Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals
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The discussion here concerns all parts of the Chemicals WikiProject, including the infoboxes, lists, standards, includes/excludes, tools, contributors, etc etc etc. Feel free to add your comments to any section here, or start a new topic. Older and closed discussions have been archived. Topics not specifically related to the Chemicals WikiProject would be better served at other wikipages. If you would like us to work on a specific substance please add to the WikiProject Chemistry requested articles list.
Status statistics
| Worklist status, all articles grouped | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 2006 | ||||||||
| Grade |
Jun | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan |
| Template:Chem FA | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Template:Chem A-Class | 27 | 30 | 29 | 30 | 25 | 24 | 26 | 25 | 25 |
| Template:Chem B-Class | 71 | 72 | 70 | 74 | 80 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 |
| Template:Chem Start | 112 | 103 | 106 | 111 | 115 | 131 | 167 | 179 | 178 |
| Template:Chem Stub | 97 | 98 | 106 | 122 | 120 | 130 | 94 | 82 | 82 |
| unclassified | 76 | 74 | 59 | 45 | 44 | nil | nil | nil | nil |
| Total | 385 | 379 | 372 | 384 | 386 | 371 | 375 | 375 | 375 |
| percentage ≥Chem Start |
55.1% | 54.4% | 55.6% | 56.5% | 57.5% | 65.0% | 74.9% | 78.1% | 78.1% |
Note that a reduction in the number of A-class articles in July and in September is due to stricter standards being applied, not a decline in the standard of the articles themselves.
| Changes in worklist status between 2005-06-02 and 2005-09-02, all articles grouped | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade |
From A-Class | From B-Class | From Start | From Stub | From unclassified |
New to list | |
| To | Template:Chem A-Class | X | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| To | Template:Chem B-Class | 6 | X | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| To | Template:Chem Start | 0 | 0 | X | 2 | 7 | 6 |
| To | Template:Chem Stub | 1 | 0 | 0 | X | 14 | 15 |
| To | Unclassified | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 5 |
| To | Deleted from list | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | X |
Acetic acid will be on the Main Page on Dec. 1st, 2005
Now that we've worked hard and acetic acid is a featured article, it will be on the main page on December 1st, 2005. I don't know exactly what this will mean for the acetic acid page itself, but I can guess that there will be a LARGE amount of editting to the article that day. I'm guessing that some of the edits will be useful, some will be useless, but most will be vandals. I just want to ask people to keep an eye out for vandalism and useless edits. ~K 08:50, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
- Additionally to all this good and succesful spreading the word of chemistry by good examples, I also put the acetic acid crystals picture on Featured picture candidates. For the first two days, you can add comments only, and after that you are invited to give your support. Wim van Dorst 19:50, 26 November 2005 (UTC).
It was moved to December 2nd, 2005. I can wait. ~K 15:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
- I see Acetic acid on the English Wikipedia front page now. H Padleckas 01:49, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Congratulations!
I just wanted to say congratulations on getting acetic acid featured. It's not easy to write featured-quality articles on technical subjects. And I'd like to see more science-related featured articles. Incidentally, we borrowed your organization scheme for WP:MED—good idea! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks. While browsing for what you did with our worklist scheme, I saw your Trophy Box, and borrowed your good idea back for our WP:Chem. Wim van Dorst 20:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC).
- I'm glad to see it. Even while keeping track of where to improve, it's important to highlight the progress we've made! Here's to seeing more science articles on the front page! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
A-Class articles
I hope people don't mind, I tagged (on the talk pages) all of our A-Class articles as "Good articles" and listed them here. I think it will help raise exposure of these articles to a wider audience. I noticed a couple of things:
- Acetic acid is listed there still, yet it is now an FA. Can I remove it?
- Folic acid has a "cleanup" tag on it. Can someone more biochemical than me address this? I will leave a message for User:Borb. If it doesn't get cleaned up soon, shouldn't we demote the article to B-Class? Walkerma 07:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Well done, Martin. We need all exposure we can get. I didn't know of any {{GA}} template, otherwise I'd done it myself.
- As we don't have a 'list of FA-class chemicals articles' I'd rather keep the acetic acid, hydrochloric acid and paracetamol (our three FAs) in the same 'list of A-Class'. Perhaps we must retitle the section to indicate A-Class and better?
- folic acid: support for demotion, although it has been discussed now several times. Wim van Dorst 09:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC).
I added a few new proposals for A-Classification to the A-Class proposals. Please comment. Wim van Dorst 21:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC).
Ammonium thioglycolate
Hello. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I came across Ammonium thioglycolate while random paging today, and I think I needs a little attention. Its content is fine, but I think perhaps a more experienced chemist could perhaps take a look at the language and make it a bit more formal. Thanks. MJSkia1 03:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
- I have rewritten the page as requested. I have strong doubts about one part of the chemistry, so I posted a "disputed" tag and posted my reservations on the talk page. I also left a message with the original author, requesting a reference. Walkerma 04:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
- UPDATE: K resolved the disputed tag very nicely, and PC added a small chembox, now a respectable looking stub IMHO. Thanks for bringing it to our attention! Walkerma 05:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Links to ether
Under "What links here" for ether, the functional group, there are several hundred links. I've noticed that most them really should be directed to diethyl ether, the solvent. I've gone through the first hundred or so and pointed them to the correct article, but there are plenty more to do. I'll try to get some more done in the near future and maybe someone else can help out as well. Thanks. Edgar181 16:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- I corrected a few of them. Another similar situation exists with alcohol. There are thousands of links to that article about the functional group which should be directed at alcoholic beverage or ethanol. But maybe that one does not need the effort to correct them because there is a note at the top directing to those other articles. MikeParker 14:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- I think we ought to have a go at correcting them, although there are nearly 2000 links: I don´t see what George W. Bush has to do with organic chemistry, for example... Physchim62 (talk) 16:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for the mention of alcohol. I have wasted much time reverting drunken idiots on that page, and it never occurred to me (duh!) that they might have been linked into there. I did about 50 of these with the edit tag "dab alcohol" and I will do some more, this should hopefully reduce vandalism. I think ether is less of a vandalism problem. BTW, the ether page used to be mainly about diethyl ether up until a year or so ago I think, that may explain the problem. Walkerma 17:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- I think we ought to have a go at correcting them, although there are nearly 2000 links: I don´t see what George W. Bush has to do with organic chemistry, for example... Physchim62 (talk) 16:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
- I think ether is done now, except for user and talk pages. The remaining links should be for ether, the functional group. I'll now try to help out a bit with links to alcohol. Edgar181 19:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Magnesium sulfate
I would like to add magnesium sulfate to the project, may I put the notice on the talk page? Or someone else do it the way its supposed to be done. User:218.103.132.85
- I have added the template as requested, we should have done this. I will even try to get a photo of some MgSO4 soon to spice up the page a little! Thanks, Walkerma 06:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Google question
A while ago I started the list inorganic compounds by element, where compounds are listed by fomrula (rather than by name as on list of inorganic compounds). One aim of this was that if someone did a Google search on (say) AlGaAs2, they might find this page, and then find their way into the article. Google does now find the page, yet if one types AlGaAs2 into the search as well, it finds nothing. If one goes to the page itself and does an "Edit-Find in this page" it finds AlGaAs2 without a hitch. Does anyone know what the problem is here, and how I can fix it? Thanks Walkerma 16:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- The problem may be with Google. Perhaps they didn't index AlGaAs2 correctly, or perhaps they haven't indexed Wikipedia recently. (I think they index Wikipedia weekly.) Also, I imagine that the list of inorganic compounds has a rather low page rank, because most all links are outbound. If it is Google's problems, there's nothing we can do. I hope that helps. ~K 17:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. The page itself is on Google, and the cached version does include AlGaAs2. I can understand it having a low page rank, but it should at least find it! Walkerma 17:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- It might be a problem with the indexing of formulae: have you tried searching for AlGaAs<sub>2</sub>? Physchim62 (talk) 09:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Work with WP Mol & Cell Bio
Hi folks,
Please see this discussion, scroll down to the end for my comments. We need to coordinate biologically-related stuff with them, I think it should be very helpful- they could help with any our FACs, for example, by writing a bio section if relevant. Walkerma 17:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Amino acids
Guys, all the amino acids in their main images in their respective articles, and in the images in the amino acid article, have been drawn in D-configuration (first noted by an anonymous user). Normaly i would not give it a hustle but as this is a mojor fumble it has to be fixed as soon as posible. I could do it myself but i prefer that the images are replaced by those who have created them. If nothing is done for a 3 day period starting from now then i have to start replacing them.
Also keep in mind about the second optic center in Thr and Ile. -- Boris 15:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
- Gosh, this is serious! I never use Fischer projections myself so I never noticed till I checked in a book just now. Unfortunately the original creator of the early pics is no longer active in chemistry, but some of the more recent ones might be fixed more easily. Thanks a LOT for mentioning this. Walkerma 05:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- I will begin correcting the images. The old ones can be replaced with my new ones. I will start by correcting the Fischer projections but I will happily draw normal 3 dimensional structures in the future. -- Borb 18:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you! I wonder if we should draw both Fischer and 3D, and show them side by side? I'm thinking of the way we put line angle, ball-stick and Lewis structures for acetic acid, maybe it would be good to show amino acids in two formats? I think most organic chemists like myself use wedge-dash forms, whereas some biochemists prefer Fischer. Likewise I tend to think of R/S, where many biochemists tent to think of D/L. What do you think, Borb? Cheers, Walkerma 19:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, I think thats a good idea. I will do the 3D diagrams when I have finished the Fischers. Also, since there is no point getting rid of the D diagrams, is there any easy way to move the exisiting diagrams on the commons to their respective D-name? ie. Alanine -> D-Alanine? The only way I can think is re-uploading all of my D diagrams again. -- Borb 20:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, i've done them. I have uploaded them as L-Alanine etc. so the D ones are still there under their original names, i'll try to get them moved on the commons or deleted if neccesary. I will start on the 3D ones tomorrow.
What do you want to be done about the main amino acid page? Shall my new images be put there one by one or would you like me to make a collage like the old one? Also would you prefer them to be shown as their ionised forms? -- Borb 21:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- Can you make a table of the individual pictures, to give the effect of the old collage? That way a user could click on any given amino acid and you could have that take them to the relevant article (rather than to the image file)- that would seem the ideal system. You may get some ideas from this reaction scheme (a table). If not, then just I'd say make a collage as before. Regarding the D ones, I'd suggest editing the image tags to say D-Alanine etc; it seems to be impossible to move image files to a new name. Thanks a lot for fixing these so quickly! Walkerma 22:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- The <gallery> function should work well for creating a "collage" that will adapt to different browsers, etc. Edgar181 22:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- Also- personally I have a mild preferance for the zwitterionic form, but I don't think it's too critical as long as both forms are explained properly on the amino acid page. What is the usual form used in biochemistry? I just checked four organic texts, two had the zwitterionic form in their main table, two had the non-ionised form. Walkerma 22:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- I have made a table up here using the <gallery> function. I have also edited the description of Image:L-Alanine.png to make it redirect to Alanine. It works quite well with the images being on the Commons because the original Commons description does not have to be altered. However, it may be confusing to users who actually want to view the image's description. I will try doing a more tableless layout more like the reaction scheme sometime tomorrow if I get time.
- As for whether the diagrams should be zwitterionic or non-ionised, I have no preference. I will draw the zwitterionic forms after I have done the 3Ds, it could be useful to have both in the articles and then it can be decided which forms to use in the main amino acid article. -- Borb 23:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- As a chemist (and not a biochemist), I slightly prefer the non-ionized formulae for the amino-acids, but I'm willing to be over-ruled! For image names, it is going to be very difficult to change the Commons names: however I am willing to consider requests for (minor) abuse of my superpowers to change the names of images kept on English Wikipedia. Physchim62 (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Orange for {{Chem Start}}
Hi all, it may be my monitor or it may be my anomalous trichromacy, but the pink didn't distinct much from the gray. So I took the liberty to edit it to orange. Is this too outrageous? If so, feel free to revert. If not, thanks. Wim van Dorst 23:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC).
- I've seen these on many different monitors, and never had a problem - the grey and pink seemed very different to me. However I don't mind orange at all, although you will see that the original colours have now been used in 1 or 2 other places such as here! Walkerma 06:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Chloroacetic acids
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, but I'll ask it anyway... There is a Chloroacetic acid page and a Chloroacetic acids page. There is however no Dichloroacetic acid page, it is just a redirect to Chloroacetic acids. Chloroethanoic acid also redirects to chloroacetic acids. I think that dichloroacetic acid, and trichloroacetic acid pages should be made, or the Chloroacetic acid page should be merged with the Chloroacetic acids. Does anyone have any suggestion which to do, or disagree? I posted here because I realsed that not many people are likely to read the talk pages of those tiny articles. --PhiJ 12:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
- The only reason for this is that nobody had got round to writing articles about dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid: I've done that now, or at least started them. Physchim62 (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)