Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry/IRC discussions/7 October 2008

--- Log opened Tue Oct 07 11:18:25 2008 EDT

11:18 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Hi all

11:18 &lt;dmacks&gt; hello

11:23 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; to explain my post on WT:CHEM, I've found a number of pages which aren't tagged by our project but which I think that should be (eg, Electron cloud), and some (eg, biographies such as Carl Wilhelm Scheele) which are debatable but which have an unequal policy

11:27 &lt;dmacks&gt; I'm completely out of the loop on anything related to tagging.

11:28 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; you're not alone!

11:29 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; Hi

11:30 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; All chemicals should simply have a on the talkpage .. even if they also fall under other projects (maybe excepted when the pharma-project is on the talkpage)

11:31 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; And all chemical-interest pages should then have

11:31 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; the issue should be "what is important to the project(s)", but there are articles which fall through the loop. At the moment 40% of WP articles are not "claimed" by any WikiProject (an amazingly small figure)

11:32 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Itub has shown that there are articles which have escaped our attention, I would like to reinforce that idea

11:32 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; I agree

11:33 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Itub did his study on a closed group of articles, the 11,000 or so that are under Category:Inorganic compounds in the category hierachyc

11:36 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; I know!

11:37 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; I saw, I answered, they simply needs to be tagged

11:37 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; how should w class the biographies of chemists in our importance scheme?

11:38 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Lavoisier and Dalton are important, obviously

11:40 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; the editors who contribute to this channel are of relatively low importance to chemical science (I don't think we yet have an article on any of us)

11:42 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; but Henri Moissan, who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, doesn't have a tag on his talk page

11:43 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; They need a tag, if we can't get the importance immediately, then it is not too important (just give it a low or a mid ..)

11:43 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; All chemistry nobelprizes need at least a mid, prob all a high

11:44 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; it's very much the level that we give them that I'd like to discuss

11:46 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; difficult

11:46 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; I'd say Moissan deserves a "Low", because the article about his life will never give any more [scientific] information than fluorine and electric arc furnace: the biography, for a chemist, is a selection of interesting details

11:48 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; historically (WP-terms) the problem has been to create articles which describe the discoveries of he Nobel Prize winners.

11:49 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; and chemistry will have that problem tomorow (maybe)

11:51 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; why tomorrow?

11:56 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; because the Nobel Prize for Chemistry will be announced tomorrow, at around 1100 UTC, maybe later

11:58 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; OK, did not know :-)

11:58 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; For the Medicine Nobel, we didn't even have an article on one of the winners

11:59 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; actually, that is painful

11:59 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; We usually don't know who are nominated, do we?

11:59 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; and the current article would be deleted if we really applied BLP

11:59 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; Because that would already be enough notability for an article

12:00 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; no, nominations are secret, and numerous!

12:00 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; Yeah, I thought that

12:00 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; Still it should be enough for notability

12:01 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; Sorry, have to go

12:01 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; take a quick look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_Barr%C3%A9-Sinoussi before you go

12:02 -!- walkerma [n=chatzill@admin-151-108.potsdam.edu] has joined #wikichem

12:02 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; or later

12:02 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; the article was created yesterday, and is on the main page

12:02 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Hi Martin!

12:02 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; Seems fine

12:03 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; Hi Martin, bye all!

12:03 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; no references

12:03 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; (I'll leave the article open)

12:03 &lt;walkerma&gt; Hi! Sorry you have to go, Dirk

12:03 &lt;+Beetstra&gt; 2 ..

12:03 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; yes obviously for that

12:03 -!- Beetstra [n=djbeetst@Wikimedia/Beetstra] has quit ["Bye Bye"]

12:04 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; OK, it's now 16:03 UTC so I certify walkerma as being late!

12:04 &lt;dmacks&gt; One day of after-school detention?

12:04 &lt;walkerma&gt; Yes, I was! Talking with one of our lab coordinators, sorry!

12:05 &lt;walkerma&gt; I'll sit on the naughty step for ten minutes

12:05 &lt;walkerma&gt; Do you want to talk about the talk page tagging?

12:05 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; empiricalism is encouraged in WP editing, so the after-school detention is suspened

12:05 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; ;)

12:06 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; yeah, that's what we were talking about before you arrived

12:06 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; but also your comments about the chembox change

12:06 &lt;walkerma&gt; (Well, I also have to prep a TLC lab that starts soon - mostly ready, though)

12:07 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; OK, chembox change first: the change is completely cosmetic for normal users

12:07 &lt;walkerma&gt; It only matters for strange users - like us?

12:08 &lt;dmacks&gt; Should we change to  as part of the CAS500 checks?

12:08 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; it doesn't have anything to do with verification, except that we don't want to break the bot that will look over oboth.

12:09 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; dmacks, yes please

12:09 &lt;walkerma&gt; dmacks - can you explain?

12:09 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; but, if you don't, someone will come along behind you and delete the "new"

12:09 &lt;walkerma&gt; (Sorry, I've not been involved much with the chembox vs chembox new discussions over recent years)

12:09 &lt;dmacks&gt; walkerma: "while you were out", (the crufty old thing that isn't used) got moved to  and the standard  moved to.

12:10 &lt;dmacks&gt; no worries:)

12:10 &lt;walkerma&gt; OK, I got that part

12:10 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; the debate is the final step of a long process

12:10 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; dmacks, not actually moved yet, because it's so complicated tht moving it automatically breaks things

12:11 &lt;dmacks&gt; Okay, right. Moment...this was one of several questions I had about the Chembox validation process. Have to run, will put them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Chembox validation

12:11 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; copy-pasted

12:11 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; cheers

12:11 &lt;dmacks&gt; (my class has TLC lab also:)

12:13 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; any other questions, Martin?

12:14 &lt;walkerma&gt; dmacks: I have a quick question for you - have you had any more thoughts about the red-yellow-green idea for showing validated data? I'm starting to upload data now, I'd like to know if there's something I should be doing.

12:14 &lt;walkerma&gt; I wanted to catch you before you went

12:15 &lt;dmacks&gt; That's one of the issues I'llmention

12:17 &lt;walkerma&gt; OK, so I'll look forward to your posting on-wiki

12:19 &lt;walkerma&gt; Physchim62: My little comment on WT:Chem was just about requesting that if people are adding ChemBoxes, it would be nice if they were using the curated data from the SDF rather than cobbling things together from the Aldrich catalogue. Also, a reminder that we need to just do this work!

12:20 &lt;walkerma&gt; While we're updating chemboxes is a good time to be adding these data, as well

12:20 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; that work is simple: it consists of removing four characters from the 5000 articles that currently use

12:21 &lt;walkerma&gt; Oh, I took it to mean that we still had some of the really old-style ChemBoxes that need updating.

12:21 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; the complicated bit is making sure that we don't break anything :P

12:21 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; no, that's been done

12:22 &lt;walkerma&gt; Wow, I hadn't realised. Shows how out of touch I am!

12:22 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; last time we tried to do this, we managed to break every WP:CHEM article, so this time we're trying to be a little bit more careful ;)

12:23 &lt;walkerma&gt; (Coordinating the 1.0 project is eating up a lot of wikitime right now)

12:23 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; I know, I was goning to mail you about it!

12:24 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; You said that my getting adminship was a loss to WP:CHEM, but then so is WP1.0

12:24 &lt;walkerma&gt; touche!

12:24 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; ;)

12:26 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; I had a quick and inconsequential argument with Wim (as most of ours are) the other day about GA-class in the assessment scheme

12:27 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Wim is against using it for WP:CHEM articles, I wonder as to what effect that would have on WP1.0

12:29 &lt;walkerma&gt; Not too serious, particularly if the article is assessed as A-Class. We give A-Class the same points score as GA-Class, if I recall. If it's a B, then it will be less likely to be included.

12:32 &lt;walkerma&gt; So, how are we going to tag pages with ?

12:32 &lt;walkerma&gt; Will that be done with ChemAWB?

12:34 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; it's difficult, becuse Itibs's list contains many articles which are not really in our remit, such as minerls

12:34 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; the other point I would like a quick opinion on is how we deal with biographies of chemists

12:35 &lt;walkerma&gt; Can it be done in a manual mode, where you skip over an article that is a mineral or a general term?

12:36 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; *Itub, obviously, and there are many many other articles in the same situation

12:36 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; difficult. I'm trying

12:37 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; but on a general WP level, these articles should be tagged as "something"

12:38 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; WP1.0 now has 60% tagging on enwiki

12:38 &lt;walkerma&gt; Yes, I'm thrilled! And it all started at WP:Chem!

12:39 &lt;walkerma&gt; I suspect that the missing 40% are mostly obscure, as well

12:39 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Itub's list are mostly obscure

12:40 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; I didn't believe you 12 months ago in Paris, but now I do

12:41 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; the question is, "Do we include biographies of prominent chemists in WP:CHEM?" if so, what are our criteria?

12:42 &lt;walkerma&gt; Aha, tricky! Obviously some such as Corey, are must-haves (Corey would no doubt agree)

12:43 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; obviously ;)

12:43 &lt;walkerma&gt; (minus the stuff about former grad students)

12:43 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; Cotton as well ;)

12:43 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; (as I actually know Al Cotton)

12:43 &lt;walkerma&gt; But we also have periodic attempts by people to write vanity pages about themselves

12:44 &lt;walkerma&gt; There was that environmental guy who kept adding his name to list of chemists, list of XXX all the time

12:44 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; vanity pages aren't the problem, AFAICS, this is mostly a historical question: how much science should go into the WP biographies of historical scientists

12:46 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; if the answer to that question is "quite a lot", we need to keep an eye on the articles about historical chemists

12:46 &lt;walkerma&gt; That would very much depend,I think

12:47 &lt;walkerma&gt; Some may be important figures who dabbled in chemistry; some may have done a lot of now-routine chemistry that doesn't need a lot of explanation; others like Dalton may have something associated with them that is distinctly "theirs"

12:48 &lt;walkerma&gt; Or with Corey, the retrosynthesis concept

12:48 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; to take a current example, should Edmond Fr'emy be left in the sole (albeit capable) hands of WP:WPBIO?

12:49 &lt;walkerma&gt; So I think for some people, we do need to keep an eye on the articles

12:50 &lt;walkerma&gt; The Bio project is so huge, they are more of an organizing group, and so we can't expect them to carefully maintain this along with about a million others.

12:50 &lt;walkerma&gt; We as chemists need to help. There is a history of science project, though, and they are very interested in that sort of thing

12:50 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; I think I need to bring u the problem on the talkpage, to let others have their input; so long asthis does effect the WP1.0 ratings (which it shouldn't do), there's no problem beyond a deire to give more information

12:51 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; typing seems to be goings

12:51 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; *does/doesn't

12:51 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; deire/desire

12:52 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; I dread to think how many pages we have in chemistry. it's less than a million, but more tha 20,000

12:54 &lt;walkerma&gt; I'm going to have to go soon. Could you take a look at WikiProject Chemicals/Chembox validation and sign up to do a few - even 10-20 articles - and let us know what problems you find?

12:54 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; OK, will take look

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; These are the four problems I described to Tony last night:

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; 1. None of the entries have ChemSpiderIDs! I'd like to add these in if

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; possible.

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; 2. I can't copy and paste from the SDF file in Hyleos ChemBrowser,

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; whatever I try to do.

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; 3. If I create a CSV file and open that in Excel, I can now copy and paste

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; some fields, but things like InChI are broken up into about 20 columns,

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; and essentially unreadable.

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; 4. I find the structure representations for stereocentres in Hyleos

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; horrible - only one centre out of the four is shown explicitly, and I'm

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; not totally sure what I'm working with. Maybe these are standard for

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; machine-generated structures, but with something like Bleomycin I feel

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; very uncomfortable validating the structure as shown. I can read the WP

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; structure easily. I've tried copying the InChI into ChemSketch, but

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; ChemSketch (free version) can't handle the big InChI.

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; Didn't expect the one line per line, sorry!

12:55 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; am I OK to propose that editors add tags to articles about promenent chemists?

12:55 &lt;walkerma&gt; Definitely, IMHO

12:56 &lt;walkerma&gt; I've actually written a few, but I write on living chemists

12:56 &lt;walkerma&gt; I tag them for chemistry!

12:56 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; and, if you ever have a minute, could you take a look at electron configuration (mine) and acid dissociation constant (someone else's) ;)

12:59 &lt;walkerma&gt; Will do, though it's not my kinda thing

13:00 &lt;walkerma&gt; Must go, I have 20 students now in lab!

13:00 &lt;walkerma&gt; I'll leave this connected, in case you want to leave any more comments

13:00 &lt;+Physchim62&gt; mine need's checking for chemical accuracy and relevance, the other will hopefully be the next ChemFA

--- Log closed Tue Oct 07 13:00:51 2008 EDT