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• Should group 12 elements be moved out of the transition metal category per IUPAC recommendations? Comment here.

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Announcements  · watch · refresh ·  · history · Archive
Current FACs, FARs, GANs, GARs, PRs, COMs or similar activities

• WP 0.7 article clean-up and version selection is the WikiProject Elements COTM until the deadline, 20 October.
• Iridium was upgraded to A-class after a review and is now a good article nominee.
• Niobium is a good article nominee.
• The second edition of Cryptic's elements report has been published and is linked from the Articles tab with the Wikipedia 1.0 auto-generated list of articles

Achievements
Successful FACs, FARs, GANs, GARs, or milestones

• Germanium, the August 2008 Collaboration of the Month, became a good article on September 12, 2008, brought a bounty of US$25 offered by mav, and eventually became a featured article on October 4, 2008.
• With yttrium there are now 10 featured chemical element articles.
• Yttrium became a good article on August 20, 2008 and a featured article on September 17, 2008.
• Noble gas appeared as today's featured article on August 18, 2008.
• Period 1 elements became a featured topic on August 16, 2008..
• Noble gases became our first featured topic on August 6, 2008.

More achievements

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8

Contents 1 Goals 2 "Precautions" 3 Merging of lists of type List of elements by XXX 4 article importance and hits 5 colorless gases images 6 Niobium 7 The Periodic Table of Videos 8 Template:Cite doi 9 Metalloids 10 hafnium rating 11 Ilmenium Pelopium Celtium.... 12 Trusted sources 13 Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Chemical elements 14 Boron isotope ratio 15 Importance rating of elements 15.1 opinions and proposals 16 Collaboration of the month for October 17 Misleading neutron numbers 18 Isomer discrepancy 19 Image Map for nav images 20 IUPAC definition for transition metals 21 Electron shell diagrams 22 Decays FROM?

Goals

watch · refresh · history

Short term

1. Bring Iridium, one of August's Critical Articles, to FA class.
2. Bring the vital article Carbon at least to GA standards.
3. Bring Platinum to at least B-class standards.

Mid term

1. Fix the issues that resulted in the WP:VITAL articles Copper and Aluminium delisting as GA.
2. Bring all B-class vital articles (Gold, Iron, Nitrogen, Silicon, Silver) to A-class or above
3. Bring the remaining main group elements (osmium, astatine, and actinium) from Start to C-class or above.
4. Bring Discoveries of the chemical elements and Periodic table to GA standard (or above).

Longer term

1. Bring the rest of the articles marked as WP:VITAL on the Articles subpage (Aluminum, Sulfur, Copper, Gold, Iron, Nitrogen, Silicon, Silver) to FA standard (4/13 = 31% as of 6 Feb 2008)
2. Bring all articles marked as Top Importance on the article subpage to GA standard (or above).
3. Bring all articles marked as High Importance on the article subpage to A-class (or above).
4. Bring all the other articles to B-class (or above).

Ultimate goal

1. Bring all element and supporting articles to FA standard (turn the Periodic Table by Quality blue)

"Precautions"

During Yttrium's GAN, User:jimfbleak commented that Precautions should be changed to Hazards. I responded that the former is a widely-accepted heading, and just to be sure, I quickly did a tally of all the element articles:

Heading	Frequency
Precautions	58
Toxicity	8
Safety	7
Health effects	2
Hazards	0
Other	5

There are a few oddballs, such as iodine which has both Toxicity and Precautions, and plutonium which has Toxicity as a subheading to Precautions. Of the variants I've seen, Precautions and Safety seem to make the most sense as they are both all-encompassing, whereas Toxicity and Health effects seem too specific. However, specific precautions such as thosem may be useful for subheadings as in the the plutonium example.

While Precautions currently reigns supreme in terms of numbers, we should establish some consensus as to what the most correct heading is. Once that happens, perhaps someone familiar with AWB can quickly change all of the headings to the one we agree upon. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I prefer 'Precautions' b/c it is non-alarmist and general but still descriptive. Things like 'Toxicity', 'Health effects' and 'Safety' are valid subsections under 'Precautions' but I don't think that the alarmist-sounding 'Hazards' should ever be used. My 2 cents. --mav (talk) 03:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Merging of lists of type List of elements by XXX

As first mentioned above, it appears that the proposal to combine the lists has gained consensus. I am glad to do the necessary legwork to merge and fix sorting (having extensive experience with the sortable tables after cleaning up the lists in Category:Lists of radio stations in the United States). All that needs to be determined is (a) which columns to include, (b) what order to put said columns in, and (c) what column to have the initial sort by (atomic number, I presume?). JPG-GR (talk) 20:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest first to try and have two pages: by physical properties and by atomic properties:

Z, symbol, boiling point, melting point, critical point, mohs scale (of allotrope stable at SCT)?, appearance (image?), notes (say the allotrope)

after that also add: heat of fusion, heat of vaporization, specific ehat capacity?

Z, symbol, name, atomic mass, period, group, chemical series,

later to be added: electronic structure(unsortable), most common oxidations state, pauli electronegativity, first ionization energy, atomic radius, covalent radius,

Also, try to not touch the present tables, but instead move them to an archive of the talk-page of the future articles. Also, please do not touch the two FLs yeat (by name and by symbol). Nergaal (talk) 23:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I think 11-13 columns, as suggested, is just a slight bit of overkill. JPG-GR (talk) 00:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

first line in each list contains the info that would appear from mergers; second line stuff that we might want to add after the mergers. so for now you should get 8 & 7. after mergers more might be added if necessary. Ah, and one more thing: thanks for the help! Nergaal (talk) 00:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I've created List of elements by atomic properties & List of elements by physical properties with what I meant.

Whether now or later, 11-13 columns is overkill. Surely much of this info can be found in the articles themselves. JPG-GR (talk) 01:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "chemical series"? That's a wikipedianism with no weight in the real world, and should be eradicated. --Itub (talk) 09:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

agree Nergaal (talk) 14:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

article importance and hits

I went through pretty much all the articles labeled with the chem el template and:

• I noticed that all elements except unnamed ones have 3k hits.
• I've labeled importance of the element articles according to: Mid for under ~10k hits; High for up to ~25k; and Top over that.
• I've tried to label the rest of the articles similarly, but dropping them 1 class (so Low for first category, mid next and high); only top ones are chemical elem and periodic table.
• some articles such as neodymium are accessed weirdly often. ??? Nergaal (talk) 21:39, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

colorless gases images

I have been approached by a contributor that left me this message:

Hello, I see you have reverted my removal of the picture in Template:Infobox krypton. I have serious doubts if this picture carries any useful information to the reader. IMHO from this one can imagine krypton in vials forms a bubble that casts a brownish shadow or it is itself an unclear brownish substance or it is a brownish stain on a fabric. There is no way to photograph a colorless gas and any trial is doomed to defeat: instead of being helpful, may only misguide somebody. I know, pictures are nice and make the article good looking but Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a tabloid. :-) The same holds for Template:Infobox hydrogen, of course. Regards, Michał Sobkowski (talk) 16:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to know what do you guys thing about the images (although this might have been discussed in the past). Nergaal (talk) 17:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Niobium

Is Niobium still a Start or is it already C- or even B-Class?--Stone (talk) 05:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It is definitely not a B, since it completely lacks a chemistry section. It has refs, but it is a bit short... still, probably better than the other starts we have. Nergaal (talk) 05:32, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

By now we have a short chemistry section! --Stone (talk) 10:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

But know its at last a C? With Occurence, Production and Chemistry! Look at the difference [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Niobium&diff=235896426&oldid=231538240. --Stone (talk) 21:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I love this wikiproject! :) Nergaal (talk) 22:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Now that is B I want to get it to A! As there is no formal A-Class article candidates‎, I will aske here for a few hints what should be improfed in the article to get it A-Class.--Stone (talk) 08:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Expand the lead to two paragraphs, expand Precautions with the help of a good source (OSHA or an MSDS, I can help with that), verify Isotopes section (NUBASE?), merge Numismatics into Applications, scan the references for typos and consistent formatting, deal with the {{clarifyme}} tags (I've left comments next to each tag within the article itself), and a good thorough copyedit. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Will try to deal with the things! Thanks.--Stone (talk) 20:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Precautions section has now some hidden refs (have to read them), MSDS and OSHA say nothing harmful. The Isotopes I have to get the one and only ref possible. Numismatics merged into Applications, and found refs for the jewlery and the anodizing colours. {{clarifyme}} The ton is and will always be metric if I write it! (37/128 inches as diameter of something...., why would sombody invent this). The niobium steel was interesting vor pipelines.--Stone (talk) 22:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

If by "the one and only ref possible" you mean Nubase, I'll do that if you'd like. I've rewritten several isotopes sections using Nubase, and I think I've gotten it down to an exact science at this point. :) --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Would be great if you could help wth the isotopes! I am a chemist and no very familar with isotops.--Stone (talk) 12:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've already gotten started, and I should be done compiling all of the info in the next couple of days. I always check Nubase itself rather than Isotopes of niobium for extra accuracy! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've added a few ref tags myself, and expanded the history section. Nergaal (talk) 04:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Any other suggestions? --Stone (talk) 12:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The Periodic Table of Videos

I would like to propose the addition of the Periodic Table of Videos to each element on wikipedia as an external link. The following descrition of the videos is provided on their homepage:

"Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version has a short video about each one. Since launching this site, our videos have been watched more than 1.9 million times. But we're not finished yet. We've started updating all the videos with new stories, better samples and bigger experiments. So once you've watched all 118 videos, make sure you come back and check on our progress." http://www.periodicvideos.com

The videos are all also on youtube which I believe would be the best site to link and the creator gives permission and would prefer links to the youtube videos.

Please see as an example: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YvSkXd_VVYk

Many thanks for your consideration.

Richnotts (talk) 07:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• I have watched about twenty of these videos this evening: almost every one of them had some sort of scientific error in it. I don't think there is any harm in having them as external links if the editors on any particular article find them useful but, in their current state, I would hesitate to give them tacit approval by linking them on a systematic basis. Physchim62 (talk) 22:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Cite doi

I stumped onto this template, which I think could be extremely neat for reffing journals in the future without bothering about formatting. Nergaal (talk) 19:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Metalloids

I made some arrangements there, but since I´m not much sure on these topics would be good that somebody checks. I removed Astatine and included Polonium. --Feministo (talk) 10:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

hafnium rating

Hi hafnium needs a look for typos and a rerating! It changed a little from yesterday. I do not want to do rate it, but would like to have it at least C-Class.--Stone (talk) 20:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

thanks for spotting that :D. Nergaal (talk) 00:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

But now it should go for a B-Class!!-Stone (talk) 21:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Ilmenium Pelopium Celtium....

I wanted to know how to make a good page with alle the discovered elements which have a place in chemical peer reviewed articles but later where not confirmed. Should we make:

• one big article with all of them named false claims of elemet discovery or rejected elements discoveries
• an idividual article for every name.
• include the names into the element pages (which is problematic for some of the elements which where mixtures or with celtium were the chemistry of REE was found for the element 72, but later was shown that the element is not REE and had nothing todo with 72 now hafnium).--Stone (talk) 09:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hrm. When I was working on francium, there were several false/erroneous claims to its discovery, such as moldavium and alcalinium. I just made each proposed name a redirect to francium and wrote a section dedicated to the false discoveries. I don't know if this model would work for every situation, but it seems to be suitable for francium. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I suggest a summary/list article on all the "false elements", with possibly articles on individual notable cases, and of course mention them in the history sections of real elements where relevant. We have an article on coronium already, and maybe the list of discredited substances can be useful too. --Itub (talk) 21:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe the non-confirmed elements should/could go into the List of chemical elements naming controversies article. Nergaal (talk) 00:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think a naming controversy is the same as a discredited discovery or a non-existent element. But anyway, I found two more articles on such elements: ausonium and hesperium. The List of elements by symbol also has a section of "symbols not currently used" that includes discredited discoveries. --Itub (talk) 07:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to rename the page. I just thought that they are related. Nergaal (talk) 00:31, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Trusted sources

From the FAC on Yttrium, this should be a temporary place to build some database of trusted and untrusted sources. Nergaal (talk) 19:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)\

Trusted sources

This should also read as suggested sources for the editors to look at in case they are looking for information. Think of this section as "suggested database".

1. acs juournals (acs.com)
2. other journals of international relevance (usually in English)
3. nubase????
4. usgs.gov
5. other .gov ???

Unreliable sources

Mostly for websites that have been shown/agreed upon that do not represent reliability. These are to be used ONLY in articles that are not GA/GAN, or FA/FAC. Link to relevant discussion where the reliability was "disproven" is preferred for future reference

1. lenntech.com PR:ununoctium
2. webelements.com PR:ununoctium
3. apsidium.com PR:ununoctium

Dubious sources

Sources that have not been clearly shown to be unreliable but they might be suspicious. They ought to be used only for less essential and less controversial parts of the article.

1. patents
2. vankrogt.com

Whys hould the journals usually be English? For most of the elements the discovery is in the time when the dominating publishing language was German. The French and Swedish journals are by far better for the history section than the English ones.--Stone (talk) 22:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that when you are citing the paper that reported the original discovery, you can't choose the language! (Unless someone published a translation.) But if you are looking at recent papers about the history of the element, and you had the opportunity to choose between two similar sources but only one is in English, it is preferable to cite the one in English if possible. I don't expect this situation to come up often, tough. --Itub (talk) 06:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I think webelements should be considered a "reliable source". --Rifleman 82 (talk) 08:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Although webelements is a very good website and the information there is generally reliable in the normal sense of the word, I don't think we should treat it as a "reliable source" for featured articles because it generally doesn't cite its sources. My definition of an ideal reliable source is one that allows you to trace the data or claim back to the primary source, or is authoritative, or both. I would feel more comfortable treating vankrogt.com as a reliable source because, although it is a self-published website (something that many people in WP seem to dislike), it cites its sources in detail and seems reasonably "scholarly". Also, vankrogt tends to provide details about the history of the elements that are hard to find elsewhere (because they are directly based on very old primary sources), whereas webelements generally provides information that you could cite from many other places. --Itub (talk) 09:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Chemical elements

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI: All the known elements will in fact be included, because they will be grandfathered in from Version 0.5. Walkerma (talk) 04:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Boron isotope ratio

I wanted to ask, where I can get the isotope ratio for boron, the article does not give a source. In the text several percentages are given. I found several papers and added them as hidden coment to the isotope section. What I found out is that the isotop ratio varies by 90⁰/₀₀ for me this means 9% which makes everything from 78-87 is OK (81% (+3 to -6)% (from lit)). Should we quote the NIST NBS SRN 951 standard? They give in their analysis [1] B-10/B11 0.2473 ± 0.0002 (Boron-10, atom percent (19.827 ± 0.013) and Boron-11, atom percent 80.173 ± 0.013). They also published a long paper on the composition [2]. Some people already complained about the not very clear statments in the article. I would go for the NIST standart and clearly state where it came from!--Stone (talk) 16:14, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe the IUPAC publisher a list of atomic weights every several years. You could probably use that to calculate what ratio are they using (since there are only 2 isotopes). Nergaal (talk) 21:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The best reference is probably the NIST Isotopic Composition page, which give 19.9(7)% and 80.1(7)%. The isotopic composition is complicated by the geological variations which occur (boron from Turkey is richer in ¹⁰B than boron from the U.S.) and by the fact that commercial supplies are often depleted in ¹⁰B by the nuclear industry. Physchim62 (talk) 22:01, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I changed the info box by adding the reference and a fact tag to the variation, because this needs a citation. Second thing is the sentence:δ¹¹B values in natural waters, ranging from -16 to +59. What unit? %, ⁰/₀₀, ppm or ppb? Without unit it does not make sense.--Stone (talk) 06:22, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Importance rating of elements

this discussion was started on the hafnium page

;Importance rating

• I'm not sure why this is high-importance. There certainly isn't much to say about this element and there aren't many uses for it.

--mav (talk) 17:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Importance: I thought that all the main-group elements are high-imp (a few of them are top though), while the lanthanoids and most of period 7 are mid. Nergaal (talk) 21:59, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The only transition elements that are main group elements are the in group 12. But even if hafnium were in the main group, I wouldn't consider it high importance b/c: It does not head its group/period, is not biologically important, not widely-used b/c of how hard it is to extract, not common on earth or the universe, does not have many outstanding properties (except for neutron absorption of one of its isotopes), not historically very important (missed that boat by being the second to last stable element found, and not the last), in the second to last popularity category we have, and a few other things (not to mention, that there isn't much to say about the element). B/c of all that, I'd rate it as mid-importance (if it were not for the neutron absorbence and the fact that it was predicted by Bohr's model, I'd rate it as low). The more I think of it, the more I think we need a point system for importance that would assign points across a broad range of areas. I'd just like us to have a more systemic grading system for importance. --mav (talk) 23:05, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• my thought was to have all the group elements (1 through 18) until actinium (except for the lanthanoids) as rated as high-importance; of these, a few select ones would be top, while all the other confirmed elements would be mid. the Uux elements would then be low (except for 118). All the other supporting pages (groups, periods, lists, etc.) would be rated as a low or mid importance (except a few that are high)—in other words similar reasoning, but one class lower. Please suggest comments/improvements/changes on this scale. 00:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

opinions and proposals

• • I think that a finer-grained approach is needed. A point-based approach may look like this (this is just an example):

Points When element...

+2 is in the main group

+2 tops its group

+1 has stable isotopes

+1 is naturally-occurring

+1 is relatively abundant

+1 is biologically important (+2 if vital to life)

+1 is economically important (+2 if vital)

+1 is historically important to the development of chemistry (+2 if particularly so)

+1 is otherwise historically important (+2 if particularly so)

+1 has a particularly unusual property (such as, not following a period/group/orbital/phase trend)

+2 has a property that is the "most" or "least" of any other element (exm: most dense, least electronegative, etc)

+2 is in most popular category per User:Cryptic C62/Elements

+1.5 is in second most popular per above

+1 is in third most popular per above

0.5 is in fourth most popular per above

But things like the above (remember, this is just an example) would only be used when it is not obvious what the importance rating of an element should be. Some obvious things, IMO: Any element that tops its group is at least high importance and anything vital to life or industry is also at least that important as well. I would go further and say that any element that both tops its group and is in the main group is top importance and any article that both tops its group and is vital to life or industry is also top importance. Further, any element known since before recorded history should be top importance. Other tops and highs exist, but I think some type of test (like the above example point list) should be used to find those. The main point that I want to get across is that we should have some documented rationale for the ratings. A periodic table by importance would help us find our way on this issue. --mav (talk) 03:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I heard 'periodic table by xxx' and my ears perked up. This sounds like a job for me, and one which I would do happily. The points system you've outlined seems fine to me, though I'd like to refrain from participating in the discussion thereof, much as I refrain from evaluating articles by quality, due to the inherent conflict of interest I have as the statistics tracker. As such, whatever system you guys come up with, I will eagerly implement it. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine by me. I wanted to have something simple. It might be a bunch of work, but if someone is willing to do it the ok. Cryptic, I guess you could make up some list based on this values and see what we get (keeping some sort of variables though for ease of future refinements). Nergaal (talk) 05:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I could easily just publish a table with columns like Popularity and Stable, then just total it all up. That would make it easy to adjust and correct. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 22:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I won't object to any of the proposals, but I feel I have to give my opinion that worrying about the importance rankings of the elements is a waste of time. I think the importance ranking scheme is useful for wikiprojects that have thousands of articles and need to produce manageable lists of articles to focus their attention. In contrast, we only have a little over a hundred elements that we all know by name and can keep track of (plus some subsidiary lists and articles about groups and periods). Perhaps the top-importance category could be useful for finding which ones need to be featured, although many of us, and certainly I, have a tendency for featuring articles because they are easy or interesting, not because they are important. But does worrying about the distinction between high- and mid-importance really help in any way? On the other hand, I do feel that the list of popularity assembled by Cryptic C62 is really useful because it gives us some indication of what the readers are actually looking for. --Itub (talk) 06:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration of the month for October

Per above, the 0.7 version of Wikipedia is being finalized and the deadline for WikiProjects to select particular versions of articles is 20 October. I'd like us to help by concentrating our efforts on article clean-up (8 items) and by selecting good versions of at least the all the top and high importance articles. This would be our COTM from now until 20 October. This will be a great opportunity for us to clean-house, since we have company coming over. What do you think? --mav (talk) 02:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I was just about to start working on platinum, and I already did a bunch of research. As much as I'd all love to see us all concentrate on one article and whip it into shape overnight, this is definitely a smart idea for CotM. I suppose I'll just quickly plop all of my facts for platinum and start tinkering around with the 8 cleanup articles. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me. From what I remember, at least half of those articles have small tags that should take at most 30mins to solve. There might be a couple though that might take a bit more. But talking of COTM, I remembered a statistics I did a while ago on potential topics, and posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements/Articles. Perhaps in the future some of the COTMs could be chosen from one of the articles there. Nergaal (talk) 04:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I looked at several articles the last few weeks and the 8 articles are not the only one with problems. I think before we are ready for 0.7 version of Wikipedia most of the articles need alook. (for example: Osmium stated that Turkey has 10x the world reserves of the metal; Boron has problems with the abundace of isotops and has no chemistry nor a real compounds section, making it more C-Class than b). My COTM would be a reassesment of ALL articles by quality and add some fact tags and look for the obvious problems. There are 118 minus the 5 or 10 last promoted.--Stone (talk) 05:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

actually 117 minus ~19. anyways, I believe that jsut going on a rampage right now is not really necessary. Focusing out work on a few articles at a time seemed to work fine, and I am not sure it would help to change that now. Also, this is not the 1.0 release, so nobody should expect the articles to be perfect. my 2 cents. Nergaal (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

For me it would be good if we can read every article once and say yes or no, no extensive editing, but to tag it with clerify and fact tags, that the 0.7 reader knows where we are not sure. I know that this work is not very nice and having a Good or even featured article feels better, but for the whole project it would help. We are half a dozend people and if everyboday reads a article a day we will have plenty of time to do something else.--Stone (talk) 09:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Element Quality Check--Stone (talk) 10:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Where I live, it is now first of October. What is the Collaboration of the month for October? --Stone (talk) 22:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. --mav (talk) 00:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Misleading neutron numbers

This topic has come up before, but nothing was decided. The figures that we have on each element infobox have a proton and neutron count. For example, see the figure for iridium on the right. This one says that iridium has 115 neutrons, which is misleading. That number actually corresponds to an artificial radioisotope, whereas the natural isotopes have 114 and 116 neutrons (resulting in an "average" of 115). I was thinking of simply removing the neutron count from the figure, but what do you think? Another option is to give a range, but that might take too much space, and would be arbitrary to some extent. But if we remove the neutron count, what do we do with the proton count? Yet another option would be to give the atomic weight instead of the neutron count (rounded to no more than four significant figures to make it fit). --Itub (talk) 09:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I would go for showing atomic number and atomic weight. There is a table of four-figure atomic weights in the latter article. Physchim62 (talk) 10:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Just give the neutron count of the most abundant isotope. Nergaal (talk) 19:34, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly the intent of the numbers. Trouble is, that bad sources were used and some people did not understand what the intent was (thus they averaged things). --mav (talk) 03:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm in the process of fixing these. It will take some time. --mav (talk) 05:02, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been able to fix all the nav images in periods 1 - 5 that have full-sized PNGs. Unfortunately, the following nav images are lower resolution versions and thus much harder to edit and useless for the ImageMap (thus, not worth editing, IMO). These will need to be recreated at the 800 x 270 pixel size:

Ar, Pd, Id, Y, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Ge, As, Se, Br, Kr, Ar, Cl, S, P, Si, Al

-- mav (talk) 19:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Isomer discrepancy

I've also relied on Nubase2003 for info on isotopes and isomers, as the data I collect have, up until this point, agreed with an articles corresponding isotopes of xxx page. However, there is a vast inconsistency with the isotopes of platinum. Nubase2003 did not list all of the excitation states that are listed there. I checked Nudat 2, but that didn't have all of the same isomers either. The discussion page revealed that some of the isomers came from Nudat 2's gamma radiation subpages. How can I make any kind of reasonable statements about platinum's isotopes when its corresponding isotope page is so hodgepodge? The half-lives are from one page, and the isomers are from another. Also, why has this never come up before? I was tempted to just use the data from Nubase 2003 and simply ignore the table. On the other hand, I want to go through each isotopes of xxx table and update all of the information to one source. What do you think? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:12, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with that since it is not likely that every source is going to agree perfectly about every small thing (as long as the nubase is the most comprehensive one). Nergaal (talk) 19:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Clarification: Which solution are you supporting? Continuing to use Nubase for the articles, and leave the tables alone? Or revamp all the tables to conform to one source? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:20, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

If you believe that Nubase is the most comprehensive source for this, then go ahead and update all the isotope pages with the information there. Nevertheless, if say an isotope is currently listed in one of the pages, but not in the nubase, don't delete it. Clearl state in the lsit that Nubase is the main reference used, but add a label such as "†" to the isotopes not in there and indicate in the notes that it is not discussed in the primary source. The reason why I always prefer to state in the element articles "there are at least x isotopes" is because over time people observe unknown isotopes, but since the 49th isotope of element y is not really that notable references such as nubase might not update the information more than once a decade. Does that make sense? Nergaal (talk) 00:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I noticed this as well and find it annoying. I'm not sure if one source can be used for this. You will likely have to combine sources to get everything you need. --mav (talk) 19:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Blarg, for now I'll just use vague wording like we did with Iridium. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Image Map for nav images

I created an ImageMap for the TableImage images. The code for that is at User:Mav/Sandbox. Before I update Template:Elementbox to implement this, I'd like to know if anybody has suggestions for improvement. Note: This will require abandoning svg images for infoboxes b/c they don't work with image maps and some elements will need full-sized PNG files created. The image map is alone below. A full scale example is at User:Mav/Sandbox/Temp. -- mav (talk) 21:15, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Niiiice! I did not find any bugs yet, but I have a question: what is the line on the bottom of the p-block? Nice idea with the crystal and electron structure too! One more thing you could do is to link the number of protons to atomic number and the number of neutrons to the isotopes of that element. Nergaal (talk) 00:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :) The line represents what block an element is in. Good idea on the link changes - done. --mav (talk) 01:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

IUPAC definition for transition metals

NOTE: This section is transcluded so the widest-possible number of people can comment

I've been auditing the nav images in element articles to fix wrong neutron counts and giving Lu and Lr the lanthanoid and actinoid coloring, respectively. Part way through, I started to review our definitions for element categories to check them against IUPAC's provisional recommendations. See IUPAC Red Book IR-3.6 GROUPS OF ELEMENTS. Turns out that their specific definition for transition metal deviates from ours in a somewhat embarrassing way:

• IUPAC defines transition metals specifically as being those elements in groups 3 to 11. This excludes the group 12 elements!

ED NOTE: Turns out, that IUPAC's approved recommendations define transition metals as either the set of elements in groups 3 to 12 (our current set-up) or the set of elements from 3 to 11 (the set-up in the below table).

Fixing this results in somewhat modified periodic tables (Note, that the expanded 'Other metal' category includes all the post-transition metals plus aluminium):

So, before I finish my audit and fix of the nav images, I'd like to know if I should fix group 12 to be consistent with the provisional IUPAC definition of transition metals. OR should we wait for IUPAC to come out with the final-updated Red Book (comment period ends at the end of 2008)? I'm putting my audit and update of the nav images on hold until we figure this out. --mav (talk) 17:50, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure how many agree to this definition so waiting would be ok. Nergaal (talk) 18:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I just checked one of my college chemistry textbooks and it agrees with IUPAC. If this definition for transition metals is already widespread, then we may not need to wait for IUPAC's final revision of the Red Book. On the other hand, the updated document may impact other parts of the table and / or nav images. I'm simply not sure how or when we should proceed. --mav (talk) 18:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Erm, the comment period ended in 2004, according to the root of the file you quoted. The text approved in 2005 was (p. 51):

The elements (except hydrogen) of groups 1, 2 and 13–18 are designated as main group elements and, except in group 18, the first two elements of each main group are termed typical elements. Optionally, the letters s, p, d and f may be used to distinguish different blocks of elements. For example, the elements of groups 3–12 are the d-block elements. These elements are also commonly referred to as the transition elements, though the elements of group 12 are not always included; the f-block elements are sometimes referred to as the inner transition elements.

As far as I'm aware, there are no new inorganic recommendations planned for four or five years or so (until they get round to sorting out inorganic Preferred IUPAC names). Physchim62 (talk) 18:25, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah - I saw this and assumed it also applied to the inorganic nomenclature. My bad. I also remember something about unfilled d-suborbitals as part of the definition, which also excludes group 12 elements (with a complication with at least one Hg compound). --mav (talk) 18:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Definition of this term has always been a problem- whether to base the classification on chemistry or atom electron configuration. I was taught at school (1942 Sherwood Taylor text book) that the transition metals did not include Cu group and Zn group - only then to be told at university that Cu was a transition metal. IMO we should go with current IUPAC - that definition has been around for at least 40 years (Cotton and Wilkinson 2d edition 1966)- it leaves a little problem of colouring in and explaining the position of Zn group which is neither main group nor transition metal, but is in the d block according to our chart- although the chart conflicts with the definition in the article (sic "..highest energy electron is in a d orbital") which would seem to exclude both copper (3d10 4s1) and zinc (3d10 4s2) - if our list of electron configurations is right. Best of luck.--Axiosaurus (talk) 08:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The current IUPAC definition (quoted above) gives us freedom to include group 12 or not. Let's not forget that Cotton & Wilkinson doesn't class scandium and yttrium as transition metals either, on chemical grounds. Greenwood and Earnshaw agrees with our current classification except for lanthanum and actinium, which they (correctly in my view) class as transition metals. I seem to remember that the edition of Sherwood Taylor that you quote classes thorium and uranium as transition metals and, in the case of thorium ([Rn] 7s² 5d²), a naive or dogmatic application of the electron configuration criterion would force us to do the same! Physchim62 (talk) 08:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I've always thought that our periodic tables have too many colors and that we could save ourselves a lot of trouble if we got rid of most of them. But I'm afraid I'm in the minority. --Itub (talk) 10:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

But the table is so purty with the colors! And we'd have one less thing to argue about discuss - that would be boring. ;) --mav (talk)

Great feedback - thanks for finding the the current recommendations. Looks like IUPAC is giving us some leeway in the definition of transition metals in the approved recommendations. That means that our current table does not conflict with IUPAC. That is all I was worried about. We should therefore leave well-enough alone. We can revisit this if/when IUPAC comes up with a more rigorous definition. But I welcome anybody else to comment just in case we have missed anything. Again - Thank you everybody! --mav (talk) 01:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, my own opinion is that it's one of those debates that creates more heat than useful work! Physchim62 (talk) 01:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

And don't forget that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry) allows us to go againt IUPAC occasionally, when circumstances demand it! Physchim62 (talk) 01:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks like I may be getting in here a little late, but I just wanted to note that in post-transition metal, it claims that the IUPAC definition for transition metals is in conflict with it self. Based upon what I've read here, that doesn't seem to be the case any more. I think it needs to be cleaned up to match the above conclusions. --Wizard191 (talk) 02:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Electron shell diagrams

An anonymous user has been adding these to elements. Rhodium currently shows one. I am not sure how much value if any they add to the articles. What do others think? --John (talk) 03:26, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, they are pretty and look interesting to kids learning chemistry. But yeah, they kinda represent an outdated idea about atomic structure. That said, I don't see much harm in having them - at least for the oddball heavier elements that have non-standard arrangements of electrons. Diagrams of orbital/sub-orbital arrangements and/or filling orders are far more useful, IMO, but can be scary-looking to somebody not familiar with them. --mav (talk) 00:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I made the point to the user adding them that they don't really show anything like a true picture of atomic structure. I will take them down and reference this discussion unless anyone objects. --John (talk) 00:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I've removed them. They were well-intentioned but over-simplified reality. --John (talk) 03:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Decays FROM?

The "Decay Product" column at the bottom of the element infoboxes is very interesting! However I would like to be able to visit, say, the Uranium page and see a link to Protactinium 233 in the isotope Uranium 233 row. As it stands, there's no way to find that protactinium decays to Uranium without searching with Google or already knowing the Proactinum page. Is this feasible? Thanks 76.106.15.180 (talk) 21:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like an interesting idea. In the meantime, you may find decay chain useful. --Itub (talk) 05:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - decay chains are very interesting and something that our 'Isotopes of ...' articles are ideally supposed to cover. Sadly, those articles are almost all just starter pages and the WikiProject that created them no longer is active. They are still part of our WikiProject but they are much lower priority for us. However, as the element pages get better we will inevitably start to focus on the 'Isotope of ...' articles more (along with 'Compounds of ...). --mav (talk) 00:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Bad idea! Some isotopes may form from multiple parent isotopes (first example that comes into my mind is an isotope that results both from a beta decay, but also from an alpha one; plus, there might be 2 types of betas). Nergaal (talk) 00:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

How about ¹²⁸Xe? ¹²⁸Te undergoes β−β−, ¹²⁸I undergoes β−, ¹²⁸Cs undergoes β+. All three of these paths produce ¹²⁸Xe. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Some isotopes can be formed in two or three ways, just like some isotopes can decay in two or three ways. I don't see that as a problem. We already handle the latter situation by splitting the table cell or putting two modes on the same cell. We could do the same with the cell for "decays from". As long as we don't include fission, it should be manageable. --Itub (talk) 04:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think there might end up being more possibilities for formation and decay pathways always have a preferred one. Also, I am not sure why it would be relevant enough to put it in the infobox and not into the isotope page instead. Anyways, if someone wants to do it and the result will not clog up the box unnecessary while it would look pleasant, I won't be against. Nergaal (talk) 06:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this may fit better in the detailed table at the isotopes page because otherwise the infobox at the element could become be too crowded. (For some reason I was thinking about isotope pages even when the original poster was talking about the element infobox.) --Itub (talk) 07:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

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