Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/Archive 15

Xenon scientific peer review
The xenon article is up for scientific peer review here. Your input appreciated. &mdash; RJH (talk) 20:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Human chemistry
This article is up for deletion, discussion page is at Articles for deletion/Human chemistry. Comments would be most welcome. Tim Vickers 21:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Academic Journals collaboration
WikiProject Academic Journals has selected Journal of Biological Chemistry as our next weekly collaboration. If there are any articles that appears in this journal that have been important advances in chemistry, please mention them on the talk page. We put each collaboration article forward as a WP:DYK so any interesting facts about the journal would be lovely. Please put the article on your watchlist. Cheers, John Vandenberg 01:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio at Molecular sieve
I've marked molecular sieve as a copyvio from www.molecularsieve.org. I originally intended to reference each assertion, but I realized that the wikipedia article was almost a word-for-word copy. I'll try to look at it tonight, but it'd be great if someone can clean it up first. --Rifleman 82 04:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the copying may have been in the other direction. The text evolved through the contributions of multiple authors in 2005, while the website claims copyright 2006, and the first appearance of the website in archive.org is Dec 05, 2006. --Itub 07:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, I stand corrected. Should've checked the page history first. --Rifleman 82 09:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Articles needing help

 * Woodward's rules (or should they be called Woodward-Fieser rules?
 * Bistriflimide

--Rifleman 82 14:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Air-free technique
I'm writing this article in my sandbox. If anyone has a moment, do drop by and take a look. --Rifleman 82 17:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Sourcewatch
I have noticed that links to the online Sourcewatch wiki have been been added to numerous Wikipedia pages recently. I know that online wikis are not legitmate references since they violates Wikipedia's self-published sources policy. However, can they be included under the External links? I am specifically concerned about the link to the Sourcewatch article on the American Chemical Society. I think that the ACS Sourcewatch link is promoting an agenda. M stone 16:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think the link is acceptable per WP:EL, for several reasons. First, because links should be generally be kept to a minimum and used to link to obvious places such as the official page of the organization. Second, because it is a wiki, which is specifically discouraged by the guidelines. Third, because it opens a can of worms. We can't link to every site that criticizes an organization (or person). Just imagine what George W. Bush would look like! ;-) If the criticism of ACS by Sourcewatch is considered notable enough, then it can be mentioned in the article and the link added as a reference. Otherwise there is no point in having the link. --Itub 10:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I have found that there a large portion of the SourceWatch ACS page has been added to the PubChem page. A link to the SourceWatch ACS wiki was also added and subsequently removed by another user. The problem with the SourceWatch content is that it does not seem appropriate on the PubChem page.  I think that there is some kind of campaign here to sneak this content in under the radar instead of placing it on the American Chemical Society page where it might receive greater scrutiny.  M stone 15:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I was thinking the same; I noticed the same content today. --Itub 15:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Apparently the ACS SouceWatch page is currently featured on the front page of SourceWatch. The actual page has huge point of view problems that are not acceptable in Wikipedia. M stone 15:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Sadi Carnot
Sadi seems to have got into all kinds of trouble over at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. I make no comment on this as I have no direct evidence myself. I have always found him to be a useful editor. Nevertheless, some project participants might want to get involved. I have only just got back from a wikibreak caused by a trip half way round the world, so I'm still jet-lagged. --Bduke 07:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The user attempted (and succeeded in some cases) to introduce his/her fringe scientific views ("human chemistry") throughout WE, including an attempt to introduce the topic into the main Chemistry article. This combination of questionable (!) science and deception is dangerous, not to mention a conflict of interest with the user's recently authored book.--Smokefoot 12:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think many people were surprised by some of Sadi Carnot's editing. In some places he did some very good work but he also did some seemingly deceptive and misguided editing. Until this recent incident I thought he was one of the good guys.--Nick Y. 16:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

A good source of molecule images
Found a good source of molecule images that seems to be public domain ! http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/home/home.do Leevanjackson 10:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Moved here from the Medical Genetics project. NCurse work 19:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

History of the molecule
Cross-posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History of Science.

There has been some concern of WP:SYN at this article. While claims in the article are reasonably factual and referenced, there is some question about whether the overall story is too original and incorporates too many topics that are just tangentially related, especially regarding recent history. Also, is "the history of the molecule" a good topic for an article by its own, or should it be incorporated into other topics such as history of chemistry? Please comment at Talk:History of the molecule. --Itub 16:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Change to Manual of Style on measurement systems
The section on choosing measurement systems has been changed from:


 * In scientific articles, SI units are the main units of measure, unless there are compelling historical or pragmatic reasons not to use them (for example, Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s−1)

Into:


 * In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI, but not always. For example, natural units are often used: ångströms (or angstroms) are widely used in such fields as x-ray crystallography and structural chemistry, and Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s−1.

Comments on this change are welcome at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style. Thank you Tim Vickers 18:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


 * One editor is objecting strongly to this change, some feedback from people writing science articles would be very helpful. Tim Vickers 17:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Chemists
New chemist articles: Karl Theophil Fries Theodor Zincke George Ernest Gibson Heinz Gerischer Otto Folin Arthur Rudolf Hantzsch somebody might have a look.--Stone 15:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Very interesting read! I rated most of them Start-Class/Mid-importance. Wim van Dorst (Talk)'' 21:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC).

Chemistry glossary
A chemistry glossary was created recently. I it still very incomplete. Someone proposed it for deletion, but later changed his/her mind. Any opinions here about whether it is necessary or reasonable to have such a glossary? I have my doubts. --Itub 10:31, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * What would be the purpose of such a list in Wikipedia? I don't know whether there would be a place for a glossary in an encyclopedia. Wim van Dorst (Talk)'' 21:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC).
 * Isn't a glossary kind of redundant to the internal hyper links provided to to other articles? Perhaps the only advantage is brevity of the definitions aiding in getting through an article faster but probably with less clarity. Articles should be written such that it fairly easy to get the concept of a term as fast as possible but without misinformation. One should have to read only as far as they need to. I.e. The first sentence of each article should be a complete and accurate statement which is further explained in the rest of the article.--Nick Y. 21:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * On closer inspection there seems to be many glossaries in wikipedia. See list of glossaries. Although they might seem to be better handled by categories, it is interesting not as a traditional glossaries (used in the context of reading something) but as a list of concepts needed to understand a field. Again categories approximate this.--Nick Y. 22:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * IMO, glossaries could be useful in Wikipedia in two cases: 1) when they define terms that don't have and can't have their own article, due to notability concerns. This is often the case with language glossaries, although these are still controversial and often deleted; 2) when they are short enough so that a reader could read all of it and get a good overview of the language used in a given field. This would only work for very narrow field. I think a chemistry glossary fails on both counts; 1) all chemistry topics that might be listed in the glossary have or should have articles or relevant redirects. 2) a reasonably comprehensive glossary of chemistry would be huge. It would have to include everything in the Gold book, which still is not comprehensive itself! --Itub 09:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * We could also use wiktionary links for dicdefs which are not notable enough to survive here. --Rifleman 82 09:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that it should be split up into categories within the page, which would help people trying to learn about chemistry understand certain topics better. The glossary is also a great way to find information that one did not know about chemistry. It's definitely a better subject to have a glossary than let's say a glossary of bagpipe terms - TheSun (talk) 15:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest guideline change proposed
A discussion about changing the COI guideline to improve expert retention has begun at Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest. Comments are welcome. - Jehochman Talk 15:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Boston Regional Inorganic Colloquium (BRIC)

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 10:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles
Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Contents subpages (not by me). This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * List of basic chemistry topics
 * List of basic biochemistry topics


 * This is starting to look like the chemistry portal (scroll to the bottom) see Portal:Chemistry. Bad ideaV8rik 20:14, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists of basic topics. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I gave my opinion on the said page. Wim van Dorst (Talk)'' 21:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC).

Major changes to force article
I've been making some major changes to force. There are a few things I could use help with:


 * Writing a section on nuclear forces (strong, weak, color, etc.)
 * Referencing (this is mostly formality, but anyway)
 * Finding a good lead image.

Cheerio,

ScienceApologist 01:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Sophus Mads Jørgensen
I just created a tiny stub for Sophus Mads Jørgensen, best known as Alfred Werner's opponent in coordination chemistry. I was surprised that he didn't have an article yet! I'm posting here in case anyone is interested in expanding it. --Itub 10:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Now we are at the subject, danish chemist, theese ones are missing too: Niels J. Bjerrum, Jannik Bjerrum, and Christian Klixbüll Jørgensen —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christian75 (talk • contribs) 03:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

New Wikinews portal on chemistry
Folks here may be interested to see Wikinews:Portal:Chemistry. This will provide a home on Wikinews for all chemistry related news stories that can go deeper than Portal:Chemistry/In_the_news. I wrote a piece on the recent death of Arthur Kornberg. I think the ideal would be for there to be a longer story at Wikinews (if the story warrants it), and a short piece on the Wikipedia portal that links to the Wikinews story through the "Read more...." We'll never be C&E news, but if we can at least provide a few morsels of chemistry news to whet the appetites of chemists/scientists we'll help to draw chemists here, IMHO. Walkerma 17:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hermann Emil Fischer
I noticed this article sitting in the "needs sections" backlog. Someone want to have a go at it? shoy (words words) 14:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Needs more work though. Carcharoth 14:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Could someone check whether this webpage has copied us, or whether we copied them. The edit adding the material was here. Carcharoth 15:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Scientific peer review
This Scientific Peer Review project can hardly be called successful. While there have been a steady but small flow of articles submitted for review, the actual reviews have been either non-existent or in no real way different from those done through the standard Peer review process. Some editors will recall that the project was started with an enthusiastic discussion about identifying expert reviewers through an elected board. Unfortunately as time went by, it became clear there was no consensus on whether we had a board, or on how it was to be set up or on what it was supposed to do. There was also a lack of consensus on what "sciences" we were covering, and on many other aspects. In the end we sort of lapsed into a minimal review process which has staggered on for about 18 months. I think it is time we decided what to do about the project. Unless people can come up with a new way forward and enthusiastically implement it, I think we have to declare that this project be no longer active in any sense and that editors should ask for review at WP:PR. I am posting this on the talk pages of the major Science WikiProjects. Please feel free to publicize it elsewhere. Please add you comments at Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review. --Bduke 01:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

FARMessage
Lead(II) nitrate has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

IRC
Hi, for all those chemists who are active on IRC, Rifleman_82 and I have set up a channel on IRC for chemistry on wikipedia. You can find us here: the wikichem channel. To be able to talk with other online chemists there, you need an IRC program, like mIRC, the Chatzilla plugin for firefox, Opera (built in), and there will probably be more programs out there. At the moment User:Rifleman_82 and I are the 'keepers/moderators' of the channel, but anyone can enter and talk! Hope to see you there! --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

New participant
Hello. Does this WikiProject have a sign up list? Where? Thank you in advance. -Susanlesch (talk) 20:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be WikiProject Chemistry/Participants, if I'm not mistaken. (I'm technically not a member :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -Susanlesch (talk) 05:24, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I added a couple articles—List of pharmaceutical companies (the article English Wikipedia search sends one to at the moment for the search phrase "big pharma") and Pharmaceutical company—to the project just now. I rated them NA for the time being. Thank you. -Susanlesch (talk) 13:11, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. You may also be interested in WP:PHARM (of which I am a member :) Incidentally, NA-class is reserved for non-article content (such as categories, lists and templates, in projects where no List- or Template-class exists); it's best to leave an article unrated if you don't have time to assess it or would like to come back to it later. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:18, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, Fvasconcellos. Thank you for your reply. OK I will fix the rating on these two, sorry about that. I don't think I have time to join the other project but it is good to know about it. Best wishes and again thank you. -Susanlesch (talk) 14:36, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Carbon
The Carbon article has been nominated for the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive. Nergaal (talk) 20:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Parent chain
The article entitled Parent chain has been nominated for deletion. The article consists of a one sentence dictionary definition of the concept, and no other information. The concept appears to be notable, but we need some assistance from experts to determine how best to expand the article. Any assistance you can provide is appreciated. The deletion debate is here. Thanks, ZZ Claims~ Evidence 15:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Cold fusion -> Low energy nuclear reaction
Cold fusion has been proposed to be renamed low energy nuclear reaction (LENR), see talk:Cold fusion for details. 132.205.99.122 (talk) 19:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Fact-check needed for Bibibium
Hi. I'm not very familiar with wikiprojects and am absolutely awful at chemistry, so if I'm in the wrong place, hit me with a fish. A new user started the above article for a temporary element name on the 25th. On the 29th, he blanked it with the summary "Wrong." After I reverted that and asked him what's up, he tasked me with fixing its mistakes. Can I ask you folk to take a look at the article and, if the subject is a valid one, fix what needs to be fixed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kizor (talk • contribs) 17:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It was just some kind of joke . Since the original author and only contributor blanked the page, it falls under speedy deletion criteria G7 (WP:CSD). Consequently, I have deleted it.  --Ed (Edgar181) 17:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * you sure about that? But since we've previously established that I don't know what I'm talking about, if you are, then thank you and goodnight. --Kizor (talk) 18:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, you're right, calling it a joke wasn't correct. Thanks.  But, in my opinion, speedy deletion is still the appropriate action.  Precedence (such as Articles for deletion/Untribium) indicates we don't need articles beyond about element 125 and element 222 is so far beyond that...   --Ed (Edgar181) 18:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)