published in refereed journals. --Smokefoot (talk) 22:26, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Further comment. I was just writing from memory in my keep comment above. Here's the proper citation for the antisymbiosis paper I was talking about: Pearson, R. G. Antisymbiosis and the trans effect. Inorganic Chemistry 1973, 12, 712–713. According to Pearson, the symbiosis concept was introduced by Jorgensen in 1964 (the 1964 ref. is already cited in the Wikipedia article). There are still plenty of citations to Pearson's paper in recent years, which suggests to me that some people do find the concept useful or at least worth discussing. --Itub (talk) 17:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge to HSAB. I don't see how this is different from hard-soft, either in idea or per article's lede wording. Is it at all a separate issue or even much more than a synonym or sometimes-used technical term for one aspect? Per Smokefoot, would be better to integrate this into an article to which it is at least very tightly related than to write a stand-alone. DMacks (talk) 17:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep can we please use DOIs when citing articles, saves everybody a lot of time: The Pearson article: Antisymbiosis and the trans effect Ralph G. Pearson Inorg. Chem., 1973, 12 (3), pp 712–713 . I am unable to find the Jøergensen article, should be C. K. Jøergensen; Inorg. Chem.; 1971, 10, 1097. but I find instead : Chlorine nuclear quadrupole resonances in platinum(II)-olefin complexes Theodore Lawrence Brown, James P. Yesinowski Inorg. Chem., 1971, 10 (5), pp 1097–1100 . More luck here: "Symbiotic" Ligands, Hard and Soft Central Atoms Klixbull Jorgensen Inorg. Chem., 1964, 3 (8), pp 1201–1202 . Keep as a historic footnote (early critism on then very novel HSAB theory) but no merge with HSAB theory V8rik (talk) 20:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hold for the moment. My inclination is to merge the symbiosis stuff to HSAB theory and the anti-symbiosis stuff to Trans effect, and so to make this page a redirect to HSAB theory. On the other hand, if Itub and/or V8rik think there is something to be made of this then I would be happy to see the result. Physchim62 (talk) 20:13, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment The 1964 article btw is still cited for example 2005, 2001 . Wikipedia is also not confined to what can be found in textbooks (I am disagreeing with Smokefoot here). Wikipedia is the sum of all knowledge! V8rik (talk) 17:33, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree it's still relevant (13 citations to the 1964 paper so far in 2009), and these concepts do appear in some textbooks such as . See also some of the top hits at . I don't think merging is the best solution because this is not "just HSAB" or "just the trans effect", although it is related to both and should obviously be mentioned in those articles (and maybe some other articles on coordination chemistry). If someone came to Wikipedia with the question "what the hell does symbiosis mean in the context of this coordination chemistry paper I'm reading?", he or she would be better served by a short article clearly defining the term rather than being dumped in the middle of a long article on HSAB out of which 90% of the content is unrelated to the question at hand. Of course, if such a reader has never heard of HSAB, he or she will have to read that article first for background. Note that I'm not saying that the current article is perfect (in particular, I think that citing dissertations it not generally a good idea), but just that it should be allowed to exist as a stand-alone article. --Itub (talk) 20:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Recommend that the Afd be withdrawn (Not sure how that is done). Thanks to all for the comments and diligence.--Smokefoot (talk) 22:28, 22 September 2009 (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.