Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ammonia/archive3


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 15:55, 26 July 2007.

Ammonia
previous FAC

Ziphon 09:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it has met the changes required in the previous attempt to be a FA. And seems of a high standard required for FA status.
 * Just a question: does the article still have text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition? I don't know what the deal is with inclusion of text from the Britannica and featured article status, but I would prefer if it were wholly written by us rather than copied from another source. Recurring dreams 13:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I looked at this -- it does have such 1911 EB text, and some of it is sourced to other references(!) -- the first EB paragraph, for example, which you can see by looking at the first revision all the way back in the edit history. BenB4 07:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose for now. I think the article still needs some improvements. While the article has nearly all the information one could ask for, some of the prose is not exactly "brilliant and compelling", with some paragraphs that don't seem cohesive. Some pieces of information seem to be in the wrong sections, and the organization of the sections themselves are not too clear (why having basic properties separate from properties? Why is the use as a solvent not under Uses? Why is the discussion of planetary atmospheres under Interstellar Space?...) There are still many unreferenced factual statements, including raw data such as the solubilities and redox potentials which should always be sourced IMO. Finally, the lead, and especially the first paragraph, is pretty bad IMO; it includes relatively trivial details such as the U.S. OSHA exposure limits and heat of vaporization while omitting a more general discussion of the more chemical properties, uses, importance, etc. of ammonia. --Itub 13:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now. I had posted similar comments on the Ammonia Talk page earlier today: Regarding the featured article candidacy: Much of the opening paragraph is about hazards.  I realize that it is easier for non-chemical editors to comment on hazards than on the chemical technology, but still the overarching message might, IMHO, be on other aspects, some possibilities being its technological centrality (% of worlds energy dedicated to its manufacture, % of cmpds with N content), its remarkable properties (b.p. -33 °C, but can be handled with beakers), and the puzzle of nitrogenase.  NH3 is fairly benign, as chemicals go and comments otherwise are disproportionately chemophobic.--Smokefoot 17:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose In addition to agreeing with the above comment I would like to point out that there is limited discussion of ammonia being a base which is somewhat incomplete and misleading. "The nitrogen atom in the molecule has a lone electron pair, and ammonia acts as a base, a proton acceptor." This sentence seems odd to me in that it would seem like a perfect opportunity to discuss the Lewis base nature of ammonia (which is completely ignored) but only and to the exclusion of Lewis base theory defines it according to Bronsted-Lowry. Failure to address Lewis base activity except subtly in the complexation chemistry section kills the FA candidacy for me. I think that these can be fixed and it is not too far away but it still need some work.--Nick Y. 18:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose The lead should be changed acording to the comments above. The section about Synthesis and production should give the Haber Bosch method earlier and not first describing the production of hydrogen.--Stone 07:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.