User talk:Walkerma/Archive5

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Walkerma. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

For other talk page archives see User talk:Walkerma/Archives. Other close archives include:

Archive1 — Archive2 — Archive3 — Archive4 — Archive6 — Archive7 — Archive8 — Archive9 — Archive10

Joining WP Chemistry

Frankly, my greatest interest is in concepts, but I think I should probably work on the organization of the section before anything else. We need to standardize the templates and formats used on these articles.--Dataphiliac 22:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the chemistry topic pages

The chemistry topic pages you have listed on your user page have been very helpful in starting to learn my way around the chemistry area of Wikipedia. I've copied them to my user page with a link to remind me where I found them. Thank you for the pointers. ChemGardener 16:45, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Glad it was useful. I see that you're already busy contributing polymer articles- good, we desperately need more polymer people! It would be great if you could help User:HappyCamper get Wikipedia:WikiProject_Polymers off the ground. It's clear to me that polymers need a different approach than simple compounds, but I don't have the expertise to say what. I got involved with Wikipedia myself mainly through Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals. Good luck! Walkerma 17:22, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Core topics

Hi, Walkerma. Thanks for your note and smart work. You made a good summary.

Although my original idea was to work through articles alphabetically, I now think it's better to go with some type of voting system. After the project stalled, for a while I was working toward the same basic goal through Wikipedia:Article improvement drive.

Also, I think it's best to start with a relatively small set of articles (maximum of 300). Once such a set is "ready", it could be released together in some form. The small size would keep the project more feasible. Then it could be expanded in stages.

You are right in that there has been very little real progress. I think projects such as this need a couple things: a core mass of people with consensus on basically a goal and a method, and a leader (not official, just one or more people to nudge things along and coordinate).

I think my original goals and methods were too ambitious, the group didn't get any real agreement after that, and I have some other things taking up more of my time.

Hope this is helpful. I'll be glad to answer more questions, but I'm on Wikipedia semi-intermittently. Best wishes. Maurreen (talk) 20:42, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia 1.0

Sounds great! I am glad this project is being pushed forward, I have been swamped with professional obligations, and so have not had time to contribute as much, but will send my thoughts along.

The two ideas I've advanced are:

1. The need for a citation catalog, which would link to wiki articles. 2. The need for a way of creating sufficient information so that an organization or individual creating a distribution of wikipedia would have the ability to automate much of the process. For example, a university wanting only articles which are very settled and have been carefully checked, and so on.

Stirling Newberry 00:54, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I will definitely take a look at them, and contribute if I have anything to add. Thanks for the heads up - your work is definitely appreciated. Stirling Newberry 21:00, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd just like to add my encouragement for the project. We can certainly find a publisher once we have a simple procedure in place. +sj + 04:46, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Request for the Chemical Photographer amongst us

Martin, as the outstanding and experient photographer of the Chemicals wikiproject, would you happen to have a good picture of acetic acid crystals? I have browsed the internet but found none (with or without copyright infringements). And I'm pretty sure that a good crystal picture would do a lot for FA-status! Wim van Dorst 12:27, 26 September 2005 (UTC).

No, I don't have a pic, but I'll look into doing it, though it may have to wait a few weeks. It might also be useful to have a picture to illustrate why it is called glacial acetic acid. I recall one of my PhD advisers favourite "UK vs. US" stories from when he visited (in winter) my alma mater, the University of Bristol, where Prof. Ollis showed him round and pointed out the HOAc bottles, "Here we regard acetic acid as a solid." This is because in the UK (unlike in the US) we often don't heat our labs much in winter, so the HOAc always freezes. Walkerma 13:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

It is actually the glacial ice crystals that I was thinking about! I was hoping that somebody could make some beautiful pictures of it. Obviously my mind then wandered to you.... I think we can wait a couple of weeks before we put acetic acid up for FAC. It took hydrochloric acid plenty of time too. Wim van Dorst 20:29, 26 September 2005 (UTC).

User:Wpchemwatcher

Hello Walkerma, I noticed a new user making edits to Wikiproject Chemicals called 'Wpchemwatcher'. The user page has links to you and Wimvandorst. I actually rather puzzled about this. Maybe you could explain? ~K 23:17, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi K, Wim and I are setting this up as an account to watch all of the items on the watchlist. We wanted to keep track of vandalism and upgrading of articles (for assessment) without straining our own personal watchlists. It turns out that PC already has a similar second account of his own, User:Person unknown. I tried to contact you via Wiki email about it, but your account gives the message "This user has not specified a valid e-mail address, or has chosen not to receive e-mail from other users." If however you send an email (to my usual usernameATpotsdamDOTedu) I can let you know more. Cheers, Walkerma 03:08, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. It all makes sense now. Sorry about the lack of non-Wikipedia contact info. I'll send you an email tomorrow. ~K 06:17, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

For other active users of WP:Chem, this specific watch account can be made available too. Feel free to mail Martin or me off-Wiki for details. PS. The account is intended for watching only: changes are by personal accounts. Wim van Dorst 19:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC).

and thank you!

let me return your thanks and congratulate you with the work you did on SN1 so far, that's a lot work. In fact I did start the bio's for K. C. Nicolaou, James Fraser Stoddart and Robert H. Grubbs tuesday because they were predicted to win. I am glad the work was not in vain V8rik 19:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

WP 1.0 Editorial Team

Well, as far as things that interest me, I would enjoy working on anything related to photography, France, and science(at a high school level or below). I enjoy copyediting and wikifying articles as well. I find the strategy of work via wikiprojects the most interesting, although I don't have a preference for any one strategy.

I'm not near Cornwall or Kingston, unfortunately. I'm in Mississauga. :) --Shanel 21:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I would be willing to contact Wikipedians in various projects. Is there any way to tell if someone has already contacted a wikiproject's members?--Shanel 23:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Game theory 1.0 articles

Martin - If its alright with you, I will respond to your request for articles about game theory on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Game theory page so that others can discuss it. I wouldn't yet recomend Game theory although, I'm in the process of substantially changing it (see Talk:Game theory). The new version will probably be up in two weeks or so. If you would prefer that I discuss it with other participants and then give you a consensus list somewhere else, just tell me where! --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 21:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Core topics assessments

Hi. Sorry, but I haven't been much at WP for a while. Your table looks good, but it's a little complicated for me. I made some evaluations and just listed them on the talk page.

You're doing good work. Maurreen (talk) 08:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Acetic Acid

Any success with the glacial acetic acid crystal pictures yet, as you promised on wikipedia:Peer_review/Acetic_acid? Please add to the discussion there. Wim van Dorst 21:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC).

I apologise for my inactivity, right now my life is getting very busy at work, I am desperately trying to get an Org Lett paper sent in, plus we have a stream of visitors at home. Also I tend to work offline over several nights, not ideal when the page is changing daily. However the main reason is the weather here- about 10 straight days of absolutely miserable weather. When it breaks I will try to have my wife's camera on hand! Walkerma 21:28, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Phosphoric acids and Phosphates

See Talk:Phosphoric acids and Phosphates. By the way, nice job on Phosphoryl chloride, which I just looked at. H Padleckas 11:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry I originally put the above short remark on your User:page instead of your Talk:page by mistake. H Padleckas 09:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Peer review of acetic acid

Yes, the review request was archived due to the fact that it had been listed for a month. This was done in accordance with Wikipedia:Peer review/Request removal policy. It should be noted that there are no restrictions on submitting a new peer review request for the article if there is still a need. --Allen3 ^talk 09:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Yo, Martin, may I ask your attention to my question on wikipedia talk:Acetic acid? Wim van Dorst 23:39, 2 November 2005 (UTC).

Wikimania, WP 1.0

Hi Walker,

Thanks for the reminder about a WM 2006 banner :-) Here's an HTML one you can use... {{Template:Wikimania2006Banner}}

It will probably be late july/early aug that we're in Boston, according to room availability; we'll discuss this at our IRC meeting next week. You should join us...

RfA thanks

Thank-you for expressing your confidence in me at my recent Request for Adminship. The final result was 40/0/0, and my "superpowers" have now been activated. I look forward to helping out with the development of the encyclopedia. Physchim62 (talk · contribs)

Commments

In order to keep everything coherent, I have responded to your comments on my talk page on my talk page. Thanks for all the support!the1physicist 05:40, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Tetrafluoroethane

Regarding your revert[1], what's the difference between an LC and an LD? LC₅₀ is linked to Lethal dose, which only mentions LD, not LC. So, when I made that edit, I just assumed it was a typo. LC50 is a redirect to LD50, which is mentioned on Lethal dose. However, neither seem to mention the difference. LD50 does mention LCT₅₀, which appears to me to be more suited to a gas then LD<sub50. And they mention an IC50, which unfortunately in a fully sans font, looks exactly like LC₅₀ with a lowercase L! These other articles fail to tell me enough to understand the differences, other then the fact that IC50 obviously has nothing at all to do with tetrafluoroethane. I'm very interested in this type of chemistry, but don't know much more then an EPA 609 test would cover. Perhaps you could explain it to me and fix those articles so they make more sense to laypeople? --Phroziac.·º^o(talk) 01:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a toxicologist, merely a chemist who has been on safety committees and tried to understand MSDS sheets. You are right that the LD50 article doesn't exactly cover it, though someone may well add this into the article. I checked, we don't have a separate LC50 article anywhere. However the context (the units, and the explanation of LC50 right after the link) makes it clear that the author was quoting an LC50 figure, not LD50 (LD50s are in mg dose per kg body weight usually). Like LCt50, LC50 is used typically for gases and vapours, so it seems appropriate for a gas like tetrafluoroethane. Unlike LCt50, there is no specified time dimension, though from memory I think they often measure it over a 10 minute period. In other words, if you expose 100 rats to 1500 g/m³ of this compound, 50 of them will be dead after 10 minutes. I wouldn't feel right composing a new LC50 article as it's not my main area, but I was certain that the use of the LC50 term in this article was right. Perhaps we can persuade Physchim62 to comment if he's watching? Walkerma 02:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. :) --Phroziac _. o º^{O (mmm chicken)} 04:19, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry Martin, your talk page is still on my Watchlist! The "C" in LC50 stands for "concentration" so yes, it is usually used for gases. LC50 values must specify the time period over which they were measured and the species used: e.g. 2800 mg/m³/4 h (mouse), 6550 mg/m³/4 h (guinea pig) (the values for carbon monoxide from Hill, C. S. (1970). "The acute hyperbaric toxicity of carbon monoxide." Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 17:752–60.) Time periods used vary from 5 min to 8 h. LCt50 values assume Haber's law, which is often invalid (as LD50 mentions for the case of hydrogen cyanide)

As for tetrafluoroethane, I cannot find a reference to its LC50 at the moment (but I will check in the library later). I would be amazed if it killed in 10 min, even at 1500 g/m³ (35% in air): the value is probably over 4 h, maybe even longer. Incidentally, DuPont quote an even higher value, 56.7% (death in these circumstances is probably from anoxia rather than toxicity).

I agree that we need a separate article on LC50, and I guess it falls to me to write it! Physchim62 (talk) 05:33, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I was right, the quoted LC50 value for tetrafluoroethane in rats was for a four hour exposure. 1700 g/m³ for a two hour exposure in mice. (Source: Sigma-Aldrich) Physchim62 (talk) 07:40, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Article Validation

I thought you might like to know that an Article Validation feature (a subset of wikisort) is about to be turned on in the wiki software. I actually just found out today, and only because I read some obscure page. Anyhow, I have solicited Magnus for information, so I'll keep you up to date if you want. User:The1physicist

Thanks for the update, I'll be biting my fingernails! I'm away for Thanksgiving, so can't check in very often, but please let me know if anything major is happening. Thanks a lot, Walkerma 02:36, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Butter

Can you please review this article. It is up for Wikipedia:Peer review/Butter/archive1 and I noticed it could use some work on the chemical properties/analysis side (and fact check what I added). Thank you in advance for any contributions you make. --maclean25 08:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately it's not really my field, and my biochemistry is very weak. I think you're right about the rancid butter giving butyric acid (that's how it got its name). However I think there may be some errors:

You shouldn't say that there is a methyl at the other end, it's confusing to a chemist at least because it implies a methyl isolated from other C-H, which I don't think is true here.
Most fats are esters, called triglycerides, with a group derived from glycerol at the end. They are not fatty acids, though they are considered derivatives (esters) of fatty acids. (Just like salt is not a metal, though it is a derivative (sodium chloride) of the metal sodium).
I don't think Carbon-carbon double bonds will form just on warming. That implies a chemical process involving loss of hydrogen gas, and it would mean that melting butter on a large scale could lead to pressurisation and explostions. It would also mean that you would be converting a saturated fat to an unsaturated fat, and the butter would not solidify when it cooled (it would be an irreversible process). Saturated fats (like butter, I think) are esters of saturated fatty acids like stearic acid, and tend to be solids at 25 C. Oils like olive oil are derivatives of unsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid. But converting between these is a chemical change, such as is done at a margarine plant where hydrogen is added to the oleyl group to make a stearyl group.

I have taken out the most obvious errors, but we really need a biochemist to look at it. Walkerma 16:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

WP 1.0, anime and manga

Re Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga#Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Not actually part of the wikiproject thing, so replying here. I think that the general idea of using wikiprojects to self asses and sugest articles for 1.0 is a good one, as demoed by the amazing organisation of the chem bunch, but... to be quite frank, the anime and manga articles are pretty uniformly poor. It's not just the general fan thing of including reams of plot summary and character bio, the language barrier between the subject and many of the contributers (including me) means there's a huge amount of omission, inaccuracy, and outright fallacy in even the better articles. To react to your suggestions, Anime is horribley dated and very narrow in scope for such a big topic (History of anime is actually much better), and most of the suggested B-s are nowhere near the quality of the Chem B-s, Robotech for instance has two whole screens of staff/cast for the US chop-job but almost no mention in the article about who actually *made* it, and most of the rest of the article is lists of... not very interesting things as well. There are no anime/manga FAs atm for good reason, give it some time, and a bit more perspective, that'll change. --zippedmartin 17:40, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the feedback. This is the kind of information that only an expert in the subject would know, as you can tell I'm not an expert! I had been surprised that no one responded, given that it seems like an active group. One of the nice side-effects of this request for quality articles is that people often take a fresh look at the overall quality of the articles instead of just debating trivial details (something we are all prone to do). Do you think any, perhaps History of anime, could be at least B-class? Cheers, Walkerma 21:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)