Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/Archive 55

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Archive 54

Archive 55

Sciencemadness.org

An insource search shows that we currently have 70 cases where Sciencemadness.org has been used in chemistry articles. Some uses (e.g. in Copper(I) phosphide, current citation #6) have that wiki as a source for our Wikipedia article, although Sciencemadness itself usually does not cite any sources and is clearly not reliable by our standards. More worryingly, it seems that many of the instances of links to that website are to books and articles which are copyright. For example, Tetrafluorohydrazine has a citation #3 to John Drury Clark's 1972 book "Ignition" with a link to a scanned copy as a .pdf. I think we need to go through all 70 instances and either remove the cite or, if the cite itself is valid, remove the links to the copyvio. Comments? Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Support Pygos (talk) 15:07, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I've changed the Tetrafluorohydrazine citation to point to the Google Books preview rather than Sciencemadness.org. I can probably do the same with a lot of these links. Reconrabbit 15:22, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Reconrabbit. I was intending to do similar but was waiting a bit to see if anyone had reasons not to do that. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Support replacing those links. A number of dubious sources are cited in our articles, so it is a good idea to root them out. Educational sites include Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/science/organic-chemistry) and ChemLibre (https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Organic_Chemistry) seem to present legitimate information, but they probably are not reliable sources. The overarching problem is that most good content sits behind paywalls.--Smokefoot (talk) 15:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

That's a good point. Editors here who write chemistry articles should have access to paywalled sources either through their institution or the Wikipedia Library, for example. Provided we summarise such sources accurately, it doesn't matter that the average reader can't themselves easily read the sources. We must try to write quality articles and that often means citing specialist publications. Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:36, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Chemistry LibreTexts is a tricky one out of these; the attribution is terrible, but I have included them as references on some topics because I have had trouble finding online sources that define in basic terms specific concepts like crystal field excitation. Reconrabbit 16:02, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

In the spirit of gaining some consensus on on-line sources, another one is American Elements (https://www.americanelements.com). Dozens or hundreds of chem articles cite this website. Maybe someone can comment on their status as an RS. Like Sigma-Aldrich or other vendors, their physical data are probably acceptable. But they dress up their articles with a narrative, which is not verifiable and is not reviewed in any way. Their narratives are window dressing for the products that they are selling.--Smokefoot (talk) 22:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I support not using American Elements for "use" verification, as we cannot see where their info came from, and when trying to confirm, perhaps only one researcher tried that application. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:01, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Contents from American Elements may contain original research. --Leiem (talk) 15:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Sciencenotes.org is another site that shows up infrequently and is written largely by two people with scientific backgrounds but no oversight. Reconrabbit 23:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I have now replaced or removed all but one reference to Sciencemadness.org. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:36, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that heavy-lifing! DMacks (talk) 02:24, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Graeme Bartlett:Thanks for removing the direct Sciencemadness.org cites. The insource search at the top of this thread is still giving 62 hits which are copyvios IMO. I'll start trying to replace them, and User talk:Reconrabbit will probably assist. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:17, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Use in Nicotine and pyridine is not a copyvio, as works are in public domain. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:46, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

OK, I'll check as I go. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:36, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

There are also several US government publications which are in the public domain. Though I am not sure about LANL publications: are they government or not? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:48, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the LANL ones are OK. Part of the website says that's where those documents originally came from. Their library has many books that are clearly PD owing to age but also quite a few I would consider to be copvio as too recent. Anyway, those linked from cites in our articles has been trimmed down to the extent where I'm giving up on the final ones. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:04, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Sources

Ok, maybe we transition to a related topic. If one does not have access to basic textbooks, it is next to impossible to edit technical content. "Crystal field excitation" is not a term encountered very often. Yes, one can imagine what it is, but the phrase is not indexed in usual textbooks (Wiberg, Cotton&Wilk, Shriver). My somewhat obnoxious point is that if one is struggling to find a source for a topic, maybe that topic does not merit an article. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:23, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Ninovium

I just found ninovium article. I think this article should either be merged with Victor Ninov or with oganesson. Could somebody please take a look? ReyHahn (talk) 13:26, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

It is probably better merged with Ninov's article, since the fraud has become a pretty defining event of his career; for oganesson, it would be a history subsection at most.

Certainly doubt it merits its own page, especially under the current name - and especially one that introduces it as "a synthetic element", and says things like "ninovium's existence as a valid element remains unsubstantiated, and its characteristics remain uncertain" - which makes me wonder if the page's author understands that the claimed "ninovium" necessarily is oganesson. The whole incident could warrant something like element 118 falsification scandal, I suppose?

I would say redirect "ninovium" to oganesson#Unconfirmed discovery claims, while integrating the salvageable parts of the existing article into Ninov's? Fishsicles (talk) 18:28, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

More organophosphate questions

Sorry for the continuing questions in this area. Are there any reactions of organophosphates that can change the PO₄ core (i.e. other than hydrolysis or transesterification)? I can't find any, beyond perhaps carbothermal reduction to elemental P. I find that surprising - it would make it the only functional group I can think of that cannot be converted into different functional group. Project Osprey (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

phospha-Fries rearrangement might be of interest? Fishsicles (talk) 22:34, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Interesting, and new to me. Thanks --Project Osprey (talk) 23:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, phosphate, sulfate, and orthosilicate are indeed pretty dead. A look at the "bible" (Greenwood and Earnshaw) does not help much. In synthetic chemistry, it seems that the negative charge needs to be dealt with before anything happens. Maybe protonation sets the scene for condensation leading ultimately to P4O10 or things like that, which then can be sulfided (by P4S10) and chlorinated. The other way to address the issue is, of course, is biochemistry: organisms have been stuck with these oxyanions for billions of years. A quick glance shows the pyruvate enol phosphates, i.e., a phosphate ester, can be reduced to phosphinic acid level. doi 10.1146/annurev.biochem.78.091707.100215. You never get PH3 or element but organophosphorus compounds. On the silicate front, industry has long wishes to avoid SiO2 down to Si then back up to SiMe4-xClx, but I digress.--Smokefoot (talk) 23:21, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Phosphoenolpyruvate mutase might be something to explore as well. Hopefully there are some nice mechanistic studies on the enzyme reaction. ― Synpath 05:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Categories for Fiveling

There is a dispute between me and the article creator about how broad the categories for this article should be. See Talk:Fiveling#Intractable dispute over categories. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Pro-forma, please note that @LaundryPizza03 did notify me that he is cross-posting. Ldm1954 (talk) 02:05, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Removing some Hindawi refs?

Apparently Hindawi (publisher) is a huge operation, occasionally putting out some controversial journals. Here are some that appear to apply to the Chemistry project:

• Advances in Materials Science and Engineering
• Biomed Research International
• Contrast Media & Molecular Imaging
• Disease Markers
• Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Journal of Environmental and Public Health
• Journal of Healthcare Engineering
• Journal of Nanomaterials
• Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity

According to Retraction Watch the above journals (and others) have been "delisted" from Web of Science. So, I started to remove some of these references from chemistry articles. Are my removals a good idea?--Smokefoot (talk) 04:19, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be a mistake to just remove the citations. Just because some indexer thinks a journal is lower quality, does not mean that an article in it is low quality. We'll probably need to replace by another reference if we take them out. I see usage in some broad topics that would easily be replaceable for important facts. Otherwise if the referenced text is garbage based on a garbage publication, then it should be removed altogether. So we should examine each use. {However I have deleted a chemical referenced to Journal of Nanomaterials from an article I wrote (as substance not well proved to exist) }. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:32, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

OK, I undid my edits. --Smokefoot (talk) 16:51, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Helium Featured Article review

This discussion may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter (talk) 20:35, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

RfC on meaning of nonmetal

There is a RfC on this topic at Talk:Nonmetal#RfC_on_meaning_of_nonmetal which may be of interest. Is the primary use of the term nonmetal for elements in the periodic table, see discussions in Talk:Nonmetal and also at Talk:Nonmetallic compounds and elements. Editor Sandbh is arguing that this is the case, with some other additions. Editors Johnjbarton, Ldm1954 and YBG have questioned this, and both Johnjbarton and Ldm1954 have questioned the scientific accuracy.Ldm1954 (talk) 07:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)