Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/Archive 21

For your attention and consideration
I found this article while categorizing uncategorized pages. Its a word for word copy of an EPA.gov webpage. At minimum it needs an extensive rewrite. It may even need to be AFDed but I don't know enough about the subject matter to be comfortable with nominating it for that. Which is why I'm bringing it to you.*Kat* (talk) 08:04, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Dioxins and furans
 * We can tag it as containing PD text from, but IMO, it is not encyclopedic and it is not reasonable to have such a twinned article. Thus suggest speedy delete it as copyright violation instead. Materialscientist (talk) 08:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Periodic table of molecules ?
This seems... well, it seems more like a literature review than an encyclopedia article. Very good sourcing, but I'm dubious about whether it's salvageable -- on the other hand, all I have is a bachelor's. Opinions? DS (talk) 13:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it reads like an outline for an article in Journal of Chemical Education, where it would be more at home than on Wikipedia. The idea of a periodicity of molecules as something separate from the periodicity of the elements is not mainstream chemistry, but it is worthy of scientific discussion, especially if it helps teaching the myriad of different relationships. However, before submitting his/her ideas to a more suitable forum, the author should thoroughly revise his/her section on the basis of the current periodic table, as at the moment it is factually incorrect (as a hint, the author might like to mention the name Pauli at least once and probably several times). Physchim62 (talk) 14:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It is salvageable; the main problem is that it contains references but doesn't explain what's in them. (Listing references without exposition is, I think, a common problem for new scientific articles on Wikipedia, because it is considered acceptable in a journal article, but is not appropriate in an encyclopedia article.)  What the article needs is for someone to skim the references and explain in the text what all of these different systems are.  Antony–22 (talk/contribs) 19:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Electrochemistry
I was just reviewing articles that have been selected for the Version 0.8 release, and the article on electrochemistry caught my eye. The content looks to be very good, IMHO, and probably in 2005 we'd have assessed it as A-Class. However, it doesn't have any inline citations, and there is only a handful of general references. Would it be possible for someone who knows the field (i.e., not me!) to give this a thorough review so we can keep it as at least B-Class. I hate to demote something to C-Class just because of references, when there is a clearly a lot of nice content. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 06:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * All the sections in this article have main articles associated with it, find the inline citations there I would think, no need to do all the work twice. General references suffice V8rik (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I hadn't noticed how much of it refers to "Main" articles. I've been too inactive on WP lately, I'm missing obvious stuff like that!  I'll try to work on it this weekend to import some refs, but I also see that most of those sub-articles are similar - often just a couple of refs for a long article.  I'll check original sources as much as possible, but I may have to try and dig out some books from our college library too!  Thanks for checking it over. Walkerma (talk) 11:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Chemistry articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

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University of Georgia – Graduate Chemistry Class Project
This class will be working on some contributions in the area of transition metal chemistry:

I will post an update once I see how the students’ articles are shaping up. Regards, ChemPunk (talk) 19:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * aurophilicity – article expansion
 * bent metallocene – new material to be incorporated into the metallocene article
 * borderline hydrides – article expansion
 * Jacobsen's catalyst – article expansion including catalyst mechanism
 * oxo wall – article expansion including examples
 * photochemical CO2 reduction – role of transition metal catalysts; will tie into articles on artificial photosynthesis and photoelectrochemical processes
 * thiophilicity – new entry
 * tuck-in complex – new entry
 * I'll be interested to see what your students have to say about aurophilicity, as I've published in that area ;) Physchim62 (talk) 23:08, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Number of isomers of alkyl groups
The table in Alkyl would benefit from adding a row containing the number of isomeric forms of each alkyl group. I could, however, only find data for alkanes in literature, not for alkyl groups. Can anyone help? --Leyo 19:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

antilogarithm and equilibrium constants?
I'm currently working on the logarithm article. Currently, it says:


 * Today's applications of antilogarithms include [...] the calculation of equilibrium constants of reactions involving electrode potentials.

Can someone confirm this and give me a book reference for this fact? I'm not a chemist, and I failed to find a reference myself. Thanks Jakob.scholbach (talk) 07:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Look up the Nernst equation, which states that &Delta;G = &minus;nFE&deg; = &minus;RT ln K. As this section confirms, this equation connects the equilibrium constant K and the electrode potential E&deg; and involves a logarithm.  As for printed confirmation, any basic college chemistry textbook would include this equation, some possibilities include Chemistry by Brown, LeMay, and Bursten, or Chemistry by Zumdahl (ISBN 0-395-98583-8), or Chemistry by Chang (6th ed: ISBN 0-07-115221-0 but this is up to at least the 9th ed now), or Chemical Principles by Jones and Atkins (ISBN 0-7167-5701-X); alternatively, a specialist book on electrochemistry would also be suitable, or a specialist book on Physical Chemistry.  There are literally hundreds of potential textbook sources.  I hope this helps.  :)  EdChem (talk) 07:56, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Structural formulae uploaded
Prompted by the diagram request at Nitrobenzoic acid I’ve uploaded nine SVG images representing the structures of all three isomers along with the corresponding nitrotoluene precursors & amino derivatives. It’s been some thirty years since I was in a chemistry class, so I’d appreciate it if someone knowledgeable gave them a critical glance. They may also need better categorization—I’m not familiar with the schemes in use. Please see the article’s discussion page for a list of files. Odysseus1479 (talk) 23:37, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Only problem that catches my eye is that the "amino" ones should be NH2 (like other aniline compounds) not NH3 (would be an ion, like anilinium chloride). DMacks (talk) 23:47, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoops—of course they should—thanks! Will remedy ASAP. Odysseus1479 (talk) 00:01, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, they’ve been replaced now. Thanks again. Odysseus1479 (talk) 00:11, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Look fine now. Thanks for them! DMacks (talk) 00:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Resolve POV Fork: Kendrick Mass and Kendrick Unit
Request comments on proposed merge of Kendrick unit into Kendrick mass and mend a POV fork. In 1963, Kendrick proposed a scale based on the mass of CH2 = 14.0000. This scale is useful in organic mass spectrometry, particularly in high resolution mass spectrometry of hydrocarbons (see ). A Kendrick unit has not been proposed, although a paper published last month uses “Ke” in a manner parallel to the Dalton unit. The basis of the merge is that the Kendrick unit article goes beyond what is stated in the literature and is therefore WP:SYNTHESIS. Kendrick mass is widely accepted and a balanced discussion of a Kendrick unit is appropriate within the Kendrick mass article. Additional discussion on Talk:Kendrick_mass. --Kkmurray (talk) 13:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Still looking for input. Comment if you can. --Kkmurray (talk) 15:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Introduction to atomic structure
FYI, Introduction to atomic structure has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

chemical effect on seeds
plz tell me what will be the effect on seeds when we mix seeds with nytrozen, sulpher, zink, & all nessecery minurals & sow the seeds .the plants will be powerfull than normal plants or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.107.174.13 (talk) 07:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's rather a complicated question to answer - a lot depends on the state of the plant, and what form the nitrogen, sulfur, zinc, etc are given in. Also, what do you mean by "powerful" - do you mean healthy, robust, fast-growing, or what? Walkerma (talk) 02:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a question about the effects of fertilizer, so that article would be the place to read about it (and follow its links, particularly to plant nutrition perhaps). DMacks (talk) 15:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Organizational representatives
We seem to have attracted the attention of several organizations, which have sent representatives to edit WP. I'll just list the ones that I am aware of, so that we can treat them all consistently.


 * Self-identified "official" reps
 * - American Chemical Society
 * - Org. Synth.


 * Other users
 * - Heidolph
 * formerly - Org. React.
 * - Strem Chemicals
 * - American Chemical Society

--Rifleman 82 (talk) 06:01, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Organic Reactions
I encountered this today, and it bothers me greatly. It seems that the article has been (perhaps well-meaningly) hijacked. Hijacked to be a promotional piece and/or an index of sorts. The frequency of external links back to Org. React.'s website seems excessive. I am also quite concerned about how an attempt has been made to systematically create articles which correspond to articles in Org. React. without regard for our MOS, naming conventions, etc. While their categorization of content into articles titled such may be appropriate for their purpose, it need not be so here.

I note a lot of effort put into those articles, but WP is not a series of book chapters. It needs to find a way to fit into bigger articles. Organic growth is not religion but there are problems with drive-by editors regurgitating huge chunks of prepared material. MOS may be cosmetic but it's something we agreed on and is important to maintain the appropriate look, tone, feel of this encyclopedia. It's hard to even begin tidying some of these articles when the article titles are already messed up by local standards, e.g. Epoxidation_with_dioxiranes. Lastly, there is the trifling matter of the username. That could be addressed directly, but I'll just throw it in here.--Rifleman 82 (talk) 02:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I am also wary of robowriting, but Org Rxn has a distinguished history and I think has open access. If done well, the additions would be welcome because the book series covers big areas. Ideally they will bend their articles to conform to existing ones, if they exist. But we should test their intentions. I will edit 2+2 photocycloaddition and see how they handle new perspectives. You should invite their consultating the chem project on their intentions and encourage them to participate.  2+2 photocycloaddition does not appear to be plagiarized or copied. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smokefoot (talk • contribs) 02:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Main issue with the page is that more statements need to be supported by references and parts have a rather conversational tone. M stone (talk) 20:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * overall I am welcoming the contributions made by user organicreactions, the articles are highly specialised but simply add a specialist layer to already existing articles. I would not encourage massive overwriting of existing articles. Issues that I am having are : the titles do not accurately describe the content, lack of internal linking, lack of DOIs, many articles remain unpublished (user sandbox only) but are already searchable , a sort of shadow wikipedia. I am not bothered by the detailed experimental descriptions that you can find at the end of the articles. Org Reaction btw is not public access.   V8rik (talk) 17:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I have checked Epoxidation_with_dioxiranes and there seem to be direct quotations from copyrighted material (e.g. the complete procedure paragraph). I could not check other articles or other paragraphs. Please could somebody check into this? Even extensive paraphrasing would not be permitted on Wikipedia. Cacycle (talk) 06:49, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't have access, so I can't tell. Is this article an unsalvageable copyvio (which should be speedied?) Or are they only sections? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 16:23, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I should probably jump into this conversation so that things don't get out of hand. Yes, the procedures were copied verbatim from Organic Reactions articles. However, I obtained permission from the editor-in-chief of OR to do so, and the articles were also endorsed by its Board of Directors (OR obtained permission to include said procedures from the original primary journals). If the inclusion of the procedures still constitutes a violation of WP's copyright policy, then they may of course be removed. However, speedy deletion of the entire pages would, in my opinion, constitute an overreaction. I'd like to work with the community to fit the pages I wrote in with existing content; I simply haven't had time to do so since writing them. --OrganicReactions (talk) 21:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You were invited to participate in this discussion from the very start, so don't talk about things getting out of hand. While your work is most likely well-intentioned, there are problems. People have been talking to you about it, and you have been invited to join us here since 14 July, and you have been explicitly invited to join this exact conversation here. I would encourage you to address the other issues mentioned here, not just those issues which involve deletion. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 01:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I would like to work with you to solve the problems associated with the articles I wrote. I'm more than open to any edits, additions, or removals that anyone would like to these pages; to be honest, it would be an impossible time commitment for me to do this on my own. Let's start with my username. Is there a way I can migrate to a different username while maintaining the pages in my user space? --OrganicReactions (talk) 15:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay. With regard to your username. Choose a new username, and stop. Don't create a new account. We will be moving your account onto the new username. Go to Changing_username/Simple and put in a request for your username to be changed. Your request should be fulfilled in a few days. If you can no longer log in to your old account, that's also a sign that the change has been completed. All the work in your userspace will be retained, as will you watchlist and any other preferences you have set up. It's pretty much the ideal option IMO. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 16:05, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Any relation to ? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 16:09, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yep, that's an old account of mine. If the OrganicReactions user space could be migrated to that account, I think that would be ideal. --OrganicReactions (talk) 02:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Copyrighted material is not acceptable at all for WP. See Copyrights. Material on Wikipedia may be freely copied, distributed, modified, etc. So unless Org. React. would like to release all articles and/or contents of its website under GFDL or Creative Commons (which will definitely be very nice, actually), we simply can't use the material. Phrased differently, if the board is willing to release the material to Wikipedia, it in effect releases the material to the world for any purpose.

Aside from such philosophical discussions, we will need more than your say so that such material is indeed for free use. See some past discussion at User_talk:Webchemist. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 06:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Ribbon for Chemistry Star
I have boldly created a ribbon relating to the Chemistry Star awarded by this WikiProject and the Chemicals WikiProject, for those who like to display ribbons. Where should this be displayed (other than WP:RIB) to raise awareness of it, assuming this ribbon is thought suitable? Regards, EdChem (talk) 04:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Bottom of WikiProject Chemistry/Materials? Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 04:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect Drawings
I have re-drawn the reaction scheme for the salbutamol page, as the scheme was incorrect. I note that the original drawing was made by (now blocked) User:Yid, and that this is by no means the first incorrect chemistry drawing done by this author. When I get time, I will check some more of his, any help would be grateful - see [] for his contributions.  Ron h jones (Talk) 19:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yid uploaded about 300 images. --Leyo 08:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

specific gravity and relative density
Specific gravity and relative density as they stand are covering the same material. They either need to be made distinct from each other or merged. A merge was tried (without much discussion that I could find) but it was de-merged shortly later without fixing the problem in my opinion. It would be nice if we can get more eyes and a discussion going so that we can fix this the right way one way or the other. Also, I would appreciated it if someone could contact other projects that might be interested. Relative density only has a physics tag now and specific gravity has none. TStein (talk) 17:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Article work
What article can I work on? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 22:33, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * See if you can check out a copy of the "Chemistry of the Elements" by Greenwood and Earnshaw from a library, possibly a nearby college (they would eventually give you access) or the public library via interlibrary loan. It is the traditional sourcebook for inorganic chemistry and is filled with information that will help you to contribute to the articles on chemical compounds.  My personal favorite is the slightly more obscure German book by Holleman and Wiberg (famous name in the inorganic world), which exists in English. These two books give greater emphasis to main group chemistry, which is less well developed in Wikipedia than is transition metal stuff.  The source that many editors use is the CRC (aka "Rubber Bible").  One specific chore, especially for transition metal compounds, is to enumerate which hydrates exist. I once took a stab at this by listing the various hydrates under water of hydration, but I lacked to stamina to continue.  Each hydrate can have distinctive properties (and its own CAS# of course).  Awareness of the various hydrates is of practical value, and they are under-appreciated.  An introduction to this theme is provided by awareness of the hydrates of CrCl3.--Smokefoot (talk) 04:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

New periodic table templates
There is this logical idea to have templates in the form of periodic tables linking the reader to oxides, sulfides, carbides, etc., like Template:Iodides. The problem is mere linking in iodides is dull (well those are iodides), and some classification could be added on top (say for oxides). Please comment at this discussion (bottom of Talk:Oxide). Materialscientist (talk) 22:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a useful and good idea to me. Might be more useful to link to disambiguation pages for elements like fluorine with more than one iodide. Scientific29 (talk) 19:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Didn't realize the discussion was over at Talk:Oxide. Scientific29 (talk) 19:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

DABCO
translated from fr:Projet:Chimie/L'alambic Hi, Who is in a lab with under the hand DABCO to say how it smells ????? In the article, it says DABCO smells like peanuts, insisting that DABCO, unlike small amines, don't stink! while the file GESTIS wrote: "Odour: ammonia like". It is difficult to imagine how to be more contradictory and only good old experience in the real world will be able to decide. So how smells DABCO?--tpa2067 (Allô...) 07:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC) From fr:Discussion_utilisateur:Tpa2067
 * Hello, I found your question in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemistry/Archive_21#DABCO today. Well, I got two bottles of crystalline DABCO (producer: Air Products), and it smells like peanuts (weakly reminding of pyridine, too). --FK1954 (d) 17 mars 2013 à 00:35 (CET)

Deletion requests: files for deletion
Is there any form of automatic notification other than the (currently not updated) WikiProject Chemistry/Article alerts? Should I add   there? BTW: In de-WP, there is this bot list. --Leyo 20:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Biography question
I have been spending a lot of my time trying to help out new users. I welcomed a user recently and received this message. I don't think the article meets our notability requirements but am not sure of the exact standards of medical bios. Obviously given the circumstances please treat this person with kid gloves (as we should be doing with all non-vandal new users anyway), by that I mean no warning templates on the talk page. Personalized messages would be better. Thanks in advance to anyone who helps out. Quadzilla99 (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's a notability problem here. The person concerned doesn't quite fit WP:PROF, but I think that's because he spent his career in a government research institution (NIH) rather than in a university. The article cites several examples of how his work and expertise were respected well beyond his own research group or home institution, and the field in which he worked is non-trivial. One could say it's a borderline case, but I would say that it's harmless so keep. Physchim62 (talk) 19:06, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. A lot of papers and editorial board positions indicate some notability. Those redlink journals perhaps could be articles though. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:43, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ty. Quadzilla99 (talk) 00:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Metallocenes
Have been spending some time on this topic. Of the first transition series, I can't find much or any information on scandium and copper metallocenes. Just a quick check - do they exist (and I'll spend a little more time looking for them), or are they as-yet unreported? Any comments with regard to the second and thrid transition series? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 06:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Neither scandium nor copper form metallocene-type compounds, as the electron count would be just too far out. Scandium forms an ionic tris(cyclopentadienide) that is stable in dry air to 400 °C. Copper forms the σ-bonded complex [Cu(η1-Cp)(PEt3)] . Physchim62 (talk) 08:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I suppose manganocene would not be a classical metallocene either? Or is the monomeric Cp2Mn known in solution? I don't have Elschenbroich handy, which the de version I translated relies exclusively on. I can appreciate the electronic factors behind the absence of these compounds. However, they are exactly the sort of thing which chemists set out to make, and will probably eventually succeed in making... --Rifleman 82 (talk) 09:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Cp2Mn is a standard metallocene with 17 electrons, and high spin to boot! Very sensitive to air and moisture. Physchim62 (talk) 09:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll dig up some refs another time. Was wondering, because of the polymeric structure described on dewiki. But that too is par for the course I guess. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 09:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * On second and third row and from the top of my head, a lot is known about ruthenocene and osmocene (haven't checked the articles, though). The rhodocene article is pretty complete (IMO) but iridocene (which was described as the Cp2Ir+ cation soon after ferrocene was reported) at present has no article.  EdChem (talk) 11:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Lack of decent Ψ2 graphs for article on atomic orbitals
All the atomic orbital graphs I could find in commons are Ψ graphs, because these show the wave phases. The article SAID that orbital graphs are usually Ψ2 to show probability densities, but none of the graphs it actually HAD were of this type. You can immediately tell one type graph from the other by the fact that the lobes are nearly spherical in Ψ graphs, while they have the familiar pear-shaped elongated form in Ψ2 graphs. I could only find ONE graph of Ψ2 orbitals in COMMONS (it happened to illustrated space-filling for d-orbitals) and I made the best use of it that I could. But I'd like a Ψ2 showing s, p, d, and f orbitals that I could put immediately underneath the present Ψ graph in the article, in the "shape of orbitals" subsection, so the differnece is clear visually (whereas I was forced to describe it in words, which is never as good by itself, for this kind of thing).

Would anybody like to make a Ψ2 graph which corresponds with this first illustration, below? The orbital lobes should come out looking like the d lobes in the next illustration below it. S B Harris 19:52, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Alkoxy group
A very minor point, but in the entry for 'Alkoxy group', it mentions the 'alkoxyl group'. I am not a chemist so for me this is confusing. Is an alkoxy group the same as an alkoxyl group? Are both terms used interchangeably? It would be good to have this clarified or corrected. Thanks 82.18.108.211 (talk) 12:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Organocatalysis
An IP editor added a chunk of material to the Organocatalysis article that too me, seems to give undue weight to thiourea organocatalysis. The editor also references his PhD thesis. Someone familiar with this area may want to investigate. Regards, P. D. Cook  Talk to me! 14:52, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is rather excessive, considering there is a link to the "main" article on that subject. References are badly formatted as well, so I reverted it.  Ron h jones (Talk) 20:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Air sensitive
Hello, my friends: A group of us are working on clearing the backlog at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources_from_October_2006. The article in the above header has been without sources for the past four years and may be removed if none are added. I wonder if you can help do so. Sincerely, and all the best to you, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I checked a bunch of chemical dictionaries and glossaries to no avail. In books dealing with the subject of handling air sensitive compounds, no attempt is made to define the term, so perhaps it is assumed "air sensitive" is a sum of its parts (i.e. "air sensitive" means "something sensitive to air"). If no source can be found defining the term I would support deletion. Perhaps move this thread to the talk page of the article as an explanation for the delete. Scientific29 (talk) 21:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * sounds like: edit this page or we will destroy it! Please refrain from those tactics. Occasionally it is impossible to find literature for a certain topic because chemists are supposed to know what is meant by it and no chemist is going to explain the term to another chemist in a book. I doubt even Vogel bothers to explain it. We do have a responsibility towards non-chemists to explain certain terms and in that respect I find the current article on air sensitive more than adequate V8rik (talk) 22:16, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not know what all the fuss is about. A knowledgeable editor has found a source, for which I have sent him another well-deserved barnstar, which you can inspect at User_talk:ChemNerd. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I am inexperienced here (i.e. on Wikipedia), but would this not be a violation of WP:Verifiability: "All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source to show that it is not original research..."? Best wishes. Scientific29 (talk) 00:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, indeed, Scientific29, you speak good sense. Sincerely, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello again, fellow planet-dwellers. Since I started this contretemps, I will indeed move the discussion to the proper page and will add a WP:Delete tag to the article so that all may come to a reasonable, nonjudgmental decision. Sincerely, in Wikidom, GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Please use common sense. It is not helpful to nominate an article for deletion when you in fact want it to be kept, so I have closed the AFD.  -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If anything, why not merge and redirect to air-free technique? --Kkmurray (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think it is a distinct topic. Though the current article doesn't have much information, keeping it separate would more readily allow for expansion of the content:  discussion of what types of chemical compounds are air sensitive, why those chemical compounds are air sensitive, what types of chemical reactions they undergo with the components of air, etc.  -- Ed (Edgar181) 20:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Now, GeorgeLouis and Scientific29. WP:V says "This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate.", now, unless you want to challenge that an air sensitive compound is .. sensitive to air, then that part does not need a reference. It is simply untrue that everything needs to be sourced, and it may so happen that certain articles end up without sources. Please be careful when suggesting to delete such articles. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Again to highlight other possible responses short of AfD, you can add some references yourself, comment on the talk page, or in some cases a maintenance template (e.g. WP:CTT) may be appropriate. Air sensitive is already flagged as a stub, though, which implies that it does not yet have adequate sources per WP:1.0/A. --Kkmurray (talk) 15:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Awesome! New sources work for me. Scientific29 (talk) 20:39, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Glucose
User Plasmic Physics has vandalized the Glucose chembox: here. Wrong image names, removed all pyranoses and added uncommon labeled isomers. He does not want to explain: User_talk:Plasmic_Physics. He also changed other chemboxes. See Aldohexose.--Wickey-nl (talk) 17:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Reverted. Such big changeovers need discussion, and I have asked Plasmic Physics to do so.  Also, the first image now was of a bar of chocolate, not really D-glucose in a pure form.  I understand that sugars are strange things where there are open and closed forms etc., but I think that for glucose the closed form is the best known form for the general public, and I do not think that people will recognise a bar of chocolate as glucose.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 19:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The chembox in Aldohexose, with many arbitrary identifiers, does not make sense at all. That page is about different compounds with their own chembox. Probably Plasmic Physics has made many more controversial edits.--Wickey-nl (talk) 13:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I cleaned Aldohexose. Chemboxes are for singular compounds/mixtures, not for sets of compounds.  If a need is there, they should have an own type of box.  Similar in principle goes for molecule-fragments, which should have an own type of box (which probably would be a near copy of a chembox, as a lot of data (except for most of the physical properties).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 17:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines
(Just a courtesy note.) There has been some discussion recently about whether Scientific citation guidelines needs to be updated to reflect current practice. This wikiproject is one of the projects that had signed on to this guideline in the past. If you have any comments or concerns about the guideline, please feel free to comment at Wikipedia talk:Scientific citation guidelines. If this project no longer wants to be named on the guideline page, you may remove yourself from the list at the top of the guideline page. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 18:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Is this an error?
Sodium acetate page list the chemical formula as C2H3NaO2, while Template:Sodium compounds, lists it as NaCH3COO. The difference is that the "C2" and "C" and "O2" and "OO". Thanks, Marasama (talk) 20:26, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It's correct. Both forms have two C, just one lists "C" twice and the other has "C2" which means "there are two C". Likewise for O. Our chemical formula page is where you can learn about these different styles and meanings. DMacks (talk) 20:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops, I did not see that other "C". Thanks, Marasama (talk) 15:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

DAB page Dioxin
I would be glad to see some project members participating in the discussion on how the DAB page should look like. Currently, it looks like a hybrid of an article and a DAB page to me. --Leyo 23:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Apparently an article about dioxin is missing. Or better, Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds should be Dioxin and Dioxin should be Dioxin (disambiguation)--Wickey-nl (talk) 12:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I am strongly against this suggestion. You might be interested in the discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Toxicology task force, Talk:Dioxin (chemical) and Talk:Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins. --Leyo 13:03, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I am just looking as an outsider. Actually Dioxin is not a DAB page at all. I think it should be conversed into an Internal link template (NAV-bar). And Dioxin should redirect to Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds.--Wickey-nl (talk) 15:36, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * In the link given above you see this (my) statement: I suggest reverting to this revision. Hence, yes, it is not a real DAB page now. I am also strongly against converting Dioxin into a redirect. --Leyo 16:02, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

OrganoWiki
A new wiki of organic chemistry reactions was launched recently, see. It's licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0, so maybe we could use some of the information on our organic chemistry pages? (IANACopyrightExpert) shoy (reactions) 14:10, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It sais Content is available under CC Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike 3.0. ‘Non-commercial’ is not OK for a direct usage here. --Leyo 16:05, 24 November 2010 (UTC)


 * See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemistry, compare http://organicreactions.org/index.php/Reductions_with_diimide and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductions_with_diimide V8rik (talk) 17:08, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Shyamala Rajender
I was surprised that no article about Shyamala Rajender existed within Wikipedia, so I created a new stub article. It needs work, both within the article and in other articles that should link to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Categories up for deletion
FYI, three categories have been nominated for deletion. Category:Chemical images, Category:Reaction images & Category:Compound images, see WP:CFD. 76.66.194.212 (talk) 05:45, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * These categories have never been used much. Two of them were created by User:Jag123, the other by an IP user. --Leyo 07:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * ...and because of it, noone will need and miss them. --Yikrazuul (talk) 16:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Viewing molecular models in interactive 3d on Wikipedia
Hi,

Recently, I have started working again on an extension for displaying molecular models in interactive 3d in Wikipedia with Jmol. Comments and suggestions are welcome. A few links : --NicoV (talk) 13:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Basic examples on Jmol wiki
 * Details of recent evolutions
 * Bugzilla talking about CML support in Wikipedia

Phosphite fertilizer
I noticed this thread in the archives after moving a possible copyvio from monopotassium phosphite to phosphite. Should this selection be deleted? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 15:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Crystallographer needed


I have just fixed the stereochemistry of the dimeric alkaloid voacamine and am now wondering about the absolute configuration assigned to the related alkaloids ibogaine and its partial synthetic precursor voacangine. There is a crystallographic study from 1992 (Acta Cryst. 48, 2055 (1992) ) that referes to earlier data from a 1966 study (Acta Cryst. 13, 553 (1960) ) for the absolute stereochemistry. Please could somebody experienced in crystallography check that original publication if the structure to the right is the correct absolute conformation? If not, then all structures of ibogaine and voacangine in the literature and on the internet would have to be redrawn ;-) Cacycle (talk) 20:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've checked the ibogaine (1992 and 1960) and voacangine crystal structures from the Cambridge Structural Database, which agree with the skeletal formulae to the right.


 * However, this 2008 paper gives the opposite configuration for N-(hydroxymethyl)ibogaine, synthesised from natural ibogaine with formaldehyde in acetic acid. The authors say "In the absence of anomalous scattering Friedel pairs were merged and any references to the Flack parameter were removed". As far as I understand this sentence, they've decided not to determine the absolute configuration.


 * Ben (talk) 18:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Ben. I have alse checked the cartesian coordinates from the 1966 paper and they indeed yield the configuration from our structural formulas. Weird, but both antipodic structural elements seem to exist in nature, even in the same plant (see voacangine vs. voacamine). Or something is fishy with some of these crystallographic studies... Cacycle (talk) 22:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

BLP cleanup
Consider referencing one of our unreferenced BLPs at WikiProject_Unreferenced_Biographies_of_Living_Persons/UBLPs_by_other_WikiProjects. shoy (reactions) 17:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Transition metal ... complexes
At least for those interested in coordination and organometallic chem, it could be useful to have a series of general articles on these compounds classified according to the main ligand classes. We have such articles on Transition metal nitrosyl complex, Transition metal carbon dioxide complex, Transition metal carbyne complex, Transition metal dioxygen complex, Transition metal dithiolene complex, and Transition metal nitrido complex. Otherwise I will keep going. Eventually we could have something on phosphines, amines, acac, etc. All very general and not exhaustive. Possibly Metal carbonyl could be moved to a parallel title as well. If people have suggestions or disagreements, let me know.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Why such extremely long names? Without Transition the names are still correct.--Wickey-nl (talk) 14:57, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I'll make that change unless I hear otherwise after a few days.--Smokefoot (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)


 * great idea, but articles should not be orphaned. I took the liberty to link transition metal carbon dioxide complex to carbon dioxide and ligand V8rik (talk) 18:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

oxaziridines
Hello,

I have recently written an article about the chemistry of oxaziridines. I am not entirely sure of the protocol behind the chemistry wikiproject, but I've noticed that a number of chemistry articles have been tagged with the project in the discussion page and rated by the project. Is this something that I am meant to do for the article, or would anyone else do it?

Thanks much DMelvinKaphan (talk) 00:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, you're hired. You need to check with someone else about compensation. Details: titles would be nice. --Smokefoot (talk) 02:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good job on the draft. Rifleman has tagged the talk page with the Chemistry WikiProject, though it would have been fine to do that yourself.  Someone is bound to pass by and classify the article and its importance, no need for you to worry about it.  EdChem (talk) 04:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

IUPAC nomenclature
IUPAC nomenclature has been requested to be renamed or split, see talk:IUPAC nomenclature

65.93.15.73 (talk) 05:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Chemical reaction
I have quickly expanded chemical reaction from the German wikipedia, but am not happy with the content and phrasing in many parts. It would also be great to eliminate German-language references. Many areas there are beyond my expertise and it would be great if someone with general knowledge of chemistry had a look. Materialscientist (talk) 06:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That was quite a project, thanks, I will try to assist. V8rik (talk) 17:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Willing to lend a hand
Hi, I recently expanded the Weinreb ketone synthesis article for a class project and I'm hooked on the wiki thing. I'd like to take on another project but I'm not sure which articles are in need of expansion. If anyone has a suggestion, I'd be willing to start/expand any articles dealing with organic reactions.

Thanks! Mdlevin (talk) 04:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I saw your work on Weinreb ketone synthesis, and would have nominated it for the DYK project had I seen it in time. There are ways you continue to work on that article, consistent with your GA nomination - though the improvement to date is substantial, there are areas that might be improved.  There is also a list around of articles that are highly trafficed but have low ratings, and any of those could benefit from expansion.  I tend to find just reading on topics I find interesting I will come across articles that are in need of work.  PS: If you like writing about people, there are plenty of notable scientists with poor biographies. Steven M. Weinreb is a stub, for instance.  Stephen G. Davies says nothing about his chemical achievements.  Even the chemical achievements section of E. J. Corey strikes me as light on for detail.  EdChem (talk) 05:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Atomic weights to change
As a heads up, the atomic weights of 10 elements will now be reported as ranges on the periodic table, including some common ones like carbon and hydrogen. See here and here. Not sure how to handle. Olin (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ZOMG! What utter, utter idiots! I really dispair at IUPAC sometimes... What they're trying to say is that uncertainty in some atomic weights has to modelled with a rectangular probability distribution rather than a Gaussian distribution: it's a technical point, of interest to perhaps one in a thousand chemists, if that. So, instead of treating it in a footnote or a technical report, they ram it down everyone's throats in the official table, with the ludicrous idea that this "fundamental change in the presentation of the atomic weights represents an important advance in our knowledge of the natural world and underscores the significance and contributions of chemistry to the wellbeing of humankind in the International Year of Chemistry 2011." Physchim62 (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * A few observations...
 * 1. Reading the paper and not just the abstract, I note table 6 that provides "Conventional atomic weights" which are "For users needing an atomic-weight value for an unspecified sample, such as for trade and commerce". For experienced chemists, these values will be familiar:
 * boron 10.81
 * carbon 12.011
 * chlorine 35.45
 * hydrogen 1.008
 * lithium 6.94
 * nitrogen 14.007
 * oxygen 15.999
 * silicon 28.085
 * sulfur 32.06
 * thallium 204.38
 * 2. I agree with Physchim in that whoever wrote the of the abstract is talking drivel. The point that the paper is making is that the different isotopic abundances between different sources are now the largest source of uncertainty in the atomic weight, and thus knowing the sample's source can allow the weight to be known with a much higher degree of precision.  Though the paper fails to make a case for the general significance of this fact, there are some interesting applications, notably in drug testing for athletes, detecting doping with naturally occuring substances.
 * 3. For the vast majority of applications, these differences make no difference to the outcome of calculations before the fifth significant figure, and so the "conventional" weights will continue to be used for most applications. However, for some applications the change recognises that accuracy to 8 or 9 significant figures is realistic.
 * 4. The answer to Olin's question may well be a stand-alone article talking about the relationship between atomic weight values and differing natural sources, to explain why the articles quote both a conventional value and a range, and why that range is not representing a Gaussian with a meaningful mean, but rather simply cover the differing values for differing sources, and with a known source comes a known value of markedly greater precision. Then, quote the range and conventional value in the article and link the label to the stand-alone article.
 * EdChem (talk) 12:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * With this IUPAC's logic, we should revise all properties of water (because it is mostly impure in Nature, and thus doesn't weigh 1 g/cm3, doesn't boil at 100 C and freeze at 0 C), and go on with the long list of other natural materials, which does not seem reasonable to me. Materialscientist (talk) 23:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Fox News is reporting this as "ZOMG the whole periodic table you grew up with is wrong!" but their example table doesn't even have a few of the new elements I grew up with. And the press releases both from IUPAC and UCalgary (apparently home institution of some major players in this) say that "the weights are being adjusted" and "this is the first time this has ever been done", but weights change every few years with improved accuracy--the only difference is use of value-range rather than decimal-place uncertainty. Yet again, nobody in the mainstream news knows a goddamn thing about science I guess. DMacks (talk) 12:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The mainstream might not have a clue, but put yourself in the shoes of Jimmy and Jane the journalists. IUAPAC's word is nearly law in chemistry. If IUAPC tells them the "reweighting of elements" is something important and groundbreaking, who are they to disagree? Even if they don't see the big deal, they will assume that there must be something to it that they don't understand, and probably don't care about. After all, when' the last time Aunt Jenny cared about the atomic weight of boron? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:32, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Is this wp:ITN worthy? Nergaal (talk) 23:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:CUP
Some of the users here might be interested in WP:CUP. Nergaal (talk) 23:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Class project on insertion reaction
Editors are asked to comment on the merger (or not) of insertion reaction and migratory insertion. It seems that these should be merged, the contents and intents are similar. The students created insertion reaction in order to be distinct from the traditional name "migratory insertion", perhaps to get a grade. There probably are many insertion reactions, e.g. various rearrangements involving 6e carbon centers, but my main requestion concerns the duplication and dilution of editing efforts if we try to maintain separate sites on the same reactions. --Smokefoot (talk) 18:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

LD50
Why do many articles lack this information? Is there any specific reason before I start adding it from Mallinckrodt Baker site? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 23:00, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * LD50 values are notoriously unreliable. If we discuss acute toxicity of compounds, we should use secondary sources that compare different studies, or use GHS evaluations that are becoming ever more available. Physchim62 (talk) 01:49, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If added, it should contain not only number, but details, such as animal and route of administration. Materialscientist (talk) 02:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My own preference is that it shouldn't be added unless it's the only toxicity data we have (ie, we don't have secondary sources). Even then, it its probably best discussed in text rather than being in the infobox. Physchim62 (talk) 02:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia-chem articles have usually steered away from LD50's for the following reasons: (i) As Physchim62 points out, the LD50 data are not very reliable (although they give one the sense of relative risk of poisoning), (ii) as Materialscientist points out, the LD50 data can often reguire extensive contextualizing, that would dilute the essential chemical intent of the articles, (iii) encouraging such content would encourage hoards of earnest do-gooder editors who know zero chemistry but will fill these articles with minutia that they Googled. Consider this gem that I removed from SbF3: "The substance is highly corrosive and can burn skin and cause eye damage. It can also damage other organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys and cause ulcers.Refed: 1998-2004 New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services." Now, that info is a load of scary crap: when handled by a chemist, SbF3 is a relatively benign nonvolatile water-stable solid, provided that one does not eat a spoonful or rub it in your eyes. Its toxicity is related to that of Sb, which, we might note, is akin to that of As.  The business about heart, ulcers, etc, is generic content that is produced by robots and lawyers.  I hope that we can keep the lawyers and the chemophobes away by simply referring readers to the MSDS, except in extraordinary cases - sarin, cyanide poisoning, arsenic poisoning, etc. But maybe I am old-fashioned.  --Smokefoot (talk) 02:47, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Smokefoot. Chris (talk) 08:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If LD50s are so unreliable (I somewhat agree with what you said), why not remove them from all articles? They can be unreliable: according to LD50s obtained from Mallinckrodt Baker, barium chloride (118mg/kg) is less toxic than nickel(II) chloride (105mg/kg), and cobalt(II) chloride (80mg/kg) is ever so much more toxic than cadmium chloride (665mg/kg). These values are oral, rat. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 12:10, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hold on, are you talking about chemboxes or body texts? Many articles do properly describe LD50 in the body, giving referenced details, and such information is not to be removed. Materialscientist (talk) 12:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Me? I think they should either be in the infobox or nowhere in the article. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 17:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Despite the misgivings noted above (which I fully agree with), I think LD50s do have some value for us. This information is ubiquitous for a good reason. Toxicity is a very difficult property to pin down, and LD50s are an industry-standard method of providing a quick and simple read on it. That's why you'll find LD50s in so many sources - from reference books for chemists (such as the Merck Index) to government documents aimed at the general populace. I feel that it is appropriate for Wikipedia as well. We just need to make sure that it is presented properly, just like we should do with all information we include in Wikipedia's chemical articles. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:44, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that LD50's can be a useful. Just leave the liver and ulcer part out.--Smokefoot (talk) 18:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Nitrofullerenes
Nitrofullerenes is a new article by a new user. Need a chemistry expert to take a look at it. Thanks. Safiel (talk) 05:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Methylene shuffle


The article Methylene shuffle has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * A search for references found two published (gBooks) minor mentions that can not be used to validate the content of the article. Fails WP:N and WP:V

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 20:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Okey to request this project added to the "Popular pages lists"?
Hallo. Any Objection if I request our project to be added to the popular pages list? That will make a list like WikiProject Physics/Popular pages. Christian75 (talk) 22:19, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a nice idea to me  Ron h jones (Talk) 22:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Disilene
I would be glad to get a few opinions concerning the requested move there. --Leyo 22:21, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

New molecule - Trinitramid
, link, Thanks, Marasama (talk) 17:05, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ack ... that title, "New Molecule Can Lead to More Efficient Rocket Fuel", is completely misleading. 96.227.89.95 (talk) 17:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Book:Landmark experiments in chemistry
Hey all. I just created Book:Landmark experiments in physics, and wanted to create one on chemistry as well, but turns out I don't know much about the history of chemistry. While Category:Chemistry experiments exists... it's not very helpful and is a far cry from Category:Physics experiments. So I thought I'd drop the project a line and maybe get someone to create it?

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Chemists call their experiments reactions, here's just a few of them Category:Chemical reactions. V8rik (talk) 21:08, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Synthetic chemists call their experiments reactions. Most others types of chemists still call their experiments experiments. Also many of the most fundamental advances in chemistry were not reactions. M stone (talk) 23:10, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * we are not talking about the fundamental advances in chemistry (that includes theories), we are talking about Landmark experiments in chemistry  V8rik (talk) 22:04, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Jean-Baptiste Biot's observation of rotary polarisation in gassious turpentine probably counts even if wikipedia doesn't really mention it. Seem to recall that the experiment ended when the equipment caught fire.©Geni 20:49, 16 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, the book could be "Book:Landmark reactions in chemistry" or similar. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Too Many Templates
I've been adding comment at some talk pages about excessive templates - then I noticed that there are a lot of them are all Chemistry ones. The pages are being flagged up at Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded, and means that the final wikitext on each page does not render - examples are...
 * Amitriptyline
 * Amoxapine
 * Ketamine
 * Bupropion
 * and there are more listed...

I'm starting to suspect it might be the complex templates within templates within templates in the infobox. Wikipedia has a limit on its ability to render excessive templating, and I think we might be in danger of many articles going over the top. If one views the source code for a page, goes to the end and then comes up about 3 pages - you will see the wiki processor report thus

(In this example the "Post-expand include size" has crashed out.) Alternatively maybe stop using all those · delimiters in those final expanding templates - or maybe use and cut down the template numbers? - I just looked up the bullet template - subst it would add " •&#32;" (no-breaking space, bullet, normal space) to the text, maybe doesn't look as neat in edit mode, but might solve the problem. As an example Template:Adrenergics has 601 bullets.  Ron h jones (Talk) 22:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It does seem that the navigation boxes are the primary source of the problem with fully rendering the article. The easiest way to address the problem will be by editing these nav boxes and replacing · looks like the simplest solution.  -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Removal of a few thousand templates can't be a bad thing, will probably improve page loads as well. If I get a free moment (they are a bit short supply this week!) I might did out my AWB, and try to remember how to use it!  Ron h jones (Talk) 18:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Definite need for WP:AWB - there are almost 200 listed at Category:Drug templates, and some are very big.  Ron h jones (Talk) 18:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Some templates have been constructed that way and don't need doing Template:Aphrodisiacs is an example where it has been done direct, (but without using character codes) - the use of a bullet can be a pain for users to find and copy, so I think a better string would be "&amp;#160;&amp;#8226; ".  Ron h jones (Talk) 19:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * For bullets, the string "&amp;nbsp;&amp;bull;" would be much better than "&amp;#160;&amp;#8226;" Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:43, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

That was quicker than I expected, only about 40% of the templates had unsubstituted bullets. It has cured the problem for now... NewPP limit report Preprocessor node count: 118926/1000000 Post-expand include size: 1873108/2048000 bytes Template argument size: 1029528/2048000 bytes Expensive parser function count: 3/500 However it looks like the pages are still quite template heavy - it has to be the Chembox (and also the template in the refs), future additions to Chembox need to be watched carefully to make sure we don't generate problems. I am composing an Edit Notice for the templates to help editors add the bullets.  Ron h jones (Talk) 23:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Too many templates in total, or too many nested templates, or both? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 01:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Template_limits is the section that is the problem.  Ron h jones (Talk) 20:35, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

New user
Noticed a new user,. I've asked him to drop by and say hi. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 17:28, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * THE Arduengo? roll out the red carpet...... V8rik (talk) 18:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Persistent carbene Arduengo? Mdlevin (talk) 18:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like it. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 18:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi folks! Thanks for the welcome. V8rik asked: "THE Arduengo?"; Haha, I've never been called that before. According to published protocol, I'd just be one of three anyway. AJA-3.0 ;)  As far as the "red carpet", 'round these parts that'd be a Crimson Carpet and those are reserved for football coaches - well, maybe not this year. AJArduengo (talk) 21:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Around these parts there are asses who will be waiting to see if you push your own P.O.V., even if it's based on cites from your own already-published peer reviewed work. If you quote from your own primary works, you have a citation problem (citations are encouraged to be secondary, like reviews, rather than primary, like your research papers). If you quote from reviews, they should be reviews by somebody else, not yours. If you quote from reviews favorable to you, you are still in violation of WP:SYNTH or for being self-serving in picking those reviews. Most encyclopedias would welcome articles from experts, but Wikipedia is full of minefields for experts, because it was not designed to be written by experts, and has no way of verifying the expertise and credentials of experts. So on WP, basically, you mostly have to pretend you're NOT an expert, but instead are writing a really good student paper. The only way you can use your expertise, is use it in a submarine fashion to ignore clearly wrong junk, other self-serving reviews, and so on. Having said that, all this is not as bad on chemistry articles as most of the rest of Wikipedia, where people think that expertise is nothing special. Anyway, be careful and be welcome. Just don't get frustrated. S  B Harris 23:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * SBHarris distorts reality. Reality is that it's perfectly fine to uses your own material, but you must be extra careful in abiding by conflict of interest guidelines (I very highly recommend you read the entirety of the guideline, and follow a few links there, especially if you plan on making edits closely related to your work). Cite oneself raises redflags, and these edits will be heavily scrutinized, that much is true. However there's a difference between writing an article about your research using your own articles [this is usually what will get you in trouble], and writing an article about your field/topic using some of your publications amongst others, provided it wouldn't stretch people's imagination that someone (who is not you) would also have used your publications to backup the claims of the article. When in doubt, just bring it up on the article's talk page, or alternatively here, and you shouldn't really have any problems. That being said, warm welcomes. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:51, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Question: I've noticed that the Ylide page has gotten quite a bit off track. There was some text four or five edits back that was fairly accurate. I'd like to expand on that with some of the original literature references to the compounds and terms along with their derivation. Is there a way to bring back that text giving credit to the original Wiki author without disrupting any other intervening edits? I could just cut and paste the text from the point of its introduction, but that wouldn't keep the original composer's credit. AJArduengo (talk) 00:30, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You can copy/paste the removed text from the previous revision, but you should note in the edit summary that you're doing this, e.g., "Restoring text deleted by (user) on (date)". This way there is a note for anyone digging through the history that the text is from a previous contribution. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 06:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Template size - more information
I was discussing the problem of template limits with Wikid77 after I did a editproteced edit for him on one of the convert templates. He has shown that on the pages breaking the template limit, that our main problem is due to the large navboxes, and not to the Chembox. He has edited the page "Ketamine" as an example of how to avoid the issue of crashing template limits. I have copied his two notes to me below. Hopefully they will give us ideas of how we can avoid problem pages in the future  Ron h jones (Talk) 15:29, 4 January 2011 (UTC) 

Essay WP:UNNEST for big templates
Regarding complex templates, I recently wrote the essay page WP:UNNEST (or "Avoiding MediaWiki expansion depth limit") which also includes issues about Convert. That essay covers the common problem of if-else logic nested over 40 levels deep, and describes ways to make templates more efficient. Convert is actually still quite efficient, with post-expand size of only 385 bytes of the 2 million limit, where {&#123;convert|1|inHg}} = "1 inch of mercury (3.4 kPa)" has stats:
 * NewPP limit report
 * Preprocessor node count: 326/1000000
 * Post-expand include size: 385/2048000 bytes
 * Template argument size: 533/2048000 bytes
 * Expensive parser function count: 0/500

However, navboxes instead seem to be the big problem: they are getting so huge, as the "boxified" contents of a would-be overview article tacked onto the bottom of other articles. Imagine if we started having "catboxes" where people really did spam wikilinks for every item in each category as bottom boxes. I wrote essay WP:Overlink_crisis, years ago, to warn people to avoid those large navboxes, which I would rather link by navbox title as a navpage instead (which is advised in the essay). More later. -Wikid77 05:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Template size lessons from Talk:Ketamine

 * Topic there: Talk:Ketamine

Most of the bottom navboxes, in a large article, should be linked by title, rather than transcluded as bottom boxes. In article "Ketamine" the bottom navboxes have been using 77% (1.6mb) of the post-expand limit, as most of the allowed 2 megabytes of formatted text. Another large template, Citation/core has used almost 20% of the limit (from {Cite_web}, {Cite_news}, {Cite_book}, etc.). The sidebar {Drugbox} is not a problem, because {drugbox} uses below 2% of the 2 mb limit (19kb). However, expensive parser functions are used by "tiny" Citation needed as [ citation needed] and Page needed as [ page needed] which were formerly tiny templates. Now, because the navboxes have been the largest resource drain, I linked 10 of them as navpages, instead, in a bottom table of titles:
 * {| class=wikitable width="96%" style="background:#F1F1FF"


 * Related navpages:
 * {&#123;Depressants}}
 * {&#123;Hallucinogens}}
 * {&#123;General anesthetics}}
 * {&#123;Analgesics}}
 * {&#123;Antidepressants}}
 * {&#123;Neurotoxins}}
 * {&#123;Cholinergics}}
 * {&#123;Dopaminergics}}
 * {&#123;Opioids}}
 * {&#123;Glutamatergics}}
 * {&#123;Glutamatergics}}

Remember, even though the bottom navboxes have been huge, some other templates need to be modified to not hog resources, as well. Outside of WT:WikiProject_Pharmacology, the Template:Citation/core should be changed to be 5x-10x times smaller. Plus, {Citation needed} or {Page needed} should be simplified to not use an "expensive parser function" - they are both an unbelievable 4x (not just double or triple, but 4 times) the size of a complex {Convert} calculation which determines numeric precision, deduces the output unit, calculates 13-digit accuracy, and rounds results to match plus wikilinks, with typesetting. Yes, {Citation needed} and {Page needed} together are 8x times the size of using {Convert} with its most complex settings. Details about those other templates are just FYI about issues to be resolved on their talk-pages. Editors should continue using {&#123;Cite web}}, Cite journal, etc. while they are being improved. Plus, {Drugbox} is fine as using only 2% of resources. The main focus here is to avoid stacking 4-or-11 navboxes at the end of each article, and use a table of "Related navpages" instead. -Wikid77 14:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * }

Congratulations to Materialscientist and Petergans
In case you have not noticed, the important articles hydroxide and pyridine have undergone major, major enhancements thanks to the single handed efforts of Petergans and Materialscientist. These articles will be refined by the rest of us in the usual wiki-way, but the level of knowledge and dedication of these two editors is impressive.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Organic reactions
Someone has proposed a WikiProject Council/Proposals/Organic reactions

65.93.14.196 (talk) 05:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Entropy of activation
One thing I am definitely not is a physical chemist, but I started an article on Entropy of activation anyway because it is a glaring hole. Others who feel more comfortable with the topic could help make the article more useful. --Smokefoot (talk) 22:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that a separate article is needed. In my view, it belongs with activation energy. That article is rather poor. For instance, it does not make clear the difference between the free energy of activation (Gibbs free energy) and activation enthalpy, as illustrated by the &Delta;H on the second diagram. I'm not familiar with chemical kinetics, so I don't know how much work has been done to idendify the contributions of enthalpy and entropy to &Delta;G‡. It could even be argued that activation energy should be merged with Arrhenius equation since acivation energy is intimately connected to the Arrhenius equation. Petergans (talk) 22:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

specific rotation
Please see here. This article may well describe a process/method/whatever that is the very life-blood of chemistry, or it may describe something that only two people have ever done (and couldn't agree on the results). From the article there is no way to tell. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopaedia, not a notebook on random facts for chemistry geeks. Please either turn this 'article' into an article, or delete it. Maybe while you are at it, you could find a source or two? It is bad enough having to deal with pseudoscience articles that reference blogs and something somebody's grandmother once told them, without finding worse referencing (i.e. none whatever) in science articles. Over to you... AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:44, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Organic solution
I just did an edit to an article in which the term "organic solution" appears. I linked to it: organic solution. It's a red link. Should that redirect to something? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:27, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Incipient wetness impregnation
Incipient wetness impregnation is a complete orphan: No articles link to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

How to make the caption visable in a picture in a Chembox
How to make the caption visable in a picture in a Chembox I put a picture in a Chembox (see the following), how can I make the caption visable? Thanks

Sign for archive bot shoy (reactions) 13:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Use the  parameter.


 * DMacks (talk) 10:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Graduate Chemistry Class Editing Polymer Sites
Just wanted to give you all a heads up that I am doing my "Improving Science Education and Understanding Through Editing Wikipedia" project again with my graduate class - "Organic Chemistry of Macromolecules." For previous discussions about this project, see 1, 2, and 3. We have made some changes: (1) There will no longer be group names and instead each individual will have their own username. (2) We previously cut/paste their work into the site at the end of the term. We will now "move" the sandbox to the site so that an appropriate history is kept. (3) We are having the students interact with the community by posting what they plan on adding and when the new version will be live on the discussion page for each topic. If you have any questions, please post them here or on my discussion page. I have all the sandboxes located on my talk page so you can check out their work during the term if interested. In addition, my talk page has a compiled a history of all the sites that have been edited by my students in previous terms.

This term the students will be working on these sites.

Cationic_polymerization

Polyfluorene

Polymer_brush

High Refractive Index Polymers (creating a new site)

Plasma_polymerization

Thanks UMChemProfessor (talk) 18:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

heme A and heme B
Hello wikichemists! Are my renditions of heme A and heme B logical? Images are added below for convenience.

SubDural12 (talk) 06:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Heme groups are essentially planar, as far I understand, so those images look inaccurate to me. EdChem (talk) 06:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, look at this crystal structure of a similar molecule, the complex of tetraphenylporphyrin and Fe(II).

The porphyrin ring is nearly planar.

SubDural, your models have the following problems:


 * Only two of the four nitrogen atoms in the porphyrin are coordinated to iron. All four should be.
 * Your porphyrin ring system is massively buckled, but it should be almost planar.
 * File:HemeA.png has a hydrogen on a carbon directly bonded to nitrogen - this is not the correct connectivity, see File:Heme a.svg. All carbons bonded to nitrogen in haem a are quaternary and planar, having no bonds to hydrogen.

Ben (talk) 12:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Ben,


 * I am almost certain that I have fixed it. I had to actually draw it out by hand like you said, due to a problem with BKchem misreading SMILES involving square brackets "[ ]".


 * Please let me know of anything that remains erroneous. Also, thank you for putting my images in that organized gallery, I did not know of this useful feature.


 * SubDural12 (talk) 08:53, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * All four structures appear to be missing a double bond in the porphyrin ring, there should not be a CH2 group in the links between any of the heterocycles. EdChem (talk) 09:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Spark
Hey everyone, there's a small debate going on over the naming of the article Spark (fire) at its talk page. Any helpful and accurate input is much appreciated. Thanks so much!--Yaksar (let's chat) 14:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There's now a request for outside comment as well. Thanks again.--Yaksar (let's chat) 16:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

adding animations
Hi, I am a graduate student in chemistry, formulating a class project for my students to contribute to Chemistry Wikipedia articles and we would like them to add animations for key reaction mechanisms. I have added one to the discussion page for electrophilic aromatic substitution (talk). Thoughts? I realize that I is too fast, and am working on uploading a slower version. but it seems as though I might have to change formats all together. Someone suggested .ogg; however, with my limited program knowledge, I do not know how to do this. We do not want to bulk of the work to be on the development on the animation, but rather an easy way to create these animations so that the students can focus on the content of the animation (please keep this in mind). Thanks in advance for your input. MichChemGSI (talk) 16:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe SVG is the recommended format for animated drawings, or one of them at least; its resolution-independence is a particularly valuable property. —Odysseus1479 (talk) 20:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Organic compounds of phosphoric acid
Hello. I am trying to orgnanise the categories involving organic compounds of phosphoric acid but I have stumbled on the fact that the category Organophosphates is a bit problematic. Here are the categories that I would like to consolidate (found in Category:Organophosphorus):


 * Category:Organophosphoric amides O=P(NR2)3
 * Category:Organophosphates O=P(OR)3
 * Category:Organophosphoric acid halides and pseudohalides O=P(OR)2X or O=P(OR)X2
 * Category:Phosphoramidates O=P(OR)2(NR2) or O=P(OR)(NR2)2
 * Category:Phosphorothioates O=P(OR)2(SR) or S=P(OR)3
 * Category:Phosphorodithioates O=P(OR)(SR)2 or S=P(OR)2(SR)
 * Category:Phosphoroamidethioates O=P(OR)(NR2)(SR) or S=P(OR)2(NR2)

I have a few suggestions for the organisation: Thanks, --kupirijo (talk) 23:59, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Should the categories 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 (which are also esters) be subcategories of category 2.
 * 2) Should categories 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 be renamed as follows:
 * 3) * Category:Organophosphoric acid halides and pseudohalides ---> Category:Phosphoric acid ester halides + Category:Phosphoric acid ester pseudohalides OR
 * 4) * Category:Organophosphoric acid halides and pseudohalides ---> Category:Phosphorohalidates + Category:Phosphoropseudohalidates
 * 5) Should categories 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 be members of a new category Category:Organophosphates and derivatives?
 * 6) Should there be a new category Category:Phosphorodiamidates?

Nitrile Rubber
Would someone please double check if I correctly made these images of nitrile rubber?

THANK YOU!

SubDural12 (talk) 02:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

This question is still open to those who might have the answer. I am also not 100% sure if I have the right structure of quisqualic acid. Thanks, guys.

SubDural12 (talk) 01:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

"... understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field"?
I have been involved in a discussion at WT:FAC, and I would like to ask a question here to see whether my perceptions are out-of-line with those of my fellow wiki-chemists. According to WP:NOT every article should include a lede and initial sections "that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field" (emphasis added). I have described this as a goal that is fine in the abstract but which is unrealistic in practice. I invite comment (here - I'm not trying to canvass anyone to the other discussion) on my perception and your view of this policy requirement especially as it applies to more technical and abstract articles. EdChem (talk) 12:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We have discussed the same issue at the maths project recently. My personal impression has always been that that line in WP:NOT does not really match reality very well, particularly for article topics that would normally only be studied in advanced classes. On the other hand, with articles like Atom and Addition we do realistically expect the readership to have little background, and so those articles need to be very broadly accessible. I see that atom is a featured article, perhaps it is useful as an example. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll also point out that I have only a freshman background in chemistry and I can read the lede section of Rhodocene just fine. There is a minority of editors who think that Wikipedia should not have articles on such topics, but they are a small minority. There is also a minority who thinks we shouldn't have articles on TV show episodes, so it goes both ways. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that this would depend on the subject. Although I expect that Pythagorean theorem is explained in a very basic way, as it is something that a high-school student with a relatively small knowledge of mathematics is being subjected to, Fermat's theorem on the other hand does not have the need to be thát basic (though of course as simple as possible), since maybe only an interested high school student might end up there (but what about A^3 + B^3 = C^3 .. does that have simple solutions?), but for the rest mainly more advanced people will 'normally' encounter this (this does of course not mean that one can now write it for specialists .. attempts to write it so that someone with no mathematics knowledge understands the problem, and so that someone with some mathematics knowledge understands how it can be proven are welcome.

Same would go for Atom and Molecule - that needs to be reasonably easy, those are things that are even mentioned in the news and where people might regularly go to to just read, without any chemistry knowledge. Rhodamine is already a bit further (though pretty common), but Bullvalene is not something that people without chemistry would regularly run in to. Again, it does not exclude us from trying, but I would be a bit lenient for it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Also relevant here is WP:MOSINTRO: "In general, specialized terminology and symbols should be avoided in an introduction", and "Where uncommon terms are essential to describing the subject, they should be placed in context, briefly defined, and linked". The present lead at Rhodocene is clearly failing that. Of course we ought to have such articles, but they should as far as possible be organised to reflect a pyramid of difficulty: at least the earliest sections should be as accessible as possible.


 * One problem, reflected I think at Rhodocene, may be leads that are over-comprehensive, and include too much detail from the main body of the article. Looking at that lead, a start might be to ask: Is the specific name of each different molecule being referenced there really needed? Or for the purposes of the lead, is it enough to say that there is a molecule that does [particular thing], leaving its specific identification and naming to the main body of the article?  Jheald (talk) 13:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)