Talk:Melamine cyanurate

Untitled

Should melamine cyanurate be called a salt? It doesn't have any ionic components, the two chemicals making it up do not technically "neutralize" when combined, and hydrogen bonding doesn't classify two chemicals reacting as a salt. (If it did, things such as water reacting with itself could be counted as a "salt.") 71.10.68.220 (talk) 13:18, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rename

Wikipedia articles are titled according to the prevalent common name. Melamine cyanurate is 2 orders of magnitude more common in both scholar.google and normal goolge searches. This suggests that scientific consensus is that the prefered title should be Melamine cyanurate. NJGW (talk) 22:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have just moved the article from melamine-cyanuric acid complex to melamine cyanurate. The title melamine cyanurate implies a salt complex. However, the scientific consensus is that the compound is NOT a salt complex but a hydrogen bond complex. Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry) and established Wikipedia practice, we prefer the scientific standard nomenclature as long as there are no compelling reasons not to. In this case, the standard name is straight forward and reasonably short while the colloquial term is misleadingly wrong. Probably as a direct result, I had to correct several instances of attributing salt bonding properties to this substance in this and other Wikipedia articles. Therefore, we should use melamine-cyanuric acid complex instead of melamine cyanurate. Cacycle (talk) 23:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't comment on what scientific consensus is about the saltiness of this compound (as I didn't find any articles on that), but according to the general rule at the link you posted, "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." From what we see at Google scholar (let alone google), "the majority of English speakers" (including English speaking scholars) would most easily recognize "melamine cyanurate". I'm not trying to be a hard ass, but you have to figure that when most people look up the compount (and apparently this includes scientists) they will be looking up "mealamine cyanurate". Keeping the article at the old name simplifies research for all those people, which is what the Wikipedia project is about. However, if it really isn't a salt then a statement to the effect of "Though the compounds common name suggests that it may be a salt, it is actually a ..." (with a proper source of course). NJGW (talk) 23:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The passage you are citing from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry) is taken from the general Wikipedia:Naming conventions, what follows are the chemistry-specific conventions. Please also read the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/Style_guidelines to get a feeling for the long established practice of the Wikipedia chemistry community. We probably favor a correct, reasonably short, and established standardized substance name over a more common, but scientifically wrong and misleading title. Since there are redirect from all common names in place, the article can be found whatever you type into the address bar. Cacycle (talk) 23:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Call it what you will, but the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry) calls what I quoted as the "general rule" for naming chemistry related articles. IE rule #1. IE, what makes you think you can just blow it off? On what basis do you claim that "melamine-cyanuric acid complex" is the "established standardized substance name"? I claim that "melamine cyanurate" is "established standardized substance name" based on this vs. this, and that it "what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" this vs. this.

This policy (using the most used name) is for a good reason... it not only represents consensus and common usage, but also simplifies any research a person might be trying to do on the subject (we're not talking about Wikipedia redirects here). NJGW (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since "melamine cyanurate" is the more common name in technical contexts, I support using that. The subtleties of the formation of the complex are well explained in the article itself. If scientists in general start to dislike the salt-like associations of the name "melamine cyanurate", they'll begin calling the compound by a different name in their publications and then we can follow their lead. EdJohnston (talk) 00:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I support "melamine cyanurate" as it is overwhelmingly more common, even in scientific journals. --Itub (talk) 07:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how we can be getting worked up about the niceties of salt formation vs. hydrogen bond complex (and just where are the hydrogens, exactly?) when we're using the names "melamine" and "cyanuric acid"! Let's go with the common name for the title and place a more systematic name in the chembox. Physchim62 (talk) 10:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Physchim62: It does not really matter where the hydrogens sit exactly - you would get tautomerization, but never salt formation :-) I could live with your solution, but I still have a bad feeling with it. It is not so much a question to chose between common vs. systematic name, but instead between a misleading and proven wrong title vs. a neutral descriptive (plus systematic and established) title. Cacycle (talk) 18:17, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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