Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/Archive 24

New articles
New articles have been written (I assume by students) and will need revision - formatting is easy to fix, but the problem is to decide whether they are encyclopedic, and how to integrate/reshape them. It would be nice to have a complete list, but here below is from what has appeared in my watchlist:
 * Fullerene Ligands - reads very sketchy. Merge it into fullerene chemistry or someone can reshape its backbone for a standalone article?
 * Its a narrow area but we should probably just try to improve.
 * this article does not have a problem, it is just one more level of specialisation starting from the fullerene chemistry article. The article should not link from the fullerene page itself though V8rik (talk) 19:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Jemmis mno rules - as it stands, the term (and probably its inventor, Eluvathingal Devassy Jemmis) has no notability. WP:Prod?
 * blend into Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory
 * Propose deletion: cites are exclusively Jemmis V8rik (talk) 19:02, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd be happy to put in additional citations or have it be blended into polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory. Trytowearasmileeveryday (talk) 17:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC) I just want to make it clear that this wasn't a 'homework assignment.' I created the article Jemmis mno rules because I was surprised that it wasn't on Wikipedia, and the rules had been established for about ~10 years. I know that my article is far from perfect- which is why I absolutely expect it to be edited heavily- at least I have started the page. I do like the suggestion that it be blend into Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trytowearasmileeveryday (talk • contribs) 17:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC) They've been mentioned by others before, e.g. http://books.google.com/books?id=z2cb9CIiUvsC&pg=PA14. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 20:30, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Rifleman 82 for your investigation, the rules are mentioned independently. I still see no wisdom in merging the content with Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory it is a next level of specialization V8rik (talk) 20:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

If we blend Jemmis mno rules into Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory how should we go about it? I think it should have its own distinct section on the page and keep at least the better of the examples. What do other people think?Trytowearasmileeveryday (talk) 15:21, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Metallaprism
 * I dislike this kind of untra-narrow poorly executed article, but it shows how far Wikipedia chemistry has evolved that instructors are forced to create articles on such tiny topics. I recommend deleting it, but expect that others would not agree.


 * Photochemical Generation of Fp - redirected to Cyclopentadienyliron dicarbonyl dimer
 * I agree that the redirection is best. The Photochemical Generation of Fp article is hard to follow, very narrow and not well explained. EdJohnston (talk) 16:18, 27 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory - no idea.  It is an important theme in cluster chemistry
 * the receiving point for Jemmis mno rules?


 * Bridging carbonyl
 * is now a redirect, it should be possible to discuss first V8rik (talk) 21:03, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Materialscientist (talk) 06:41, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Nanomaterial-based catalyst expanded 10x
 * The cis effect note "the" distinguishes this article title from cis effect. Might be blended into metal carbonyl
 * Yes some of the edits are pretty poorly supervised and I have tweaked or reverted. Some are correctable.  My comments inserted on the above.  It is really unfortunate that the instructor is not involved in this discussion.   There are also many tiny edits by students trying with good intentions to un-orphanize their articles.  Again, the non-involvement of the instructor is really sad because they are dumping a lot of mediocre work (referencing is narrow and poorly done, writing is often poor, undue weight to tiny, tiny topics.

I think cis effect should stay where it is. I'm surprised there's no overarching ligand substitution reactions article. Bridging carbonyl should be merged into metal carbonyl IMO. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 03:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

One more: Infrared_spectroscopy_of_metal_carbonyls. I think this should be incorporated into metal carbonyls. I'll look at it tomorrow. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 05:46, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Another: Addition to pi ligands. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 14:16, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * this page brutally replaced the existing Green–Davies–Mingos rules page. I have repaired it. The images have copyright issues.
 * Since User talk:Sar2714 created Photochemical Generation of Fp, one of the articles mentioned here, I've notified him of this discussion. EdJohnston (talk) 18:53, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Chemical ASCII-art nominated for deletion
I have nominated Chemical ASCII-art for deletion, as it is outdated and use of ASCII art for chemical diagrams does not seem to be accepted. Thought I'd let this project know just in case I'm mistaken. The discussion is here. the wub "?!"  19:01, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Text on calculating electron chemical potential within density functional theory
I'm in the process of deleting some text with mathematical details about how to calculate electron chemical potential within DFT. It is this section here. It is too specialized to keep within the general chemical potential article. If someone knows a good home for it, please feel free to put it there. (I'm also putting this note at Talk:Density functional theory.) Thanks! --Steve (talk) 14:12, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Summary actions from last week
Here are the newly added articles (must be end of term for school?) and their current status. Many editors were very active coping with this influx. Few of the original authors have been communicative. --Smokefoot (talk) 21:01, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Fullerene Ligands is largely intact.
 * Metallaprism. I cut this way back. A lot of very recent hype.  Needs new artwork.  Might be expanded to coordination cages or such, a subset of supramolecular coordination chemistry.
 * Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory.
 * Jemmis mno rules. I merged it into Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory but at V8rik's advice will unmerge. Original author User:Trytowearasmileeveryday is communicating.
 * Bridging carbonyl. I moved this content to metal carbonyl, which I felts had a superior discussion of the same topic. V8rik may wish to to rediscuss.
 * Nanomaterial-based catalyst was recently expanded 10x.
 * cis effect was upgraded by Rifleman 82. The cis effect is a redirect to the same.
 * Infrared_spectroscopy_of_metal_carbonyls. Rifleman thinks this should be incorporated into metal carbonyls. I agree or at least remove the intro to IR and make less of a textbook.
 * Addition to pi ligands was redirected by V8rik to Green–Davies–Mingos rules
 * Photochemical Generation of Fp. I redirected this to a tiny section in the Cyclopentadienyliron dicarbonyl dimer.

Wherever did we get these awkward article titles of "Group N Element"
I notice we seem to have ended up with articles called things like Group 3 element and Group 4 element... perhaps we've all gotten used to this by now, as it's been like this for years - but it's surely a horribly clumsy and awkward title?! I could be wrong, but I have suspicions that it arose from some Englrish speakers, bless their cotton socks, who wanted to find an analogous title on a par with Halogens, Alkali Metals etc. I would strongly suggest that these articles be retitled Group 3 (or Group 3 (periodic table), if its necessary to disambiguate).--feline1 (talk) 12:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * PS, we also have this naming convention with articles like Period 5 element. Yuk. --feline1 (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

It is standard nomenclature. Not all groups have a common name like Alkali Metals. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * "Alkali metal" refers to one element in the group. "Alkali metal s " refers to the group. Since all the articles for the named groups are at the singular forms (although this might not be best), the articles for the unnamed groups should also be at the singular forms for consistency. ("Group 3" would break consistency, as it would refer to the entire group rather than just one of its elements.) Double sharp (talk) 14:32, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Respectfully disagree. There is an article for each group, and the article title should be the name of the group. The Alkali metal article is about all 6 alkali metals, not just one of them. Look in any English language inorganic chemistry textbook and you will not see chapter titles like "Group 3 element". --feline1 (talk) 20:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If you are also proposing that Alkali metal be moved to Alkali metals, it makes a lot more sense. (Notice how you said "The Alkali metal article is about all 6 alkali metals"? The singular refers to one member of the group, while the plural refers to the entire group.) However, that would violate WP:PLURAL, so we keep it at the singular. So we end up keeping all the group and period articles at the singular, so we can't use "Group 3". (Yes, you will not see chapter titles like "Group 3 element". Neither will you find "Alkali metal"; you'll see "The alkali metals". Your example uses the plural everywhere, but we have to use the singular everywhere.) Double sharp (talk) 06:17, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Metal corrosion
A new page Metal corrosion has been made, which has a strong overlap with Corrosion and does not meet Wikipedia standards (copyright violations, spamming, etc.). The page is at the moment fully protected, after several removals of tags by the first author. I am not familiar with the subject, but I assume there is someone here who knows, and is willing to take action. -- Crowsnest (talk) 12:29, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Could use input from a chemist
To what extent are the sucrose and fructose present in HFCS present as disaccharides (as in table sugar), vs. as monosaccharides? Is the difference clear or meaningful? Or does the difference disappear as soon as the stuff dissolves in water? Perhaps others reading High-fructose corn syrup, Disaccharide, etc. are wondering the same thing; I'm guessing this is an ok/appropriate place to ask. I understand/remember bond chemistry poorly enough to be curious, but suspect there is a pretty good answer. Disaccharide says some are water-soluble, and says sucrose's bond is α(1→2)β, which is  greek to me - as is Glycosidic bond, as I didn't take Orgo! --Elvey (talk) 18:07, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Re-Write of Zaitsev's Rule
The page regarding Zaitsev's rule was not especially informative. There was only one graphic - and a poor one, at that - a cursory explanation, and brief mention of a single exception. The article had been tagged with a Wikify tag in March 2012, and I recently undertook the task of rewriting the entire article.

I've included several new figures, a table, and a lot of new information - especially in regards to exceptions. Please feel free to look over the new article and make corrections, additions, and deletions as you see fit. In retrospect, the article places more emphasis on exceptions to the rule than reactions that follow it. Perhaps a section regarding E1 eliminations would be beneficial, since they almost always follow Zaitsev's rule. A section that looks at some of Zaitsev's original test reactions would also be a worthy addition.

Also, this article is rated as "Start-Class" currently. I'm not sure what the criteria are for each class, but I think with some additional content, it could be considered for promotion to something higher. Ckalnmals (talk) 05:28, 13 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks more like a C-Class now.--Stone (talk) 07:37, 13 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Two things which might I would find interesting is: After which Hofmann is the Hofmann product named? (August Wilhelm von Hofmann because of the Hofmann elimination. The second point is: Is there a first publication of За́йцев describing the rule and is it called За́йцев rule from the beginning?--Stone (talk) 07:37, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I posted a few references on Talk:Alexander Mikhaylovich Zaytsev --Stone (talk) 10:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comments and the changes. Removing some of the explanation about steric effects helped considerably; you were correct that it added very little to the article. Adding a piece about von Hofmann is a good idea, though I'm not sure where it would best be placed.


 * I looked at some of the sources you posted, and the final one contained an interesting quote: "The paper for which Zaitsev's name is included in most organic chemistry textbooks—the paper in which he first expounded the empirical rule for elimination reactions now associated with his name—appeared in Liebigs Annalen der Chemie and Pharmazie in 1875 (30). Oddly enough, this paper was often quoted during the ensuing century, but it was not until the 1960's that Zaitsev's name was attached to his rule in most undergraduate textbooks." Also, it looks like the rule was based on existing research, not Zaitsev's own, and that Popov had proposed something similar in 1871. Perhaps all of this warrants the inclusion of a "History" section; Zaitsev's relationship with Markovnikov, of Markovnikov's rule fame, would be worth mentioning as well. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? Ckalnmals (talk) 22:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I added a History section to the article. A big "thanks" to Stone for the sources! Continued feedback and revisions are welcome. Ckalnmals (talk) 05:01, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * No problem, I am good in getting references, but I have always to little time to implement them into the article. --Stone (talk) 09:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Beryllium compounds
I found two new articles and I have no clue if they are worth mentioning: Lithium_beryllide and Iron beryllide. Lithium_beryllide is a calculated claimed superconductor with only limited number of science articles dealing with it, while Iron beryllide is a couple of compounds without anything real importance. --Stone (talk) 09:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Deleted the first article as a blatant copyvio of. The second has no real information either. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 15:48, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree. An MSDS sheet (if there is one) would contain more information on iron beryllide than the current page does. Other than the chemical formula and some hazard warnings, there's absolutely useful on the page. I also think it should be deleted. Ckalnmals (talk) 16:59, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Lithium_beryllide was recreated.--Stone (talk) 20:17, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Nice work. It seems like an image would be a nice addition, even if it was just a colored ball-and-stick graphic showing the theoretical 3D structure. Ckalnmals (talk) 00:25, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * That article is not up to our usual standards. Really amateurish.  Softpedia is not a reliable source.  The material fails notability in my book - physicists predict all sorts of stuff is superconducting.  It is written poorly and focused on peacocky descriptions of people and institutions vs the science.  Maybe I am missing something.  The idea that NSF created a program called "Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry" to support this research is a crock. --Smokefoot (talk) 04:29, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that the article isn't up to snuff as it stands, and that Softpedia probably isn't the greatest source. The initial article (which was deleted recently) cited a Nature paper, however, so one could make an argument that having an article - even a short one - is warranted. I see your side of the argument as well, however. Ckalnmals (talk) 05:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Just 'coz it's been published in Nature? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 06:53, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Not everything in Nature is credible and notable. It is a paper from 2008 and nobody ever cared about it. Only 16 citations and only two further calculation papers aiming for the same topic      --Stone (talk)


 * Nature is one of the most well-respected journals, though I'm fully aware that not everything published in it is noteworthy. Since there hasn't been any further interest in the compound, I'll retract my earlier stance; there probably isn't a need for a Wiki article. Ckalnmals (talk) 14:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I figure, it's going to be a lot of trouble and drama for not very much if we bring it to AFD. I'll just tidy it up that it is factual (though I still doubt its noteworthiness). --Rifleman 82 (talk) 15:12, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Perfect solution.--Stone (talk) 18:17, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Thanks for your work. Ckalnmals (talk) 20:04, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * [late to the party] How about merge/redirect to Beryllide? That article is a grab-bag of single statements about various applications of the various alloy/intermetallics that don't seem each independently notable. Superconductivity is a novel property compared to the others listed there. DMacks (talk) 20:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Smokefoot has advised to come talk to us. I hope he does. I've userfied two "articles" he wrote that have no content apart from a chembox. I'm not sure whether these intermetallics are true compounds, or they are merely alloys of variable composition. If the former, they can use a chembox, but if the latter, I think not. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I haven't checked any literature. From what the wiki article say, these are true compounds - alloys are/should never be specified by AxBy formulas which imply a distinct lattice arrangement. That said, some theorists use AxBy because they think that compound exists, whereas in reality, it is a mix of phases and is actually an alloy :-). Materialscientist (talk) 00:51, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The Nature ref calls them "alloys" in the title, "stoichiometric compounds" in the abstract, and "intermetallic compounds" in the first paragraph. The later content of that article repeatedly uses "alloy" and discusses various specific-integer Li/Be ratios. DMacks (talk) 14:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I do not get this opposition to Lithium_beryllide, when you understand why many binary compounds exist and some do not you understand a lot about chemistry. The Category Hypothetical chemical compounds is absolutely fascinating. Compare this to the article on nafoxadol which was also created this week. Absolutely without merit. Hypothetical compounds can be more important than real compounds V8rik (talk) 22:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree nonexistent and hypothetical compounds are very instructive. An article discussing nonexistent compounds would be an excellent addition to Wikipedia. See http://mutuslab.cs.uwindsor.ca/macdonald/Teaching/651-class/651-NonExistent1.pdf for ideas. --Ben (talk) 14:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Definitely! But we're still on Wikipedia, which means we're within the realm of WP:GNG (as explicitly stated in Manual of Style/Chemistry), and that's an overlapping but not super- or subset of "real compounds someone published somewhere". There are lots of notable hypothetical and impossible-to-exist-but-studied-as-such compounds. And there are lots of "analogous example to known" but not yet independently notable compounds that can be described in the articles for the notable ones (and a redirect provided to it). DMacks (talk) 15:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course some nonexistent compounds are instructive and merit attention, but the great majority of nonexistent compounds are not noteworthy. Otherwise we invite articles on imagined compositions.  Also of debatable noteworthiness are compositions suggested by one or two theory papers.


 * On a more positive note, we could compile a list of important nonexistent (or barely existent) compounds, perhaps starting with hexaazabenzene. A quick Googling gave this old paper "Nonexistent compounds. Two case histories" Evan H. Appelman Acc. Chem. Res., 1973, 6 (4), pp 113–117.   which I think is about bromate.  There is an old book on the topic.  --Smokefoot (talk) 17:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The idea of having a page devoted to important hypothetical compounds is an interesting idea, and I think it's worth discussing. I think it could be a good idea, but there are some pitfalls. For example, what exactly constitutes an "important" non-existent compound? That is to say, what's the difference between an important hypothetical compound and an unimportant one?


 * Another big potential question that needs to be considered is what constitutes a non-existent compound. There are plenty of compounds that don't exist simply because no one has tried to make them. There are also plenty of compounds that scientists have been unable to synthesize, even though they are theoretically possible. I think the proposed page would deal with compounds that fall into the latter category, but it's still something to consider. Ckalnmals (talk) 18:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

We have already some very nice article about the well known chemical elements gnomium and nebulium so I see no problem for more articles on compounds which have a high impact on research, but never were real, phlogiston might be the most important of it all.--Stone (talk) 21:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Ben for the most interesting reading tip! I am not advocating the creation of an article on non-existing compounds in general. I have a special interest in binary compounds, that is all. The accumulation of a lot of tiny articles is a problem and therefore Dmacks suggestion to merge into Beryllide makes a lot of sense. The creation of compounds of beryllium would also be an option, we have some compounds of element x pages already, would take some of the burden of the elements pages themselves. V8rik (talk) 22:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Phenethylamine
In the Phenethylamine article it says "Phenethylamine is an amine, consisting of a benzene ring and an aminoethyl group." Is this true? I thought it was a phenyl ring with an ethylamine bonded to the hydrogen-less carbon in the phenyl ring; hence the name! 195.59.15.131 (talk) 11:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is eihter a substituted benzene than it is benzene with a aminoethyl group or it is a substituted ethylamine with a phenyl group. both things a chemist understands and draws the right structure. there are rules preferring one over the other.--Stone (talk) 13:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The latter compound would be more correctly referred to as N-ethylaniline. The identity of the former would probably be clearer if it was called "2-phenylethylamine", but phenethylamine seems to be the preferred name. Ckalnmals (talk) 17:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is eihter a substituted benzene than it is benzene with a aminoethyl group or it is a substituted ethylamine (one of the H at an C) is substituted by a phenyl group. both things are the same a chemist understands and draws the right structure. there are rules preferring one over the other.--Stone (talk) 17:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Peter Proctor and conducting polymers


There are a few editors who all edit the same topics, make the same spelling mistakes and have the same writing style and attitude. They gravitate around Peter Proctor, John McGinness, Conductive polymer, Organic semiconductor, Organic electronics, Molecular electronics, Polyacetylene, Nobel Prize controversies, Nanotechnology, Redox signaling, Oxidative stress, Magnetic resonance imaging. They're unusually interested in both electrically conducting polymers and organic molecules, free radicals, antioxidants, and diverse medical topics.

They may not be as closely linked as it seems, but they're all giving Proctor and McGinness undue publicity on Wikipedia. I am concerned that Wikipedia is being distorted to reflect Peter Proctor's view that his old supervisor McGinness should have won the Nobel Prize. I feel there is a major conflict of interest going on.

Does anyone else find they're reluctant to edit articles on conducting polymers because of these characters?

--Ben (talk) 01:01, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I have commented on this walled garden previously. The main problem is that the supporting network of editors are vigilant  and aggressive in defense of their hero John McGinness and now his student  Peter Proctor. So one would need to deal with user:Drjem3, User:Pproctor, user:Clipjoint, User:nucleophilic, and probably more.  They are upset about some Nobel prizes and trying to rectify the record by selectively dredging up historic content that seemingly diminishes the notability of the Nobels for conductive polymers and MRI.  Again, there is not much that can be done without a community-wide effort with administrative help that can match their persistence and vigilance.--Smokefoot (talk) 18:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I haven't done a fully comprehensive literature search, but I found the most cited review articles on conducting polymers using Web of Science and none of those reviews even cite McGinness/Proctor. If their discoveries were so important, why have they not been mentioned more in the literature? It seems it's not just the Nobel committee that's ignoring them. Take Proctor's most cited paper, for example: It is cited 168 times (which is a lot by most chemistry standards), but none of them are the kind of wide-ranging, highly-cited reviews in top journals you normally find citing a genuinely groundbreaking paper. They're mostly biology journals and other miscellany. --Ben (talk) 15:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The Nobel overviews by Heeger, MacDiarmid, (not sure about Shirakawa) in Angew. Chem. do not cite McGinness or the literature (e.g. see paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 in Organic semiconductor) that PProctor cites to support the innuendo that these Nobelists were undeserving.--Smokefoot (talk) 18:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Here we go with polyacetylene.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:39, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Help!--Smokefoot (talk) 14:50, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I have taken a look at this, and I am uncertain. The Nobel Prize is mentioned and it does seem to be disputed if the references 7 and 8 state so. I have a lot of time for Noel Hush's work, but I have not read that reference. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:35, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I just read Hush's 2003 review again. Hush spends one paragraph discussing McGinness, Corry, and Proctor's 1974 Science paper, saying it was a significant experimental observation. He does not say Heeger et al's 2000 Nobel Prize is disputed. If anyone wants a copy, I can email it to them. The other reference cited in Organic semiconductor is a short chapter in a book by Inzelt. It simply states that there were many important discoveries before Heeger et al (as far back as 1834). Inzelt does not say the 2000 Nobel Prize is controversial or disputed. What more can I say? --Ben (talk) 23:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The Inzelt reference is "Historical Background (or there is nothing new under the Sun), Inzelt,G. "Conducting Polymers", (2008), chapter 8, pp.265-269.". The title itself reflects the controversy.  Namely,  that conductive polymers were discovered well before Shirikawa et al and that such polymers were even applied, etc..  He the proceeds to give examples.  Does not mention McGinness et als work,  likely because this was much later, apparently part of the wave of work that includes Shirikawa et al.


 * Whether or not Shirikawa et al deserved the Nobel is another issue, though the citation does say "discovery",  which is clearly wrong.   BTW,  WRT the Nobel, McGinness et al's main distinction is that they were apparently the last to report a highly-conductive polymer before Shirikawa et al,  not that they got screwed out of a Nobel.   In fact, they were not even close,  as should be obvious from the cited literature.  Admittedly,  this makes a nice straw arguement. I will ignore the various ad hominems,  etc. for the sake of civility. Nucleophilic (talk) 00:42, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Let's not get bogged down with talk of personal attacks and civility. The point is McGinness, Proctor etc do not deserve as much coverage as they current get in Wikipedia articles on conducting polymers. Let's focus on the chemistry our readers are actually interested in. No-one cares about melanins, they want polyaniline etc. See Heeger's recent tutorial review for an update on the most important recent and current conducting polymers. --Ben (talk) 00:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, well.  I will move on.  I am disappointed that so few editors see a disinformation campaign so clearly as do I.  The Nobel is a Nobel, and that much trumps the rest, I guess.


 * If you were a cancer specialist or dying with stage-4 melanoma, or have (say) Parkinson's disease, you would want melanin.  BTW,  polyacetylene (which is apparently made by some fungi) was allegedly known as melanin before it was known as polyacetylene.   Apparently the same with the rest of this class of compounds.


 * To clarify a point-- what McGiness et al did was report the first organic electronic device.  Which is why their device is on the Smithsonian chips list.    Again, they did not discover conductive polymers and they did not get screwed out of a Nobel.  BTW,  does Heeger's review refer to any of the prehistory cited by Inzelt, etc. ?   Just asking. Nucleophilic (talk) 01:49, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

What I meant was, when people search Wikipedia for conducting polymers and their technological applications, they are unlikely to be interested in melanin. Yes, McGinness and Proctor reported melanin is a semiconductor and made a switch from it. It does still get a mention in reviews about melanin: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.200803786 M. d’Ischia et al., ''Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.'' (2009) 48, 3914–3921]. But it's a very small part of the story, and off-topic for most readers. Heeger's review isn't about the history of the field, it's about the present and future. Web of Knowledge returned 61 hits for the topic "melanin AND conductivity", whereas "polyaniline AND conductivity" returned 6671 hits, i.e. one hundred times more. Polypyrrole got 4000, polyacetylene 1400, polythiophene 1300. We should focus on those. --Ben (talk) 10:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * p.s. What Hush actually says is "Also in 1974 came the first experimental demonstration of an operating molecular electronic device that functions along the lines of the biopolymer conduction ideas of Szent-Gyorgi." That is not the same thing as "first organic electronic device". I have not been able to find a reliable source for the latter idea. --Ben (talk) 10:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * From my research and some outside input: Melanins are polyacetylenes and vice versa.  E.g., the architype, DOPA melanin (the stuff in skin cancer and the brain}, is a mixed copolymer of polyacetylene, polypyrrole and polyaniline.   As noted,  some fungi produce pure polyacetylene.  Historically,  the "play" was under the melanin rubrick simply because this was the only place polyacetylenes had any real world significance,  particularly in agriculture and in medicine.   So,  by chance, some of the important work on conductive polyacetylenes was done under the melanin rubrick.


 * This produced a "knowledge gap", where two distinct scientific fields were working on the same thing without quite realizing it. As your comments reflect,  this is still the situation.


 * Recently, conductive polyacetylenes have become very important outside any biological context.  This does not change the history.   Which is why this device is on the Smithsonian Chips list of key developments in solid state physics outside its origin in a cancer hospital.  As for Hush, he does not mention a previous "operating electronic device" and IIRC,  notes the materials characteristic negative differential resistance,  apparently the hallmark of an electronically-active compound. Nucleophilic (talk) 13:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Another review article (Bettinger CJ, Bao Z. Biomaterials-Based Organic Electronic Devices. Polym Int.2010 May 1;59(5):563-567}: Says: "...While the vast majority of natural biomaterials are insulating, there are a few notable examples of semiconducting biomolecules with potentially intriguing electronic properties. Perhaps the most widely studied naturally occurring class of semiconducting biomaterials are melanins, an ubiquitous pigment found within mammals.12 In fact, some of the initial discoveries of semiconducting organic solids were made using melanin as a model material.13...  (emphasis-added)  Nucleophilic (talk) 14:47, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

This is all OR unless you have a source that specifically states "melanins are polyacetylenes and vice versa". I noted melanin has a part in the history of conducting polymers, but it's a part that's currently overemphasised in our articles. There is this tangential structural and electronic analogy between polyacetylene and melanin, but it doesn't make them of equal importance. What other semiconducting biomaterials are there? The Smithsonian Chips entry says at the bottom "For general reference only. The National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution make no claims as to the accuracy or completeness of these references." It doesn't specifically state this melanin device was a big deal, it just says it was donated to them and has some spiel written by none other than Peter Proctor. --Ben (talk) 17:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * R. Nicolaus: "The most simple melanin can be considered the acetylene-black from which it is possible to derive all the others..... Substitution does not qualitatively influence the physical properties like conductivity, colour, EPR, which remain unaltered." "Acetylene-black" =polyacetylene.


 * As for the Smithsonian,  it is considered the primary US authority on the history of technology.  My understanding is that most donations are requested.  And of course they are not going to guarantee the "completeness" of anything.  Can't prove a negative.   As for the smithsonian chips list,  see smithsonianchips.si.edu and see what kind of comapany the device is in.


 * As for other semiconducting biomaterials, see Bettinger et al above.  As some of the associated references show,  melanins are currently under development as biocompatible electrode materials for medical applications (Bettinger CJ, Bruggeman JP, Misra A, Borenstein JT, Langer R. Biocompatibility of biodegradable semiconducting melanin films for nerve tissue engineering.Biomaterials. 2009 Jun;30(17):3050-7. Epub 2009 Mar 14. .)  Ironically,  this may prove to be the primary practical commercial application of conductive polyacetylenes,  little else seeming to have worked out.  So you can't really claim that they are "unimportant". Nucleophilic (talk) 20:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Nicolaus stuff on a random website = not a reliable source. Smithsonian website = not a reliable source. Your assertion of its importance = not a reliable source. Inferring notability from the other entries on the Smithsonian website = not a reliable source. I read Bettinger and it says "To date, most melanins including eumelanin are classified as ohmic materials due to the high degree of overlapping electronic structures, which is likely to be derived from the highly disordered chemical structure. The overall disorder of the structure reduces the potential for the use of melanins as active materials in devices such as organic transistors, for example." And my original point still stands: Proctor and McGinness get too much attention in Wikipedia articles. --Ben (talk) 21:35, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * With due respect, arguable OR, and making up of rules.   E.g., websites posted by recognized, published experts in an area are perfectly good sources.  wp:reliable sources says "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."


 * I am informed that Nicolaus and his coworkers orginally defined the structure of melanin. e.g., Nicolaus, R; Piattelli, M; Fattorusso, E (1964) "The structure of melanins and melanogenesis—IV, On some natural melanins". Tetrahedron 20 (5): 1163–72. doi:10.1016/S0040-4020(01)98983-5. )  Anyway,  the relevant cite of which the website is apparently a clone is Nicolaus, R.A., Parisi, G., The Nature of Animal Blacks. Atti Accademia Pontaniana XLIX, 197–233 (2000).


 * Similarly, I cannot believe that you do not understand the significance of the Smithsonian imprimatur. I suggest you look it up. Likewise,  the title of McGinness et al's paper is "Amorphous semiconductors..."  I.e disordered ones. Which is the point--- These are not the same as crystaline semiconductors.   Apparently,  part of the "development" listed in the Noble citation is the special case of soliton migration in pure polyacetylene.  This is a special case where the materials act like they do have long-range order.  But even disorderd forms of these compounds can have conductivities of over 1S/Cm.  In fact,  this was shown in the 1960's. Nucleophilic (talk) 01:59, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The references for your argument are so fragmented, it constitutes SYNTHESIS. You wouldn't cite the Smithsonian website in a review article in a scientific journal, would you? The Smithsonian is obviously a respectable institution, but that doesn't mean that every single page on its website is an appropriately authoritative source for a given claim. I cannot locate "R.A. Nicolaus, G. Parisi "The Nature of Animal Blacks". Atti della Accademia Pontaniana Vol. XLIX". WoK shows Nicolaus published from 1957 to 1980 - not an up-to-date source. I wasn't intending to get into the specifics of disorder and conductivity, I was providing a quote (in context) from your reference that says melanins are not the best choice for devices. For scientific claims, we prefer clear, unambiguous statements from independent authors in high-quality peer-reviewed journals, preferably recent reviews. I have serious doubts about the importance of McGinness/Proctor/melanins and I am seeking clarification from the most reliable and appropriate sources of information available. --Ben (talk) 09:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Why do I bother ?  Anyway, you seem to find some reason to object to any citation,  even ones that are very clearly within the bounds of WP:reliable sources,  which you clearly ignore.  But,  just in case, here is another one:


 * Nature Vol. 248 April 5 1974, p475 ( News and Views )


 * Semiconductors in the human body?


 * from our Solid State Physics Correspondent


 * Exerpt: "Now at least one biological material has been shown to have a strikingly large conductivity when correctly excited. McGinness, Corry and Proctor, of the University of Texas Cancer Center, Houston, report in Science (183, 853; 1974) that melanins can be made to 'switch' from a poorly conducting to a highly conducting state at fairly low electric fields (say from 10K ohm- cm to 100 ohm-cm at a field of 300 V cm-1). This remarkable phenomenon occurs both in melanin made synthetically from tyrosine and in that extracted from a human melanoma. The large conduction is not destructive in any way and is reversible;. According to some tests, conduction seems to be electronic rather than ionic." Nucleophilic (talk) 16:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

That's fine, it supports what we agree on: McGinness, Corry and Proctor found melanin conducts electricity in a certain way. I am not trolling you. The problem with the current state of various Wikipedia articles is it gives too much emphasis to this work. --Ben (talk) 16:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * A mention in the "history' section of about three (four?) articles is not a lot of "emphasis". Which history is supported by what few review articles there are on the history of the subject.   If you can find other WP:reliable sources,  please post them.  Otherwise,  OR.


 * Also, I have contributed to the policy articles in the past.  What you claim is wikipolicy was not the last time I looked. Admittedly,  this was a while ago.


 * But, as I note, a quick glance at wp:reliable sources does show your assertions are not consistent with current guidelines.  Whatever your undoubted contributions, you just can't invent stuff here and you have no more standing than any other editor.   Likewise,  I perceive some wikilawyering.  But whatever. Some here even use these kind of disputes as an easy means to run up their number of edits, as if anyone cared. Not me,  naturally.  Nucleophilic (talk) 16:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You have also no more standing than any other wikipedia editor.--Stone (talk) 18:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * A given. Perhaps it was incivil of me to remind others of it. Nucleophilic (talk) 06:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * In the history section of conducting polymere contains 2583 characters for the melamine story ( In 1963 Australians Bolto .... negative differential resistance.) While the Noble prize winning discover goes with 259 and the sentence that they did not quote the others and that it was not a real discovery. This is not the right proportion.--Stone (talk) 18:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Two different issues seem to be confuted here.  The major one is that highly-conductive organic polymers were discovered long before the Noble prize winners, as recounted by (e.g.) Inzelt, who devotes an entire chapter of his authoritative textbook "Conductive polymers" to this issue. See wp:reliable sources to see where this stands on the reliability scale.  And nobody, including Inzelt, denies that the prize winners work was not a "real discovery" or that they made enormous contributions to the field, merely that it had been discovered before,  several times.   The second issue is that the last to rediscover highly-conductive polymers before the Prize winners were McGinness et al,  who constructed an active electronic device,  also amply documented in topline wp:reliable sources.   Since such devices are where organic electronics is now going,  this is quite relevant to the subject. If you feel that the work of the Nobel winners (further amply recounted in linked articles) is thus somehow slighted in the article,  perhaps you should enlarge upon it. Nucleophilic (talk) 06:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not out to be pedantic about Wikipedia policy or rules, or to invent any. I am sorry you feel Wikilawyered, that was not my intention. I'm certainly not trying to rack up my edit count, I really don't care about that. I want to discuss the extent of McGinness/Proctor coverage in the articles I listed in my first post, above. I have tried to find a balanced view on their work by searching the literature, especially recent review articles about conducting polymers. Based on what we have found in our discussion here, I propose the following changes:


 * Remove "McGinness, Corry, and Proctor pioneered much of the modern field of organic electronics and conductive polymers" from Peter Proctor - this is an overstatement of their achievements.


 * John McGinness uses flowery language and is too long. It uses a lot of words to describe a few things. It draws many connections between McGinness's work on melanin and the 2000 Nobel Prize, without any references that make such links. We should make this article more succinct and more accurately reflect the references' comments on the importance of McGinness's work and its similarity to the Nobel Prize work.


 * I will look into this and make appropriate changes.


 * Conductive polymer should cite more reviews than just Inzelt and Hush. I will find some.


 * Hopefully, you can do so.   IIRC,  there is a reference to a book entitled "Organic Semiconductors" from 1964.   So clearly there is a lot of "prehistory " here.  Any review relevant to this discussion should cite this prehistory.

The quote "first experimental demonstration of an operating molecular electronic device" is out of context because it omits the qualifier that follows: "...that functions along the lines of the biopolymer conduction ideas of Szent-Gyorgi". The part about the 2000 Nobel Prize is not supported by the references: "The Nobel citation made no reference to Weiss et al.'s similar earlier work (see Nobel Prize controversies). Because of the numerous earlier reports of similar compounds, reviewers[who?] question the Nobel citation's discovery assignment." We must find a source for this statement or remove it. One of the five paragraphs in the history section describes McGinness's melanin device in detail, whereas the Nobel Prize-winning work is not described in as much detail, nor are any other devices given so much attention. Hence my claim of undue weight. I suggest trimming mention of McGinness to one sentence at most, and including plenty of other relevant history to give more balanced coverage.


 * If you thnk the Nobelist's work is somehow slighted, perhaps you can enlarge upon it.


 * Organic semiconductor contains much the same detail as above. Inzelt and Hush are mis-cited: "Because of the many previous reports of similar compounds, the "discovery" assignment [of the 2000 Nobel Prize] is contested.[11][12]" Article includes a photo of McGinness's device but not of any other devices. I propose removing the Nobel Prize controversy line and probably the photo.


 * Organic electronics is the same story. "Because of the numerous earlier reports of similar compounds, reviewers have questioned the Nobel citation's discovery assignment." Does Inzelt actually dispute the Nobel? No. Organic electronics devotes two of its three paragraphs to McGinness's conduction model and device. This is not a balanced history of organic electronics! Condense mention of McGinness to as short a line as possible and add much more detail about all the other history.


 * Molecular electronics does not need the image of McGinness's device. It is not referred to in the text and is pretty irrelevant. Remove it.


 * Polyacetylene spends too many words disputing the 2000 Nobel Prize and far too few words describing it. "However, because of the numerous prior discoveries of highly-conductive polyacetylenes, their priority is disputed.[7][8]" Inzelt and Hush are again inappropriately cited to support this claim. Remove it. Add more about the Nobel work.


 * Nobel Prize controversies goes into too much detail about McGinness's work and the fact that it was reported a few years before the prize winning work. The are no appropriate references that state there is such a controversy - it's all WP:SYNTHESIS. Remove it or find a better reference.

Any thoughts? --Ben (talk) 18:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I will make changes as appropriate. Definitely correct about the "flowery language". I have already started to make changes here.  Also,  Izelt does not question the Nobel prize,  merely the "discovery" part of the citation.  Like it or not,  this is an important part of the history. Nucleophilic (talk) 06:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Phytosterol and Plant stanol ester articles
I am somewhat lost here with chemical classification. Phytosterol lists plenty of substances, not sure which really belong where. Plant sterol ester article is somewhat ambigous what it talks about (some allegedly natural substance or chemical product sold by Unilever). --Richiez (talk) 16:02, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Outdated articles?
Comments on Village_pump_(idea_lab) will be appreciated, so we can get a general perspective on this. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 05:04, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I rambled-on for a while there, others' input definitely still needed. DMacks (talk) 05:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Special:ListFiles/Cuigy
Is anyone willing to re-draw these GIF images and upload them as SVGs or hi-res PNGs? Otherwise, it is probably best to convert them into PNG to enhance the thumbnail quality. --Leyo 12:31, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I guess this means no. --Leyo 09:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation endorsing Access2Research
Hey all

The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to endorse Access2Research and its petition to make research funded by the US government publicly accessible. This will be done by way of a blog post on Friday morning PST; as noted, we are not trying to speak on behalf of the community, but just the Foundation itself. You can read more in the FAQ, and leave any comments or questions you might have on its talkpage.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to reclassify chemistry and molecular formula disambiguation pages
I have made a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation to reclassify pages in Category:Chemistry disambiguation pages and Category:Molecular formula disambiguation pages to set index pages, to more accurately reflect the relatedness of the articles listed on those pages. Please note that this change, if implemented, will not affect the substance of any of these pages, but will only entail switching the existing   and    tags for    and    tags to be created, modeled on the existing tags. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Contradictions in the Hyposulfite Article
There's a rather glaring contradiction in the article on hyposulfite ion. The lead sentence states that hyposulfite salts are not believed to exist, and cites a chemistry textbook. The remainder of the article discusses syntheses for zinc and cobalt hyposulfites, and cites a Chinese source. Obviously, either the initial statement or the syntheses are incorrect. Would someone be willing to take a look at this? The syntheses seem fairly specific and I'm inclined to think they produce the hyposulfites as advertised, but perhaps they're simply proposed routes? Ckalnmals (talk) 02:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is probably that salts are not well characterized. Almost certainly SO22- is not known as a well defined dianion.  I don't even think that salts of HSO2- are well characterized.  Organic derivatives (sulfinic acid) of the type RSO2- are in better shape.  But when covalency is involved, like "metallic salts" (= metal complexes), the situation becomes murky and things like M-SO2-M are known.  But I will take a look at the article.--Smokefoot (talk) 03:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

70.137.141.29
This user is on a referencing mission, they insist overwritting perfectly fine APA citations with ISO styled references. If his aggresive editting isn't stopped, he may feel free to spill over into other articles. We can get involved before there is a chance to spread. One other thing he is doing, is to add spaces in the citation text, blowing up the citation template and making it cluttered. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I might have crossed with that person (not sure - there was one engineer polishing refs in inorganic compounds). He didn't exactly follow "my" preferred referencing style, yet didn't do harm and was improving refs by cross-checking wrong titles, isbns, etc. Fighting spaces is same as fighting windmills - some regular editors introduce them without their will due to specific browser/text editor. Materialscientist (talk) 09:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, just keep an eye on him he is a by-the-book kind of editor, like I used be. He doesn't believe in debating unwritten policy. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:53, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't believe I've crossed paths with this editor either. What course of action would you propose if someone does encounter him/her? Ckalnmals (talk) 14:28, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I propose you let this engineer improve the refs by cross checking and proofreading against source, adding dois pmids isbn oclc, fixing to precise citation and don't bicker if hes using ISO style dates, as the examples (e.g. cite patent, cite web, etc.) use ISO style dates. Also I propose you refrain from referring to "unwritten policies" as these are totally intransparent to editors, if not put into the book. I also propose you follow style guides and do not gang up against people following the examples to the iota and do not call them "unprofessional". Also please read WP:OWN. Surprisingly it is not the students who factually know everything better, while the old farts don't know what they are talking due to senility. cheers. 70.137.146.143 (talk) 22:57, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

70.137.146.143 (talk) 22:57, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Try to keep a cool head here, friend. No one called you "unprofessional", at least not on this page. No one accused you of being a senile "old fart" either. The issue at hand here is stylistic, not personal. I can understand improving existing citations that are lacking information and/or are incorrect - in fact, I think it's admirable. Editing existing citations simply because they don't match your desired style, however, is harder to justify. From what I remember on the Wiki page about citing sources, there is no preferred or accepted style; as long as sources are actually cited, contain the appropriate information, and are cited consistently within the article, the exact citation style is irrelevant. Ckalnmals (talk) 03:43, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Re Unprofessional: see here, edit summary

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aminoacetonitrile&diff=496362787&oldid=496359816

indeed the template params for cite web, cite patent and others are described as ISO dates, with the prospective advantage of automatic display conversion according to language / country std. That is why the the ISO format was used in the templates - it allows automatic substitution of month names, days etc. according to desired display fmt. I am aware that in prose this style is not to be used, as the automatic conversion is a nonissue there. It is not a question of style there, however, in articles with mixed styles from 10 editors I have allowed myself to convert everything to one style, like that resulting from cite pmid / cite doi and to fill in the missing bits and pieces - e.g. pmid, doi, isbn, oclc, correct authors, correct title, issue, fulltext url/pdf if available or even to substitute or augment the sources by refs if needed and proofread the citation against sources. I do not like the attitude of fellow editor Plasmic, who already proposes to stop it "before it spreads". He does not own the articles. I am not a nuisance which has to be stopped, before it spreads. I perceive this style as uncollegiate. Look at those I have edited, then you see it is nice and professional work.( I am indeed a professional ) 70.137.146.143 (talk) 04:34, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

regarding "unwritten policies" this precludes the involvement of editors who are not "in the club" where people believe they can make unwritten policies. So this is obviously incompatible with logic and the concept of Wiki as an open and cooperative project. Thats why I reminded of WP:OWN, we cannot use unwritten stds and local lingo, and we will not allow a small circle of insiders to take control by such unwritten rules. Cheers. 70.137.146.143 (talk) 04:39, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You misunderstand the situation with references on wikipedia - there are many styles and none is really preferred. Thus everyone (IPs, regulars, admins) can be reverted when attempting to impose their style over the previous one, provided that previous style is consistent and reasonably complete (I was reverted too :-P). There is a fine balance in what to consider an improvement to the previous code. For example, adding doi/isbn/pmid/titles/pages or repairing broken or mistyped ones is always an improvement. Reformatting plain refs into templated ones, or changing the authorlist style may be reverted. Materialscientist (talk) 04:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed I do not change style except for consistency, when it is mixed from several editors. Then unifying all refs to consistent style is an improvement. 70.137.146.143 (talk) 05:06, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, then just take it with a smile - this is a wiki that anyone can edit, after all. A common example: an article was polished to some reasonable standard (say, WP:GA), then abandoned for a while, and newcomers added text with another style of reference formatting, English spelling, etc. Then some hardworking editor decides to cleans up the mess, arbitrarily choosing the style (he doesn't mind actually, he only aims to make it neat), and gets reverted :-D. Sigh. Checking past history helps avoiding that, and a friendly chat with a person who reverted you helps even more. More often the mess just piles up without any past order :-). Materialscientist (talk) 05:32, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

List of scientific constants named after people
The List of scientific constants named after people may not be notable, according to a recent tag put at the top of the article. Apparently what is needed is a literature citation showing that the topic of scientific concepts named after people has received attention from the authors of refereed publications. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:49, 9 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I looked at the list, and while it certainly isn't anything special, I'd hate to see it disappear. My guess is that outside of Wikipedia, there are few - if any - places on the Web one could find such a list. And unfortunately, I doubt that anyone has put any effort into researching and/or publishing a list of eponymous constants either. While more developed, no one seems to have a problem with List of scientific units named after people. Also, the page in question is linked to in Eponym. While the topic itself may not be notable, the article's content is. I think the list should be kept. Ckalnmals (talk) 02:48, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I also think that this list is evidently informativ and really wonder why a physisist would want to get rid of it. We should keep it.--Saehrimnir (talk) 15:32, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

First I thought it is a joke ...
Have a look at Alkaline water ionizer machine but also look at. --Stone (talk) 14:51, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It is definitely snake oil, none of it makes sense. It is a billboard for some crack pot invention, using non-relevant external resources. Just have a look at the references. It may as well be an article about the invention of a perpetual motion machine. Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, the original version of the page, as posted several years ago, is quite good. It doesn't cite sources, but it does make clear that water ionizers are essentially snake oil, backed up by pseudo-scientific claims. In fact, the original intent of the article was to describe these machines as such, not to promote their virtues. Ckalnmals (talk) 13:28, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Beilstein/Gmelin
Hi folks, Is there a canonical format for citing Beilstein and/or Gmelin and/or Reaxys as references? Thanks in advance. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:47, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Improvements for Nucleophilic acyl substitution
I've been working on improving nucleophilic acyl substitution for several weeks, since it's one of the reaction classes listed on WikiProject_Chemistry/Worklist as needing a full article. I've added a significant amount of content, including new figures, reaction schemes, and mechanisms. It's all posted to the article's talk page, along with some known issues. The new content could use some proofreading/fact-checking. Comments and suggestions would be welcome as well. Ckalnmals (talk) 04:03, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I like the update, please put it into the article! --Stone (talk) 21:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

OrganicBox templates up for deletion
Several OrganicBox templates have been nominated for deletion, see Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_June_21 -- 70.49.127.65 (talk) 04:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:Chemistry prefixes and suffixes
Category:Chemistry prefixes and suffixes has been requested to be renamed to Category:Affixes used in Chemistry -- 70.49.127.65 (talk) 03:57, 26 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Apparently we are missing categorization for infixes... Category:Chemistry infixes does not exist. 70.49.127.65 (talk) 03:12, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

STOPCOCK
I don#t understand, why my supplement to this article was reverted, especially the reason "vandalism"?!? I hope, You will correct again to my version. Greetings -- 217.227.252.16 (talk) 05:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
 * First, do not shout at us (using capital letters). Second, link to the actual article, which I guessed was Stopcock. Third, you were reverted by a bot, which gave you the opportunity to complain directly to the owner of the bot. Finally, I do think that your edit was not vandalism, but I also think that it did not improve the article. You removed material and links. Why do you think that improved the article? -- Bduke   (Discussion)  07:39, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Catergories for discussion
There are discussions for the categories: Chemistry prefixes and suffixes, Chemistry prefixes & Chemistry suffixes, that could do with your input. Brad7777 (talk) 15:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Bath salts (drug)
Hi, would someone here who is a Chemist, please review the article, Bath salts (drug), to confirm the chemistry aspect of what is being written is correct. Any further citations to clarify would be appreciated. Thank you. JunoBeach (talk) 10:46, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Radium
Hi I looked for a primary source for the melting point of radium. I was not able to find one on google scholar. There are two numbers 960°C and 700°C which are reported in several books and abstracts, but I could find no hint on the source of that numbers. If anybody has better database to look into would be nice. ( Gmelin, Beilstein or scifinder) Thanks --Stone (talk) 21:43, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * According to SciFinder, radium has a melting point of 700°C. The citation states "Hazardous Substances Data Bank data were obtained from the National Library of Medicine (US)". Theodore Gray's www.periodictable.com also cites the 700°C figure, and all of the data on the site comes from Wolfram Research via Mathematica. Unfortunately, this doesn't really help with your search for a primary source - sorry! Ckalnmals (talk) 03:27, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The 700°C have only be measured once by the Curies around 1900. Sounds strange but this might the melting point of a really non pure sample. --Stone (talk) 06:34, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Who is Paul Muljadi??
If one looks up Paul Muljadi on Google books, a long list of "books" pops up that are edited by Paul Muljadi. These all appear to be printed versions of an article from Wikipedia. See, for example, http://independent.academia.edu/PaulMuljadi/Teaching.JSR (talk) 21:24, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

RSC involvement
Hi all - I work for the Royal Society of Chemistry and we recently had a few of our members trained up in wiki editing to encourage them to help the provision for chemistry articles here. At present a few of them have given me particular topics that they have expertise in, but before I sent them out I wanted to ask if there was a specific approach you'd like us to take or whether we should just set them free? - Cheers! --ChemWalker (talk) 10:28, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Although we generally assume good faith, for what reason would the RSC want to help Wikipedia except to promote RSC publications? I just see potential for serious and correlated conflicts of interest (WP:COI).  Announcing your affiliation is a big first step in avoiding such conflict of interest, so thank you.
 * But assuming good faith, here are some suggestions off the top of my head:

--Smokefoot (talk) 13:22, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Ideally new editors start slowly with small edits, and then announce intentions at this site about more serious plans (e.g. article creation, opinions about several articles) so that we could develop some consensus.
 * My favored recommendation is to strive to to adhere to WP:SECONDARY - emphasize secondary sources - books and reviews, not journals.
 * If you are looking for topics, then seek high traffic articles that are deficient in supporting general citations and descriptions of basics. High traffic articles tend to be at the fringe of classical chemistry - polymers, cosmetics, plastics, paint, food.  RSC is probably ideally suited to develop articles for famous (FRS's) chemists who lack articles. Within classical chemistry, Wikipedia is in pretty good shape IMHO.
 * Hi Smokefoot, thanks for your comments. Secondary sources especially is a good tip - thanks for pointing that out. The RSC is an academic publisher, but we perform that activity under the auspices of being a learned society. As part of that we work to further the chemical sciences, and education is a big part of that. More importantly it would be our members (who are largely scientists or educators) who'd be doing the editing so they should hopefully be free of any of the bias that you'd perhaps anticipate from me (though I work in Science not Publishing), and I'll ask them to announce themselves.
 * Any more for any more?

--ChemWalker (talk) 09:40, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi ChemWalker, my advise would be to just set the new editors free. Editing is not always about expanding / creating new articles. Fact checking is just as important, as is advising of others on the talk pages. We tend to frown upon article replacements. We are also always in need of good graphics like equipment descriptions or for example spectra. V8rik (talk) 20:36, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Carbomer vs. Polyacrylic acid
I started sorting out Carbomer, moving most of the article we had there to carbo-mer, which I think is a pretty obscure, almost slangy term. Carbomer is often polyacrylic acid. The question is ... are the two so much the same thing that polyacrylic acid could move to Carbomer, or that Carbomer should redirect to polyacrylic acid, or should there be different articles, one about the various numbered forms of commercial carbomer, and the other about PAA in concept? Or should Carbomer be a disambiguation page...? What exactly is Carbomer - is it a lapsed trademark, generic name, chemical synonym - who defined it?

The antsy part about this is that the redirect carbomer from the move points to carbo-mer. If anybody does anything at all to touch it, even changing its target, we have to whine to an admin if we want to move polyacrylic acid onto it later.

So... any suggestions? Wnt (talk) 15:03, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't let "have to get admin help", especially for a simple case like this, influence your decisions about content or organization cleanup... DMacks (talk) 15:50, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Assistance request - Check for Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ha-966
Hiyas there Wikiproject Chemistry,

A new editor submitted the above article to the article's for creation Wikiproject. The article itself looks fine, but i was wondering if anyone could glance over it and see if this assertion is correct. Molecular science isn't exactly a topic i am knowledgeable about, so i am not capable of asserting if this subject is notable, and if the article is well written (I am fairly certain someone could swap random terms around without me noticing anything odd in the article). Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs ) 20:23, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Drugs are not my area of expertise, though a quick Google search revealed a bunch of references, with the most recent one (that I saw, anyway) being from 20011. Sigma-Aldrich and SCBT sell the (+) enantiomer, so clearly researchers still use it. I'd say it passes the notability test, and the article looks well-written and -cited. For what it's worth, the article is already live at Ha-966. Ckalnmals (talk) 22:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * On this, I have to ask, what is the criteria for accepting an article about bioactive chemical substance? Points:  (1) These are myriad, so choosing what to include and exclude is important. (2) Unless all are accepted carte blanche, making this choice is a difficult technical one, requiring clear guidelines, and in any case, significant expertise.  (3) It is conceivable that wikipedia will become a home to pet ideas and molecules, if such criteria are not elaborated (with individuals wishing to self promote the molecule they are studying, through wikipedia).  (4) Including a substance necessarily elevates it in apparent importance, which is only desirable if it is truly important.  If rational criteria are not in place, I would suggest that these be developed quickly, and that acceptances of very technical articles on specific experimental substances be placed on hold. Prof D Meduban (talk) 17:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


 * There is a brief comment on inclusion criteria at Manual of Style/Chemistry. Basically, chemicals should meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline, but we have not (as far as I know) come up with any chemistry-specific guidelines.  As with any subject here on Wikipedia there are probably notable topics which we do not yet cover, and there are plenty of non-notable ones which we do cover.  In my opinion, the best way to handle this is make a request here or at Requested articles/Natural sciences/Chemistry for any missing topics you would like to see covered (or just start them yourself)  and to nominate for deletion any existing articles that you think do not meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria.  -- Ed (Edgar181) 18:08, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


 * "significant expertise" is actually not a requirement for wikipedia (anyone can edit!). Creating an article on an obscure topic does not "necessarily elevates it in apparent importance" as long as it remains orphaned. What is important is what existing articles link to it. If you feel an article is not notable simply add an "delete" tag and let the process run its course. An acceptance process prior to article creation does not exist and is also not desirable V8rik (talk) 20:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Offer of project expertise in areas related to physical and life sciences, and at interface between
You can call on me to offer guidance on subjects related to organic and biological chemistry, including as it applies to the life sciences. My current career focus is on chemical synthesis and medicinal chemistry as it applies to small molecule drug discovery, including structure-based drug discovery (involving macromolecular crystallography, small molecule enzymatic and biophysical screening, etc.). Training is through UChicago PhD, with major pharma experience. Currently a res prof at a major university. Prof D Meduban (talk) 16:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meduban (talk • contribs)

Alicyclic Compounds
I fixed up the article on Alicyclic compounds. It has a section on cycloalkenes, but an article already exists for that. There are also articles on cycloalkanes and cycloalkynes. But all three of them are severely lacking. Could it be a good idea to merge the three into Alicyclic compounds? A good chunk of the content on Cycloalkanes might be tweaked to apply to alicyclics in general, so I don't think the article would be overly long. Or alternatively, especially if much more information is needed, the cycloalkenes section under Alicyclic could be moved to the Cycloalkenes article, and Alicyclic could just be a quick little thing that explains the term and otherwise links to the three other articles. Klunk6 (talk) 02:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * In general, I don't think it is a problem if there is some duplicated content in related articles. In my opinion, the ideal situation would be having a good overview article at alicyclic compound which contains a summary of important aspects of cycloalkenes, cycloalkynes, etc. and then also have separate articles at cycloalkene, cycloalkyne, etc. which provide additional detail, as well as  a clear link back to the "parent" article at alicyclic compound.  -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:23, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

NFPA templates
A group of NFPA templates, which are now unused since being substed into NFPA-chembox in June 2007, have been nominated for deletion. You are welcome to participate in the deletion discussion. Note that NFPA-chembox and NFPA 704, which are used have not been nominated for deletion. DH85868993 (talk) 00:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Criteria for articles on hypothetical species
To guide future editing activity, it may be useful to establish general guidelines for which hypothetical molecules (ions etc) are sufficiently notable for articles. I think that most of us are comfortable with articles on some nonexistent compounds.

One reason that we should develop guidelines is the proliferation of computational chemistry, where all sorts of stuff is being evaluated computationally. One could envision links to these compounds could show up (and gum up) in almost any article. The sodium oxide article could, for example, start to guide readers to links to the diatomic NaO (I am sure someone is performing or has performed such calculations). Calculations vary in their quality or the tools and the quality of the context (lots of crappy papers are being written to fatten people's publication lists). One tentative suggestion is: a theoretical compound is notable if it has been the focused (not incidental) subject of a review or a book. (not just mentioned in a journal article). --Smokefoot (talk) 16:56, 29 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It's a bit I'm not very active on WP, so please inform me if I'm wrong, but WP:GNG should suffice. Notability guidelines in general extend GNG, do not trump it, so you can't be more restrictive than WP:GNG. If a theoretical compound has been investigated in more than one paper, it deserves an article. That they proliferate is no good reason: we don't have a limit on article number. -- Cycl o pia talk  14:37, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with Smokefoot - especially in regards to computational chemistry. There are plenty of compounds that can theoretically exist, but are hardly interesting, much less noteworthy. That said, coverage in a review and/or book seems a bit too rigorous a requirement. I'd propose the following addendum: If a theoretical compound is discussed in a given number of journal articles (maybe three?), each written by a different author, it would qualify for inclusion as well.

Also, it might be worth having a different set of requirements for theoretical compounds that people have attempted to make. In my opinion, a single article with computational data and an attempted synthesis or two carries more weight than two - or even three articles - that consist of purely theoretical data. Ckalnmals (talk) 05:01, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of compounds that can theoretically exist, but are hardly interesting, much less noteworthy.
 * "Interesting" is not a meaningful criteria for us -what is not interesting to you can be to me, and viceversa. "Noteworthy" instead it is, and it is already our notability guidelines. Which basically boils down to the criteria you propose: if there are multiple reliable sources (in this case, papers) talking about it, then it's considered notable, and an article can go.
 * a single article with computational data and an attempted synthesis or two carries more weight than two - or even three articles - that consist of purely theoretical data.
 * Uhm, I am not sure. A compound can be extremly interesting theoretically but also be too difficult to synthetize currently -so you have to rely on the former. -- Cycl o pia talk  10:56, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The conclusion of this discussion might be added to the description page of Category:Hypothetical chemical compounds. --Leyo 11:14, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Mixtures / Aqua Regia
I'm here regarding to my use of a chembox in aqua regia, which User:Plasmic Physics keeps deleting. I'm told that it's not proper to use a chembox for mixtures (notwithstanding that both the German and French articles have the same chembox style information).

If this is true, can someone suggest an appropriate way to display the information? If not, it seems rather pedantic not to allow such a thing... any reason? Drnathanfurious (talk) 11:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


 * This discussion is also at Wikipedia_talk:CHEM. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:42, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Oil
Somehow talk:oil wasn't templated. I've just changed that, but the article needs some TLC from Team Chem. LeadSongDog come howl!  17:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Where are chemical properties?
This note I added to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Copper#Where_are_chemical_properties.3F, but I see the same may be said for other elements.--Tim32 (talk) 20:50, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well you are welcome to upgrade our articles. If you are thinking of doing something big, you probably want to talk it over. The project you want to contact is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements. The issues to me are (i) how to balance of readability (lists are sort of dull) and (ii) how to judge notability for the reactions (many editors anxious to insert tidbits of esoterica ). Looking forward to these developments. --Smokefoot (talk) 04:09, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:PubChem Row
Template:PubChem Row has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. DH85868993 (talk) 09:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Atomic weight/Relative atomic mass
Last month someone did a copy-paste move of this article. As there have been subsequent edits in the mean time, could someone take what should be done here before the histories can be merged? —Ruud 14:45, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Would anybody discuss the effects of halogenated compounds on the lifetime of TCD in GC analysis?
For GC/TCD analysis, the existing article in the Wikipedia spells out the advantage of TCD (e.g., as universal detector) and the apparent disadvantage (low sensitivity). However, it missed a well-known effect of halogenated organic compound in reducing the lifetime of TCD. I am wondering if anybody can discuss this topic, especially the mechanism and the severity of this detrimental effect for non-trace-level halogenated compounds analysis. Thanks.70.39.176.4 (talk) 13:55, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You are right The Troubleshooting and Maintenance Guide for Gas Chromatographers page 167 says the same, but the exact mechanism and which type is more prone to corrosion is not said.--Stone (talk) 14:49, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

HELP
hello Can you please explain the difference between oil and extract?

Is oil a kind of extract? which one will the ethanolic yield from the seed be considered?

What's the best way (other than cold pressing) to get most of the components in the seed? Thanks Simagoulou (talk) 04:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)


 * So others can see some background for this question and what has already been discussed...Reference desk/Archives/Science/2012 August 5. DMacks (talk) 04:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Are you talking about essential oils, as commonly used in aromatherapy? These are traditionally obtained by steam distillation of the plant materials... as opposed to "solvent extraction" where the plants are dissolved in hexane or similar.--feline1 (talk) 14:39, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Nitrogen and phosphorus biochemistry
Here there is a fascinating section on the hypothetical possibility of a nitrogen/phosphorous biochemistry as an alternative to carbon biochemistry. Intriguing as it is, it is unfortunately unsourced, so I don't know how reliable it can be. Can anybody with better chemical knowledge than me on the subject help sort it out? Thanks! -- Cycl o pia talk  11:28, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems to be unsuitable. Some editors are just itching to promote their ideas, but it appears to be OR.  The entire article hypothetical types of biochemistry is an invitation for such posturing and editing, IMHO. --Smokefoot (talk) 12:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The section has been added in 2001 at the very beginnings of the article history. I looked on Google Scholar but I found no papers discussing phosphor/nitrogen alternative biochemistries. Interesting as it is, I think it should go away. -- Cycl o pia talk  14:29, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization of chemical compound names.
IUPAC and naming conventions (chemistry) now have no elements capitalized in chemical names except in titles and at the beginning of sentences. Many articles in Wikipedia have the first element capitalized in the title but not the second such as Sodium chloride and the IUPAC name also has incorrect capitalization as Sodium chloride instead of sodium chloride. On the List of inorganic compounds page, every compound has a capitalized first element/name and not the second. As a university professor, we are working very hard to break this bad habit in naming and I suggest we adopt IUPAC's current conventions as follows:

Titles/page names - All words capitalized so that viewers are not misled. Example: Sodium Chloride (Clearly this is a bad idea as Rifleman 82 has pointed out below and only the first word in the title should be capitalized.)

IUPAC name - no words capitalized unless specifically required by IUPAC. Example: sodium chloride

Does anyone have a problem if I start changing these as I find them? Is it possible to make a bot to do this automatically? J. Clay Harris, Ph.D. (talk) 21:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I totally agree that this strange capitalization scheme is very annoying. However, we don't control how/if article titles should be capitalized or not. Wikipedia has chosen not to capitalize article titles except where they are proper nouns (Naming_conventions_(capitalization)). --Rifleman 82 (talk) 21:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I would be some what upset if we were forced to use IUPAC naming, especially on capital lettering of compounds and molecules. I see no harm in using well established names such as Acetone and Acetic acid and I don't see why systematic naming is being forced on everybody. I fully accept that names do change, Muriatic acid is no longer used, but it did appear in various Factory Acts until those acts were replaced by more modern regulations in the mid 1970s. Nowadays its known as Hydrochloric acid, but IUPAC might ban that as being non-systematic. I don't consider the use of "Sodium Chloride" or "Sodium chloride" as being misleading, it's still sodium chloride, the molecule is not going to change simply because its "label" has or does not have one or more capital letters. Pyrotec, C.Chem, MRSC (talk) (Yes those really are my qualifications, but (obviously) Pyrotec is not my real name). Pyrotec (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think we are talking about strictly using IUPAC nomenclature. In any case, acetic acid and acetone are retained trivial names, but not being proper nouns, they are not capitalized. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 23:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly oppose the first part (using Title Case for title/page-names). Doing so implies that they are proper nouns, which is pretty much the opposite of the intent. It contradicts the desired usage, which is not to capitalize every word unless there is a specific grammatical or style-guide reason, rather than promoting simple consistency of "each first letter is handled the same". If I see "Foo bar" in a title situation, I don't think anything special about it--it's not unusual to capitalize the first letter of a title--but it I see "Foo Bar", I think "maybe this thing needs to have each word capitalized". That's especially true given the sitewide style-guide Rifleman noted--no way you'll get this idea past the manual-of-style wonks. DMacks (talk) 23:41, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with DMacks: Capitals for the first word if it's in a title; not otherwise. I too am a university professor, constantly telling my students this.... Chris (talk) 07:49, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm glad that others are interested in this topic. My biggest problem is with the IUPAC name being capitalized when it shouldn't be.  Thank you Rifleman 82 for guiding me/us to the correct capitalization for article titles.  You and DMacks certainly make valid points. In response to Pyrotec, I am not suggesting that we must always use IUPAC conventions.  Muriatic acid in my opinion is quite acceptable, but should not be capitalized as it is not a proper noun. When writing about my Son starting School next Wednesday, it is not correct to capitalize son and school as I just did.  It definitely does not change that he is my son or the fact he is going to school, but it still is not correct.  When I see someone write Sodium Chloride in the middle of a sentence, it makes me cringe just as I hope everyone would when seeing son and school capitalized in the middle of a sentence.  So, I believe that IUPAC name: Sodium chloride in the Chembox where it is neither a title nor the beginning of a sentence is completely incorrect and should be sodium chloride.


 * To summarize my corrected proposal:
 * Follow the titling conventions of Wikipedia (Naming_conventions_(capitalization)). Example: Sodium chloride
 * Follow correct English grammar rules for capitalization within a sentence. Example: Last Wednesday, I put sodium chloride on my eggs at breakfast.
 * IUPAC names in the Chembox are neither titles nor the beginning of a sentence and therefore should not be capitalized. Example: sodium chloride
 * J. Clay Harris, Ph.D. (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Whether an IUPAC name should be capitalized or not is independent of it being a IUPAC name. It should be simply treated like any other common noun.  As such, your first two proposals are already consistent with current practice and our Manual of Style (both the Wikipedia-wide version and the chemistry-specific version).  As for the third proposal, IUPAC names should be treated like any other text field but I don't know if there is any guideline or standard practice (should the appearance be listed in the Chembox as "white solid" or "White solid"?  Should all text fields in all infoboxes start with capitalization or not?  Should text in lists start with capitalization?  Should text in tables be capitalized?  Etc.)  ChemNerd (talk) 15:27, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, I do have a bad habit of putting (for example) Acetic acid in the middle of a sentence (or diluted on my chips), when it aught to be acetic acid. I could happily live with the corrected proposal, but I suspect that if I were to see, e.g. Sodium chloride in a Chembox I'd leave it unchanged. Pyrotec (talk) 16:50, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Obviously I'm new here (I'm sure you all looked me up right away,) and I find this conversation very thought provoking. I appreciate all of those that have engaged in my foray of newness and boldness to this area. Wikipedia (in my opinion) is the most frequented site for non-science educated people to find information about science. Honestly I do not know why many capitalize words like acetic acid in the middle of a sentence, but chemistry words frequently appear in lists with the first word capitalized (correlation not causation.) Pyrotec, any idea where you picked up the bad habit? I completely agree that my first two items are already consistent with current practice and a mute point (sorry for that.)

I did some digging and the grammar police seem to be split on the issue of capitalization of the first word in lists. However, the Manual of Style/Lists does say that the first letter of each item in a list should be capitalized, so are the "other names" in Chembox (for sodium chloride for example) a list? If there was only one "other name?" The Associated Press, The Gregg Reference Manual, and the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publication capitalize the first words in a list, while the MLA and Chicago Manual of Style have lists with lowercase first words in a list (I cannot find list capitalization information in the ACS Style Guide. My guess is those weighing in here would also be split both ways on this issue! :S Based on what I can find it seems that Wikipedia has mainly adopted the style of the Associated Press in formatting. I cannot find in the AP style how to deal with the capitalization of single items such as those in a text box.

ChemNerd question is answered for lists by Manual of Style/Lists (assuming multiple items one after the other with each on a new line in a text box are considered lists!?) However, it is still unclear whether or not a single item in a text box should be capitalized or not. Manual of Style, WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines, and Chemical infobox are all silent on the issue. I do however agree that it could be considered odd to have the IUPAC first letter of a chemical name not capitalized if everything else in the Chembox does start with a capital letter. However, it would drive home the point that in general the first word of a chemical name is not capitalized as it would stand out as different. If you are starting to get annoyed by just reading this, I'm really annoyed with myself for even saying anything at this point!

In summary: I stand by my proposal to not capitalize the IUPAC name in the Chembox as it will never be more than a name, never be a list, title, or sentence. The question remains, what should be done in the Chembox? The better question is: Will the contents of Chembox make a difference in the way the general population communicates about chemistry? I believe it does, but I have no way of knowing if having the IUPAC name in lowercase will make a difference. As for the rest of the Chembox, I surprisingly don't have an opinion on the capitalization matter! Ultimately, I'm requesting a decision for a standard of capitalization be made for the information in Chembox. My proposals and reasoning are here, and I will accept and abide by whatever the greater population decides. Thank you again for hearing out my argument. J. Clay Harris, Ph.D. (talk) 03:46, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking the time to look through the somewhat obscure MOS pages. I am ambivalent on the matter, so long as it is consistently implemented. Other than that, it's not a burning issue in my opinion (though Sodium chloride is indeed annoying). --Rifleman 82 (talk) 04:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)