Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals

Requested move for Alpha hydroxy acid
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New student pages
Students enrolled of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology WikiEd program are starting to publish new articles on organometallic compounds. On the plus side, we at least get [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology/Organometallics_(Spring_2024)/articles/edited? a list] these days, and they're mostly restricting themselves to distinct small molecules. On the other hand, most of the compounds appear to be wildly exotic. Project Osprey (talk) 23:51, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I think Douglas Adams would call these mostly harmless. They are also likely to be mostly unread. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * These MIT-edited articles are now packed with minute details because that is their directive. One of the challenges to Wiki-chem, IMHO, is excess detail supported by numerous detailed references.  For readers who seek an encyclopedic overview of a topic, such detail obscures the big picture.  The MIT students used to add a lot of computational results, which are original research and should be removed.


 * There are other sets of homework assignments coming from UBC (undergrads!) and other schools. In none of these cases does the instructor have any track record of editing on Wikipedia.  So, its the blind leading the blind.  Yet, Wikipedia central (where ever that is) cheers on this crap.  Oh well. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:42, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Can we come up with a list of articles that we could ask them to write, something(s) that are notable? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:12, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've worked on list articles for fungicides, insecticides and herbicides, all with many redlinks which are virtually guaranteed to be notable. Not all need individual articles, since they fall into mode-of-action sets but that could be one place to point student editors. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:33, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I took a look at some articles produced under the same instructor's courses in the past - they're packed with sections based entirely off of primary research. I'm more concerned about the work on existing articles like phosphorus mononitride. Recon  rabbit  22:09, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Good for some, but our last class was organometallic chemistry; and an earlier one was main-group inorganics, so can we find anything in scope that is important? I suppose it could be to expand a section in an existing article.Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Found in taxon in infobox
Hi, s already tried some time ago, I think including "found in taxon" in the infobox would be valuable.

For more details:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Chembox#Relaunch_%22found_in_taxon%22 and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals/Archive_2022#Add_a_%60found_in_taxon%60_statement_from_Wikidata_in_the_chemical_infobox AdrianoRutz (talk) 06:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Writing articles about Sulfites
Hello WikiProject Chemicals! I'll save my introduction for another time, but anyways. I'm writing a draft on Cadmium sulfite, and as I write my first article regarding a chemical, cadmium sulfite is not a big deal in the world. It certainly is existent - I found a case of Cadmium being used to replace Tin foils and resulting in the creation of Cadmium sulfite.

The sulfites in general are not as widely written about as the Sulfates - just see their respective categories. Since some are more longer than others, and my article probably will not be as long, is there a guide, or a good reference, or convention for what articles regarding sulfite compounds should be like? And of course, how does mine look so far? ItzSwirlz (talk) 00:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia-Chem Project and warm congratulations on endeavoring to write an article. I would abandon the draft on Cadmium sulfite and move on to other topics if you are determined to create articles. The writing, art, sources are substandard.  I dont think that the compound is notable.  Sulfites are far more obscure than sulfates, and for that reason they do not rise to the level of notability Wikipedia expects.  Sorry for the negative views, but if I were to write something on video games, it would also be substandard. --Smokefoot (talk) 02:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I somewhat echo Smokefoot...especially his welcome, but also his observation that this chemical does not seem to meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline to merit an article. It doesn't need to be a "big deal", but it does need to have multiple reliable sources cited. The detail you found--about toxicity via an interesting route of production and exposure--is not sufficient to make the chemical itself that notable. If you can find other details, such as niche uses, sentinel detection or as a marker for something, etc. I'd happily reconsider. We do have a (not that great) article on cadmium poisoning and of course an article on cadmium and all its modern and historical uses, so maybe your new detail could find a home in one of those? DMacks (talk) 03:07, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Sadly, a search other than the information I found contained one sentence with a claim that growing cadmium sulfite could 'permit advances in technology' (http://www.jstor.org/stable/4468151). So, I'll abandon the draft for now. Is there an easy way to find compounds that are notable but yet to have an article? ItzSwirlz (talk) 20:05, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * One approach is to read books, or read review articles in chemistry journals (This user page has examples), find any mentioned chemicals that don't have an article, and use those books/reviews as sources. Or if you have a specific chemical in mind, you can use Google Scholar (or SciFinder if you have access), search for a chemical and filter the search for only review articles. Michael7604 (talk) 21:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Here's what puzzles me: Wouldn't one create an article about something that matters and one knows something about? Instead it seems that you just dreamt up cadmium sulfide and then hoped that someone else would supply the backbone information?--Smokefoot (talk) 22:27, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I see many potential sources when I search "cadmium sulfite" in quotations on Google Scholar and only show review articles: Search results here Michael7604 (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Never mind, looks like most of those are about CdS (cadmium sulfide). Michael7604 (talk) 23:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed. And most are crappy journals and they are not about the chemical.  They are about some complicated app.--Smokefoot (talk) 23:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * More dubious stuff: Niobium(V) oxynitrate, ruthenium(III) nitrate, copper(III) oxide (now a redirect) --Smokefoot (talk) 00:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Revival of the page Notability (chemicals)
The page Notability (chemicals) is a failed proposal that is no longer accurate; we don't consider every possible chemical compound notable just because it has a CAS number. Instead the compound should be in secondary sources. Discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Notability (chemicals). I have started editing the page. Michael7604 (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Using new chemical formula text formatting
Across articles I've been updating formula formatting to use the new "\chem" style of formatting instead of just using plain text. Are there any issues with this? I've been doing this for a bit. ItzSwirlz (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I feel strongly against this. I think the style introduces inconsistency in the text that is not only entirely unnecessary, but is aesthetically very unpleasing. The chem2 template is much better.  Marbletan (talk) 14:27, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I also oppose the style for the reason given by Marbletan. --Smokefoot (talk) 16:31, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * should i revert my changes? ItzSwirlz (talk) 18:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think you should revert them, since the format they are in now is much easier to convert to the chem2 template then what was previously there (with all the undefined tags). I've started changing some of them over already. Recon  rabbit  19:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Awesome, if I stumble across any that I've done or text using those tags I'll move them to chem2. ItzSwirlz (talk) 23:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Provocation, semantics, truth, or just dumb?: Oceans do not contain sodium chloride
What should we say? --Smokefoot (talk) 19:15, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * So if a solid is dissolved in a solvent, it isn't "contained" in the solvent? Recon  rabbit  19:24, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Something I've thought about a lot: if you dissolved two different salts into water, like lithium chloride and sodium bromide, would it really make sense to say "the water contains lithium chloride and sodium bromide"? Since the salts are dissociated into Li+, Na+, Cl-, and Br-, the solution is the same as if you instead dissolved lithium bromide and sodium chloride. Instead you should say it contains lithium ions, sodium ions, chloride ions, and bromide ions. So you can't go wrong by saying the ocean contains a lot of sodium ions and chloride ions (there are also many other ions in smaller concentrations). Michael7604 (talk) 20:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Could it also be said at that point that the water contains sodium chloride, sodium bromide, lithium chloride, and lithium bromide? (I'm starting to think this is the kind of question that comes up on Stackexchange with some frequency...) Recon  rabbit  20:36, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Also think about what you would be left with if you boiled off the water. I think the resulting solid would be a salt containing a random mixture of Li+, Na+, Cl-, and Br-, maybe that could be called a mixture of LiCl, LiBr, NaCl, and NaBr (or maybe it would separate into four different crystalline domains of LiCl, LiBr, NaCl, and NaBr, dunno if this has been studied). Michael7604 (talk) 20:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Double salt Michael7604 (talk) 03:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I dont have any great answer. Evaporation of an aqueous solution made from NaCl and LiBr (no boiling required!) will give four products but their distribution will depend on solubility products and there will be a lot of doping as well.  I was just wondering if editors think that we should "torture" readers with this aspect.--Smokefoot (talk) 04:12, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The English language doesn't always have the words we need to give a brief but perfect description. I think in those cases we should focus on readability. Facts are only good where they are useful, and for most discussions on seawater it is besides the point how the salt exists, we need only accept that it is there. Detailed descriptions can be added where needed. Project Osprey (talk) 10:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * See sea salt. What most non-chemists think of when they speak of "salt" is indeed sodium chloride to a chemist. The fact that the sea, and hence sea salt, contains a number of other ions is largely irrelevant. Quantitatively, most of the "salt" in the sea is NaCl. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:01, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Cleanup
Hello, I have been cleaning up some of the earlier articles I had created (which are very poor in quality), and wanted to know if the articles below would be needed to deleted or redirected due to issues. It would be nice if people like could look at them.
 * Ammonium selenide
 * Actinium(III) iodide
 * Manganese(II) chlorate

I also found very dubious articles that I hadn't made, so I'll list them below.

Keres🌕Luna edits! 04:23, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Cobalt(II) chlorate
 * Gold phosphide
 * Caesium phosphide
 * Manganese(V) fluoride (is this notable?)
 * I dont have any particular authority here except as an inorganicker, and several of these aren't worthwhile. We can deal with them on their Talk pages.  As other editors are noted, it is often unclear why these articles were created.  I guess that they do little harm except that they diminish the reputation of Wiki-Chem as a source of reliable info.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * These articles are lacking Category:Hypothetical chemical compounds which may be useful for finding these in the future. Azinamine? Recon  rabbit  16:17, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1,2-Dichloroethene
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1,2-Dichloroethene that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 16:17, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Trinitrotoluene has been nominated for discussion
Category:Trinitrotoluene has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. DMacks (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Olympiadane
If anyone is looking to get a WP:DYK under their belt, then may I present to you Olympiadane. It needs work but it could be gotten ready in time for the Paris Olympics Project Osprey (talk) 09:35, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

MOS:MAINISOTOPE
What's the status of the discussion on MOS:MAINISOTOPE? It got archived without any box closing it. In I assumed the discussion was inconclusive. 184.147.229.55 (talk) 08:13, 23 June 2024 (UTC)