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Units

At the moment the units are like this example: g/mol. But they should be like this: g mol-1. I think the template should be changed but also each individual article that already implements the table needs to be changed. Does anyone agree? Borb 23:10, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, I absolutely do not agree. Why do you want to use a completely uncommon and difficult to write and to understand nomenclature? Cacycle 23:46, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Cacycle. I think that g/mol is accessible to most. Changing all articles would be alot of work for such a triviality. Also, you will need a multiplication symbol between g and mol-1 to be technically correct. ~K 02:42, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I concur with User:Cacycle. g/mol is proper unit and easy to read, however use of Amu is good choice too.HappyApple 02:45, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The chemboxes use g/mol as a compromise, given the technical constraints of Wikipedia. Borb is right that IUPAC and IUPAP prefer the symbolism g mol−1: note
  1. that there should be a narrow space (not a multiplication sign) between the g and the mol, however narrow spaces do not exist in HTML so we have to use a non-breaking space (& n b s p ;)
  2. that the superscript should have a & m i n u s ; sign, not a hyphen
  3. that amu (no capitals please) is an acceptable unit, as is Da, although personally I don't like them.
Individual editors are welcome to use g mol−1 or amu, but I don't see a consensus arising to change the template, and I certainly can't see anyone changing all the tables that are out there: we have enough work converting the old-style and HTML tables to the new format!
Are there any other comments on units before I write this up into the style guidelines? Physchim62 09:21, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Either a space or a centered dot (·) are acceptable dividers in these units. BIPM, NIST Also, both the solidus and the exponent are legitimate. --Gene Nygaard 28 June 2005 06:03 (UTC)
No, "amu" and "Da" not acceptable. The "unified atomic mass unit" is only acceptable for use with SI with the specific symbol "u". See BIPM rules,NIST rules, and atomic mass unit.
Change centipoise (cP) to millipascal-seconds (mPa·s), or Pa·s with another or no prefix. Gene Nygaard 28 June 2005 06:03 (UTC)

Agree both with PC and Cacycle (still no personalized name, I see, but welcome back in the activities): g/mol is most informative. Further things to be put forward for the style guidelines:

  • cP (centipoise) for Viscosity. In the text the Pa.s is suggested to be allowed, but while trying to find that for all the boxes that I fill in, I hardly ever see it. No comments on preference, though (it is an easy calculation), but perhaps a recommendation is called for?
  • g/cm3 for Density. As a bulk chemical supplier employee, I don't normally use this unit, but I agree that tonne/m3 are perhaps overdone ;-). Alternatives are allowed in the text, but I wonder whether we should make a recommendation? Wim van Dorst 21:13, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC).

There is one more thing about units. I know it sounds like i'm being padantic but I think that standards should be followed as closely as possible in an encyclopaedia. The SI unit for temperature is K not degrees C. The melting/boiling points should be in kelvin. It is unliekly that people that do not know what a Kelvin is are going to be concerned about melting and boiling points of specific chemicals anyway. Likewise with other units, anyone interested in densities will understand g cm−3

Borb 22:26, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. Unlike those centipoises and "amu" which are not only not SI, but not acceptable for use with SI either, the degree Celsius is an SI unit of temperature. [1] [2]
That doesn't mean we can't standardize on kelvins for things like boiling points. But when specified standard conditions such as 0 °C, 20 °C, or 25 °C are used, those are the numbers we should be using, none of those 298 K and 293.15 K numbers.
BTW, you remind me that a pet peeve of mine is people who do not know that kelvins are not capitalized (or that they do add an "s" in the plural). Maybe that should be mentioned in the guidelines, too. Gene Nygaard 28 June 2005 06:03 (UTC)
Please, let's use normal g/mol, °C, cP and similar, and spend the time on actually finding the data to put into the tables, and adding filled out infoboxes to pages which need them. Wim van Dorst June 28, 2005 21:16 (UTC).
I support Wim's last comment. When I put the table together, I tried to make a reasonable balance between SI and real-world. I think I suggested cP, because as Wim says nearly all tables report this, but I mentioned that Pa.s were acceptable. As for K vs °C, this has been debated before- the reality is that nearly all (organic) chemistry journals I read still use °C, and most of our users will be much more familiar with that- but physical chemists & physicists tend to like K, so let's put that in as well if convenient. Regarding g/mol vs. g mol−1, I think both forms are still in common use, and we can accept either- though if the former is considered "incorrect" I won't object to us changing that. I think amu are a bad idea, IMHO, let's stick to molar mass not molecular weight/mass, which (besides IUPAC issues) can get into awkward problems with isotopes, mass# vs. average atomic mass, etc. I want to keep producing & upgrading articles for now, and I find the current table is easy to work with, so I agree with Wim, let's fill up some tables! Walkerma 29 June 2005 04:56 (UTC)

Format within tables?

I am noticing that there is a certain amount of minor reverting of edits going on within tables, for example with propionic acid. Things I have seen, along with my personal preference, are as follows:

  • The "nowiki" there or not there around [] in CAS nos. I have been told that these brackets tell the computer to look for a reference or link- is this so? If so let's keep the nowikis, if not let's delete from the template.
  • Capitalise or not to capitalise words like soluble, miscible, corrosive that appear in the right hand column. I mildly prefer capitalised, but is this contrary to Wiki policy?
  • Units such as °C adjacent to the number, or with a space between? In the US the latter is a rigid standard, the only possible exception is %, so I strongly prefer that.
    • °C is an exception (along with °F). There should not be a space between the number and the degree sign (Source: the Green Book). However, there should be a space for K and for all other units (apart from °, ' and "). Physchim62 15:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree with PC, to follow the standard. In the table template, I put the '?°' as a strong suggestion to the user of the template to not put a space there. Wim van Dorst 21:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC).
A space between the number and the unit symbol is clearly required by ISO 31-0 and by the NIST (the U.S. national standards laboratory) Guide for the use of the International System of Units (SI)[3] and by the Oxford Style Manual (2003), section 7.5. See the recent discussion, all within the past month, at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/archive 25 and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/archive23. Gene Nygaard 22:57, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

We should agree on how to do this, then perhaps write it up in the style guide. This could also include some help on whitespace also. Walkerma 06:23, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

While someone is touching up the template, can we remove the blank lines that appear in some sections (particularly in the Supplementary Data Page section)? Minor personal querk, but they annoy me! Physchim62 15:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Thermodynamic data

I raised this question on the Water page as well but it may be more appropriate here. Why is there no thermodynamic data in the infobox. It is much more useful than some of the information you have in there now. The infobox should have heat of combustion, heat of formation, heat of fusion, heat of vaporization and heat capacities at STP. You have the viscosity in there, which is a number that really means nothing to normal people unless they compare it to something htey know or they have already seen the liquids viscosity, and is used mostly in pumping calculations while thermodynamic data is used in many calculations.

To get the thermodynamic data, click on the words "Thermodynamic data" and that will give you all of the thermodynamic data we have at present. If some of these data are missing, it's just because no one has uploaded them as yet. We moved away from having thermodynamic data written out in full in the main infobox because this section was beginning to dominate the page, so there was little room for other content. The articles are aimed at a variety of audiences, ranging from 10 year olds to PhD chemists, and these users have a wide variety of needs and interests. For example, as a working organic chemist myself, I have never had the need for any of these data in 25 years (12 years in industrial research), except for teaching thermodynamics!
The water_(molecule) page is using an older form of the thermodynamic data table, so it is possible that data are missing- the new form of the data table is linked from the Chembox page, you can see it here. We will be updating the water page in the next few months to comply with this format. In the meantime, if you have a specific piece of data you need, ask me on my talk page and I will be sure to answer your query directly. Walkerma 17:27, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
I see, this is a little misleading becuase most links are to definitions, so I thought that clicking on the thermodynamic data link would send me to a page about what thermodynamic data was in general. I could trapse around and look this data up too but wikipedia is just so much faster and easier than almost any other information website, I just like having a one stop shop for all things i need to know

I understand your point - when developing the infobox we experimented with labels such as "click here for data" and so on, but it was regarded as clumsy or ugly. The other way into the data is to click on the "supplementary data page" (a bolded link) which is clearly not a definition, but more data- this was seen as a solution to the problem, though clearly not a perfect one. I hope that most of the more technical users like yourself will become familiar with this aspect. I know it took me a while to understand several things on Wikipedia - e.g. that the foreign language links on the left weren't just for the home pages, but for the specific pages.

As for Wikipedia being a one-stop shop, that is what we are hoping for. We already have (I think) several hundred chemical compounds with articles, of which about 30 so far are what we call "A-class", but this number is growing. I hope in a few years you will be able to get all of the data you need right here (or on a supplementary page, at least)! Walkerma 15:36, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

  • We have roughly a thousand pages on chemical compounds on Wikipedia, which range in quality from the truely excellent to the excruciatingly awful! I agree with Walkerma that on many pages there is simply not the space to include full thermodynamic data in the main article: this certainly applies to water, and to ammonia (a page I am working on at the moment). There is too much data available for these simple compounds. However, there is a compromise possible for compounds where there is less data available in the literature. For these, the supplementary page is probably unnecessary, and the thermodynamic data can go as a section in the main table. I tend to list ΔfH° and S°, from which one can calculate ΔfG° and reaction ΔG°. Do not forget that thermodynamic data is not available for all compounds! Rhodium(III) chloride is one such example which I have come accross recently. Physchim62 18:26, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Chemdata supplement

I have created a template {{Chembox supplement}} to produce a blank version of the supplementary data page with the necessary headers which are linked to from the main chembox. Hence, clicking on the redlink on the main article page, typing {{subst:chembox supplement}} and saving the new page will produce a supplementary data page ready for completing.

May I take this opportunity to plead for an nth renaming of the supplementary data page (at least for new pages) to {{{PAGENAME}}} (data page). This make it consistent with other data pages in Wikipedia. I shall experiment with this on ammonia. Physchim62 15:49, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Can you furnish us with some examples of this type of page being used elsewhere? I don't think the element data pages are equivalent, as they do not contain supplementary data. If there are good equivalents elsewhere called (data page) then I agree that we should switch. If not, then I prefer to include the word supplementary/supplement in there somewhere, to indicate that it contains data not in the main table.
I would also like to suggest moving the MSDS section up to near the top of the page. Currently the Chembox "External MSDS" links to this supplement, so many people coming to this page will be trying to get MSDS data. An external link is only one line, whereas the tables take up a lot of screen space. Can we put this one line link near the top please, as I have done at toluene? If no one objects, I will make the change to the template.
Once we agree to the above, and any other template changes, then we should formally adopt version 1.0 of the supplementary data page. Walkerma 01:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I find the {{{PAGENAME}}} (data page) suggestion to be sound. I like it because it is:
    • Systematic
    • Less idiosyncratic than {{PAGENAME}} chemdata supplement: The unitiated might have a prayer of finding it. Along these lines, {{PAGENAME}} (data) might be an even better name.
    • Parenthetical, and therefore easily referenced on other pages using the pipe trick.
Shimmin 13:37, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Background color of chemboxes

Check Cyclopentadiene to see why it is probably a very bad idea to have a table background color other than white. Since we cannot use transparent formulas (the transparency feature of png is not supported by MS Internet Explorer) the borders of the formula image are visible. While it did not matter for the pictures of the inorganic salts, this is very, very ugly for formulas. So I plead to change the normal cell background to white. Cacycle 20:05, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the background for the image cell should definitely be white. The rest of the table background is okay, though, isn't it? The tables would look a bit plain if they were all white. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 20:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I fully admit that I'm colour blind, but my tables, and background are white. And I agree that is rather plain. But where is now the change? Can somebody who actually sees these changes make a screenprint for me, please? Wim van Dorst 21:25, 28 August 2005 (UTC).
Ah, hm. It's a very subtle shade of off-white (I hadn't realized how subtle until now); #fffbff instead of #ffffff. Also, it probably won't look different from white if your monitor doesn't display truecolor. Sodium hydroxide uses a somewhat different, more colorful style, which I guess might be better if the current style looks too white. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 22:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Tables have been coming out distinctly grey for me recently, whereas I would prefer white, but it didn't bother me enough to go searching for the reason. I noticed a TOCColors tag somewhere in the header which I though might have something to do with it. Sodium hydroxide is a non-standard version of the old format (someone's experiment?). Physchim62 09:05, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, class="toccolours" invokes the CSS settings that control the table colors and layout, which is much simpler than specifying individual cell colors. Personally, I think I prefer the table's current appearance. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 09:27, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
OK can someone who knows what they're doing (ie, not me!) change the colour of the background for the image cell to force #ffffff. The background for the rest of the table can be left as it is for the time being. Physchim62 09:47, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Eequor has already changed the article, but the first link points to the ugly version. I will change the template later today. BTW, I think it looks better if all normal cells have the same color (this would be white) than if we have white for the structure or image cell and grey for the rest. Cacycle 11:49, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Real white is fine with me. Yet, as we follow the CoffeeRoll colour scheme, perhaps that off-white was introduced?. And although it is plain, I agree with Cacycle that all cells the same colour is best-looking. Wim van Dorst 20:15, 29 August 2005 (UTC).
I am just a beginner on chemical articles here at wikipedia, but is it really relevant to argue about the background color of chemboxes? HappyApple 02:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

subst: must die!

Why in the world does this page recommend to use subst:? Why not make it a full-fledged template and use it as templates were designed to be used? If the full text of the template is copied into each article with subst:, then if someone fixes a typo or tweaks the formatting of the template, it won't do any good! All the articles will have to be changed manually! That's ridiculous. —Keenan Pepper 03:00, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you and if noone objects I would like to fix this problem and make it into a real infobox. David Björklund 20:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC){{
This is more advanced wiki-markup that I don't understand. I would guess that most WPChem participants don't understand. (We're just chemists after all.) Is there a link you can supply to explain the difference between full-flegded templates and subst:-templates? ~K 04:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

This is not really the best place to discuss Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits. Suffice it to say that by using subst:, the WikiProject avoids the costs of transclusion, while having a table which is easy to edit for less experienced editors. Please do not change it. Physchim62 12:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the explaination. ~K 14:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
If you understood that page, you're doing better than I am! (kidding, but only just ;) Physchim62 14:54, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

For completeness sake, I agree with PC here: the chem infobox is rather larger to make in into flexible templates. It would probably have to be built up out of numerous smaller ones, leading to very complex editing. And considering that we're only talking of several hundred pages with it, I rather prefer to not have it changed. Wim van Dorst 20:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC).

I am all for substituting a table into the article made of parts to be transcluded and it would be cool if David Björklund would sacrifice his precious time to do this. I would say we do not have to care at all about system resources for that - that would be like switching off pictures to save computing power :-S Cacycle 20:27, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

But what would be the advantage of using transclusion? Physchim62 03:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
{{chembox/melting point|110 °C}}
Something like {{chembox/melting point|110 °C}} in the article would result in:
This format is self-explaining and not more complex than the existing table. By editing just the templates it would be easy to change the table layout or the wikilinks of all existing chemboxes without modyfying hundreds (or soon thousands) of articles. If I remember correctly there were quite some changes made to the chembox during the last year... Cacycle 09:14, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
On the other hand, the sort of changes that have been made to the chembox over the last year would still have required editing every article as well as changing the templates. We already use transcluded templates for the format of the box: {{chembox header}} and {{chembox disclaimer}} for example, not forgetting {{nfpa}}. You seem to be proposing that we change all the chemboxes yet again for no change in article appearance and no greater simplicity in creating new tables (there would still have to be a template {{chembox}} to contain all these new templates, and the selction of which lines to include remains an editor task). I remain unconvinced. Physchim62 12:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who doesn't know a transclusion from a cisclusion, I have been quiet on this, but can I suggest we try the idea out? I think that I have very slight support of the new idea. The advantage as I see it is that it would be easier to follow- I do agree that the present tables are very awkward to read the code if you're not used to them. I suggest that we don't need to manually change all of our current chemboxes to include the new template style- though it might be a good idea anyway to list the pages that have the present table. Simply use the new style table for all new uses of the table.Walkerma 13:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The way I see it, the only way these one line templates will be useful would be to include them in the subst:Chembox template. Since the chembox is rather stable now, I don't see any advantages to making this change. We've already done all the hard work, so I think we should leave it alone. ~K 15:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with K and PC: the chembox isn't a changeable thing. We had a development spell, where significant changes where made (which would not have been any easier with an fully transcluded chembox), and now the chembox is pretty fixed. Better let it be hard to change: then no-one in his right mind will easily condider that it must be further 'improved'. Leave the chembox alone. Unless you yourself take it on you to edit all ~300 articles currently using the current version! Wim van Dorst 19:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC).

If anyone really wants to use transclusion, please see Template:Chembox transcluded. Physchim62 11:12, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Very impressive, PC. How would I use it? {{subst:Chembox transcluded}} in the article? Wim van Dorst 14:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC).
    • Exactly, but beware! I have not yet had the chance to test it for real, there may still be some bugs... Physchim62 16:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Nah. So you still use subst: to get a complicated table, which you then edit laboriously? There's no win in that. So it's only for changes afterwards? Small win, imho.

The proper implementation for a transcluded chembox would be 

 {{chembox Chemname=abc Property1=This Property2=That etc etc}}

and then it is up to wikipedia to make a nice chembox table out of that. But indeed that would need a very complicated programming, I agree to that.

  • I would suggest that it is quite simply impossible to make the chemboxes that way: they are not sufficiently standardised. Not our fault, you understand, I must get on to a passing Supreme Being and ask him/her why chemical compounds have such a range of different properties. Physchim62 17:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, there is a problem. There are so many new templates that they don't all work together.... I was forced to use subst to get the R/S templates to display properly on the inorganic chemboxes I did yesterday. I can see where the problem is on the SMILES template, but it's going to be a pain to fix it: it will fail for any compound with a double bond! Physchim62 17:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


International use of chembox, no subst please...

Hi :-) I have translated chembox to catalan. it's easy to copy, paste and translate if included in articles without subst, like SiO2. If subst is used, the translation work to be done is much higher... ca:Usuari:Joanjoc 13 January 2006

I'm new here. I love this Chemical infobox idea. I changed some pages over to it today. Just to clarify, to support easy translation of the tables, it is best to use Template:Chembox transcluded ? So, the right/recommended syntax is:
{{Chembox/IUPACName|mychemical}}
{{Chembox/OtherNames|?}}
{{Chembox/Formula|?}}
{{Chembox/SMILES|?}}
{{Chembox/MolarMass|?.??}}
{{Chembox/Appearance|?}}
etc.. etc...

I hope that is the recommended method. It is much easier to edit for new users than the very lengthy table syntax. Cheers, Jeff Carr 08:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Please use Transcluded Infobox syntax

Can this page be changed to recommend the use of Template:Chembox transcluded syntax instead. This has many advantages

  1. Simpler and shorter syntax
  2. Allows easy translation of all tables
  3. Stores values like molar mass as values that could be sorted numerically
  4. Temperatures would only need to be stored in C but could still be displayed as 0 C (32 F)
  5. Allows the wikipedians of individual chemical pages to easily pick and choose which sections are applicable/sensable
  6. Would allow other requested sections to be added to the template (Optical property, NMR spectra)

Jeff Carr 09:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The challenge using transclusions poses to the chemical articles is that there are enough variations on which properties or groups of properties are most appropriate to a given compound, that a single template doesn't fill the need. Rather, substitution has been used to provide the basic framework, which can be edited to fit any given compound's peculiarities. If some of the functionality discussed at meta:Extended_template_syntax were to be implemented, this situation would be changed. But as it is, chemical articles have enough variety of needs that I don't perceive templates with their present powers as fitting the bill. Shimmin 14:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
The Extended template syntax is interesting. I think I understand what you want. The standard wiki table syntax allows you to define your own rows and sections. The transcluded version does not. I added questions to the transcluded talk page about that same problem. If I understand the way templates work, you can change the main template page, and it will change for future people that past it into a new page. Kind of interesting cut and paste idea, but the transcluded concept is far superior. I can't yet find how one edits a transcluded template. Maybe it's admin's only or is something done via cvs? Jeff Carr 16:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I did post the above note after reading the archives because it seemed inconclusive and contradictary at times. It also intermingled with the advent of the transcluded option. I may have groked things wrong so this was an attempt to clarify things. Jeff Carr 16:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
We do make both options available, however, and personally I have begun to use the transcluded version - I just pick the variables that are appropriate for that type of compound. Our current transcluded version does allow flexibility since every variable has a separate template. I think we should post information on using BOTH options on this page. I'd prefer someone more knowledgable on this to explain how to use them properly (PC, how wrote the transcluded version, perhaps?). Walkerma 20:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps User:Physchim62 can explain how to make and how to modify trancluded infobox's. Jeff Carr 16:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at alpha-Pinene, my last effort. I think there were one or two variables with problems, but mostly it's OK. It won't accept pipes, though, e.g. for solubility in ether. Walkerma 23:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh! What? Someone called? ;) Wim is quite correct, the transcluded version still doesn't work properly, notably for the safety section; in fact, it is not a fully transcluded version and most of the benefits that Jeff Carr claims are not there for the moment. The (semi)-transcluded version does have the advantage of a shorter length of code in the article, and it is just as flexible as the traditional version. This last point is very important given the wide variety of "interesting data" which may or may not be appropriate for different compounds. We're a long way from the {{taxobox}}, and I have a feeling things will stay that way: chemical compounds are just more complicated than living organisms ;) Physchim62 (talk) 18:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The French are currently working on a transcluded chembox here: I'll see if I can get some ideas from them. Physchim62 (talk) 00:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Transclusion could work if we took an even more radical stance against table creep. If the standard chemboxes included only a few, generally relevant fields, and all other data were relegated to the data page, the trouble of every compound being exceptional in some way would go away. Shimmin 03:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

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