Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements/Archive 26

120 becomes 121
Thanks to the spate of speculations in late 2016 along with the flush of excitement at the completion of the seventh row, element 121 has now become notable enough for it to have its own article again. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 07:39, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Pictures for synthetic elements
Obviously, it is currently impossible to take a photograph of a sample of one of those violently radioactive elements past 100. I went through some of them and added some relevant pictures: most of them already had some (namesakes), but for the few that are named after places instead of people there are other solutions. (The reason I did this is that without some cool and relevant pictures like this the article seems very dense and impenetrable to the lay reader.) R8R already gave Db the map (though I'd have liked to see something in the city, like the JINR building); I put a Hessian festival of culture for Hs, and because the JINR pioneered cold fusion I chose the Russian chapel in Darmstadt for Ds. ^_^ Nh has the picture of the discoverers; Mc now has Red Square; Ts now has the main campus of Vanderbilt (Hamilton's institute).

Now what I am curious about: is there a better picture of Oganessian to use for Og? The one we have is currently a few years old and isn't particularly high resolution. Meanwhile, Theodore Gray has a much better one in colour on his poster. Double sharp (talk) 04:45, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * (To be less obscure I have since changed the Ds photo to the city centre of Darmstadt. I suppose the Darmstadtium centre there might be cuter, though. ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 15:01, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Discovery of helium
Although the discovery of helium was not a clear-cut process, with several individuals involved over the years 1868–1895, we have an editor who wants to remove the claim that Janssen discovered helium from the Featured Article Helium. At the talk page, Talk:Helium I'm getting nowhere trying to explain that we have to report what the mainstream sources say, so perhaps some members of this WikiProject might like to offer their thoughts? --RexxS (talk) 11:41, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

May be absent for a while; please look after lead FAC
Dear anyone reading this (in particular, and, but this applies to anyone),

My RL events unfold unexpectedly, and I may have to contract the amount of time for Wiki since tomorrow. (It may as well happen I won't or even will have more time, but I am not sure yet.) Just in case, I'd love to ask you to look after the ongoing FAC. In general, the FAC is going well so it should be easily runnable from this point.--R8R (talk) 14:29, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, no problem! Double sharp (talk) 02:46, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Some of our old GAs and FAs kind of suck
R8R Gtrs has mentioned this before, but it perhaps wasn't quite as important then. And in fact, there are now enough newer GAs and FAs that the average one people will see will not suck. Unfortunately I was quickly reminded of this old suckiness when I finished rewriting Pr (since July 2016, I know), looked at Tb (the only one left with some actual chemistry outside the +3 state), and decided to go for some of the other already-GAs to see what I was doing and pick the thread back up. I then encountered my old shame (Tm) in the row. I was also then reminded of carbon, which has a distressing citation problem IIRC; and to some extent Se and Te.

Perhaps this is more important now because most of the elements that have yet to become GAs are now either extremely high-profile elements (e.g. Mg and Ca, to say nothing of all those celebrities in the p-block) or boredom-inducing lanthanides. I'm not entirely sure how best to deal with this problem, but perhaps we could go and look through some of the older ones in some pleasing order and add stuff as one sees fit, the way I fixed Ru and Tl last year as exemplars, and the way I periodically update the superheavies with new things I find. ^_^

The ultimate goal, I suppose, would be to bring everything to FA, and keep it there. Hydrogen kind of has some citation issues, IIRC, so we should probably fix that a little. But I wonder if continuing that FA train at the start of the periodic table would demonstrate a show of seriousness. To that end lithium FA seems like a reasonable idea.

I mention this because while it's great to have the new projects around, this is an unsustainable situation, and myself churning out more and more high-profile element articles like I did late last year going down the halogen column will only make it unsustainable even more quickly. So this is something which we have to think about, even though I make no pretense at offering a total solution now. Double sharp (talk) 16:53, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi . Your enthousiasm and quality editing is flowing over into overconcern. I'd like to have you around for many more years, not weeks. Please consider a wikibreak of sorts. It did fresh me up. -DePiep (talk) 23:00, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe soon, but perhaps not quite yet. I did a great deal more from June to December 2016 and I felt fine then. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 00:09, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, it's a big load of action you listed here. But possibly I saw too much bright colors in a new cinemascope big screen projection here ;-) -DePiep (talk) 21:15, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, no one said it had to be done all at once. ^_-☆ Also, there may be too many bright colours here, but they certainly are pretty! Double sharp (talk) 02:47, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report
We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject and related task forces have signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, will post on WikiProject Elements/Popular pages and the subpage /Popular pages of WikiProject Elements/Isotopes.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:
 * The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
 * The report will include a link to the [periodic tabvle https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/ pageviews tool] for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
 * The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to for his original, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding reach of WikiProject Philosophy, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at meta:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, The Community Tech Team, through Johan (WMF) (talk) 11:39, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This is so great and nice to see! :-). Even in WP:Chemistry our periodic table Featured_article_star.svg is in top (hit every-7th-second). -DePiep (talk) 23:00, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Infobox element: Propose to remove repeated 'Name, symbol'
The element infobox has, right below the image, the data row "Name, symbol: Gold, Au".

I propose to remove that row, since it is a repetition of name & symbol already in article lede and infobox title (and of course, in article title). -DePiep (talk) 16:28, 3 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh, your thoroughness at these detail is just wonderful. So great you take a close look at what many see, or so sad nobody else is.
 * I agree on this one.--R8R (talk) 14:20, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅. More obvious than bold I'd say. -DePiep (talk) 15:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Quick question: Is there a standard for naming inorganic molecule articles (binary vs Stock nomenclature)?
For example, the articles on neptunium hexafluoride and plutonium hexafluoride are inconsistent with each other.

NpF6 is at Neptunium(VI) fluoride while PuF6 is at Plutonium hexafluoride.

The talk page on Plutonium hexafluoride was blank, and I posted there about a possible move to Plutonium(VI) fluoride in an attempt to make things consistent.

Is this because the name plutonium hexafluoride is more commonly used than plutonium(VI) fluoride? And the reverse is true for neptunium(VI) fluoride?

I'm a bit confused. What's the standard when this happens? I was thinking Stock nomenclature as default in this case.

8.40.151.110 (talk) 23:40, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer neptunium hexafluoride myself, since these are molecular compounds. But I think this is more under WikiProject Chemicals. Double sharp (talk) 23:51, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, WP:CHEMNAME settles it: Stock nomenclature is not used on WP for compounds with a significant degree of covalency, so both should be under the "hexafluoride" titles. The move for NpF6 will require an admin, though. Double sharp (talk) 23:54, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks for letting me know. 8.40.151.110 (talk) 00:26, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I also propose moving the other neptunium fluorides to match, e.g. neptunium trifluoride from neptunium(III) fluoride, etc. That was why the article was moved from neptunium hexafluoride in the first place. We should move all of the neptunium fluorides back. 8.40.151.110 (talk) 00:31, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Degree of covalency seems to trump consistency, though: we have lead(II) chloride for PbCl2, but lead tetrachloride for PbCl4. Judging from the solution chemistry of Np (which, being a very heavy actinide, can form what is essentially a true tetrapositive cation in water), as well as the high melting point of NpO2, it is better to think of NpF3 and NpF4 as ionic and name them with Stock nomenclature. Since NpV forms an oxocation in water instead, NpF5 and NpF6 are probably more covalent (in the former case it is harder to tell given its ready disproportionation), and so we should name those two articles neptunium pentafluoride and neptunium hexafluoride. Double sharp (talk) 03:41, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I can do the moves. But for sake of transparency (and especially because this is a centralized discussion in an unusual venue), could you please list specifically all the pages here? DMacks (talk) 03:51, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Courtesy pinging User:Materialscientist, who had previously moved NpF6 Neptunium hexafluoride to Neptunium(VI) fluoride for "uniformity with other Np fluorides", since this proposal involves undoing that action. However, the proposal here seems in keeping with that idea, ssince it seems like all(?) NpF x would be moved. DMacks (talk) 03:55, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest following U and Pu, and moving them all to the binary nomenclature (consistency as having the rare +3 oxidation state stand apart perhaps looks a bit odd). So we should have neptunium trifluoride, neptunium tetrafluoride, neptunium pentafluoride, and neptunium hexafluoride change from redirects to the main titles. Come to think of it, we should also have plutonium trifluoride paralleling uranium trifluoride. When dealing with actinides, I would usually let Th, U, and Pu make the call and the others follow, as those are the most prominent and most investigated ones. Double sharp (talk) 03:59, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Easy TfD
See TfD Template:Infobox Unbinilium. Note the wrong spelling (uppercase U), unused, is not Infobox unbinilium ✅. -DePiep (talk) 11:05, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It also seems to think that nil means one instead of zero (technically "nothing", but we can let that slide as the Romans had no concept of zero). Double sharp (talk) 15:34, 8 June 2017 (UTC)