User:R8R/Rethinking rules on spellings of elements

The following text is a draft for a formal proposal to limit the applicability of WP:ALUM

Beautiful illustration to the problem that was meant to be solved

In regular life, Al is undoubtedly "aluminum" in the U.S. and "aluminium" in the UK in common speech. It may be argued, however, that we must follow the "language of science" rather than the common language and we will consider this viewpoint.

In actual science, people appear divided on this issue. For instance, the Royal Chemical Society uses "aluminium" while the American Chemical Society uses "aluminum."

Back in 2004, this rule was installed. It did seem to solve the problem of spelling warring at the moment especially given that WP:ENGVAR at that moment did not appear to be a solid unviolatable guideline and that IUPAC's latest guideline on inorganic chemistry, the Red Book, only listed "aluminium" as a possible spelling. Years passed. Wikipedia's guides strengthened and so did their enforcability, a new Red Book accepted "aluminum" as a possibility. There is no longer a single sensible reason to keep the rule in place -- but yet we still do.

Sulfur represents a slightly different case -- more on that later.

What is this proposal about?

WP:ALUM is a rule that orders to use spellings aluminium, caesium, and sulfur for any chemistry-related purpose in every context, even when they contradict the standard of the variety of English used in the article otherwise. The following proposal suggests limiting the scope of the said policy.

Why is the original rule problematic? (incomplete)

(You can see the length of discussions at Talk:Aluminium/Spelling, Talk:Caesium/Spelling, and Talk:Sulfur/Spelling.)

To give context to any subsequent discussion, it is importnat to mention that there are many people in Britain unfamiliar with the spelling sulfur and there are many people in the United States unfamiliar with the spellings aluminium and caesium. It is just as important to realize, however, that this also works the other way around, and there are people in Britain unfamiliar with aluminum and cesium and people in the U.S. unfamiliar with the spelling sulphur.

The rule, as it is, uses the listed spellings because they are "the international standard spellings of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)", quoting sources: ^[1]^[2]. It remains to be seen how their recommendations (both books claim to contain recommendations, rather than standards to comply with). Source 1, the Blue Book, lists nomenclature for organic compounds. This source may serve as an example that the IUPAC indeed uses these names, but not as the ultimate recommendation advising against the alternative spellings mentioned here. Source 2, the Red Book, is the major recommendation on the issue. The issue of alternative spellings has been mentioned once, on page 249, in notes under a table listing all elements: "The alternative spelling ‘aluminum’ is commonly used" and "The alternative spelling ‘cesium’ is commonly used." So while the IUPAC does prefer their spellings, they do acknoledge the fact that other people can use their for "aluminum" and "cesium." The spelling "sulphur" has notably not been acknowledged;

This violates the spitit of WP:ENGVAR

History of accepting this rule in first place (incomplete)

On May 23, 2005, User:---Physchim62 (add working link later) initially suggested that a set of rules on nomenclature for WP:CHEMS should be invented. After the proposal received some support, they started a page with a draft on June 4. On June 5, the contested proposal has been added to the draft. On June 6, this page was added as to the project space within WP:CHEMS. On July 7, its contents have been added to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry), thus marking the moment when the rule went live.

Nobody really cared about this issue as the development moved on?

In 2008, an attempt was undertaken to extend the scope of the rule to other articles as well; protests from the newly affected fields prevented that move from taking ground.

Why does the IUPAC have a format of a favored spelling and should we too? (not yet written)

No; the IUPAC is an organization and it's fine for an organization to have internal standards. We are an international encyclopedia trying to not intimidat people with oyur standrads.

What is being suggested?

There are three possible ways to proceed.

We can acknowledge the fact other people use different spellings to its minimum, allowing using them in texts of articles, but not in titles, keeping uniformity of spellings within them;
We can acknowledge this fact by allowing to use different spellings freely, only having the current spellings as mandatory for category names;
We can acknowledge this fact without any further limitations.

^ Panico, R.; Powell, W. H. (Eds.) (1994). A Guide to IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Compounds 1993. Oxford: Blackwell Science. ISBN 0-6320-3488-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (2005). Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 2005). Cambridge (UK): RSC–IUPAC. ISBN 0-85404-438-8. pp. 47, 248. Electronic version.

[bluebook-1] Panico, R.; Powell, W. H. (Eds.) (1994). A Guide to IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Compounds 1993. Oxford: Blackwell Science. ISBN 0-6320-3488-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[redbook-2] International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (2005). Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 2005). Cambridge (UK): RSC–IUPAC. ISBN 0-85404-438-8. pp. 47, 248. Electronic version.

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