Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry

Hello,

Copying the following from the petrochemical talk page. Would appreciate feedback from here as well.

Kindly requesting some feedback on recent edits on this page from the group, if possible.

Two things I think could help on clarity:

1. Adding a more definite "family tree" structure to show origin of chemicals. For instance, please see the sequence below.

Ethylene->acetic acid-> vinyl acetate -> polyvinyl acetate

I think adding tree structures can make this origin more clear.

2. Showing a limited set of final products from the actual chemicals. Appending to the item above, we would have this:

Ethylene->acetic acid-> vinyl acetate -> polyvinyl acetate-> "Elmer's Glue:"

I think the appeal to the latter item is relatability. The risk of course, is clutter. So I think it will be an active source of editing.

Appreciate the team's input. Thanks. Dgputt (talk) 15:59, 24 December 2025 (UTC) Dgputt (talk) 16:10, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

For convenience: the article in question is Petrochemical and the discussion (which has no replies since it was just started 30 minutes ago) is Talk:Petrochemical#Tree branching and more exhaustive list. -- Reconrabbit 16:35, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

"Family trees" aren't really accurate for most chemicals of interest. There are multiple routes to most chemicals, often multiple in use at the same time depending on the scale of the plant and price of local materials. For your given example, producing acetic acid from ethylene (Wacker process and a subsequent oxidation step, presumably?) is not generally competitive with its production from methanol (Monsanto process) - and even then if you wanted to be accurate, the Wacker route is ethylene -> acetaldehyde -> acetic acid. Fishsicles (talk) 18:39, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

We normally dont notify the group about simple splits and moves, but Aroma compound has a lot of scope, so I am bringing it to your attention. That article is poised for restructuring as discussed at Talk:Aroma compound#Split proposal. --Smokefoot (talk) 21:48, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi all.

I have just proposed my idea for a lead image for the quantum chemistry article. I've posted about it on article's talk page. Any thoughts would be appreciated, just wanted to make sure it doesn’t get overlooked.

Kind regards, Xyqorophibian (talk) 13:00, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Structural chemistry has been listed for the AI Cleanup project, in which I am active. The article was created in 2017 (from a deleted redirect), and was then seldom edited until late 2023, at which time it was tremendously expanded. It has many hallmarks of lazily AI-generated content, such as sweeping yet vague statements, meandering text that can't decide what is the main point and what is ancillary, and tiny subsections (some only a sentence long). I bring it up here because the article is worth keeping and does not contain anything that immediately strikes me as wrong, but I think others besides me might want some say in how it should be fixed. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Delete I suggest WP:TNT. Update: WP:TNT would be ok, but I understand the outright delete and restart has the advantage of starting a new history. The article is fundamentally wrong since it does not summarize any sources directly on the article topic "Structural chemistry". The kinds of topics that should be covered could be found in eg

• Batsanov, S. S., & Batsanov, A. S. (2012). Introduction to structural chemistry. Springer Science & Business Media.

The sources I checked in the current article only "verify" the word they are attached to, not anything related to the article topic. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:47, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Delete almost Kinda agree with TNT. The article may have suffered for a lack of ownership. I mean, structural chemistry could be described as a set of techniques (which it is not, they are tools). Or it could be a description of structural motifs, which would be difficult to summarize. Another idea: paraphrase the organization of Wells' Structural Chem or the previously cited book. Or maybe redirect the title to X-ray crystallography. Maybe write a few sentences and add some book refs. --Smokefoot (talk) 04:37, 3 January 2026 (UTC) The main problem with trying to delete is that such an action attracts all sorts of Wiki lawyers, beard-strokers, etc, all of whom are ignorant of the field (but will remind "hey, I took chemistry"). In other words, if we try to delete this junker, the ChemProject loses control. So just compress the heck out of it. Gigapascals. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:32, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I started the revision. Suggestions and contributions welcome.--Smokefoot (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I have posted comprehensive expansion suggestions with full sourcing on Talk:Sujit Datta. The article is currently a stub missing significant biographical information for a Full Professor at Caltech who also serves as Chief Editor of Reviews of Modern Physics.

The suggestions include:

• Complete education and career history with institutional sources
• Detailed research contributions in nanoscience, biophysics, fluid dynamics, and soft mechanics with peer-reviewed publication citations
• Major awards that are missing with official award citations
• Citations for existing awards that currently lack sources

All content is drafted in Wikipedia style with reliable secondary sources (university announcements, professional society pages, peer-reviewed publications). The work is essentially done—it just needs review and implementation by an editor familiar with scientific biographies.

Would appreciate if anyone could review and help expand this article. Thanks! ~2026-17002-0 (talk) 18:25, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Suggestion: strenuously avoid WP:PEACOCK. Great scientist (or artists, authors, or ...) do not require compliments and do not welcome puffery. A plain record of achievement speaks for itself. Fawning editors attract attention, often negating of their objectives.--Smokefoot (talk) 19:26, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

If you know anything about old wet-cell batteries, please see Talk:History of the battery#Chromite?. RoySmith (talk) 13:56, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

"Acyl compound" as a category could theoretically include any compound with a carbonyl, or even other oxyacid derivatives such as sulfonyl. The category as it stands instead includes categories of compounds grouped by (carboxylic) acyl groups, which isn't something I'm immediately opposed to, but I think it's better framed as a category of categories, akin to e.g. Category:Chemical compounds by element, to organise those acyl groups which have grown to category size. (I suspect a similar scheme might help with e.g. Category:Alkyl compounds? I'm drawn more and more toward codifying chemistry categories...)

I've also noticed questionable categorisation of its members. Category:Acetyl compounds and Category:Formyl compounds both implied Category:Ketones, which is obviously incorrect (especially formyl!). I'm more curious as to a rationale for Category:Acetyl compounds implying Category:Methyl compounds. Certainly an acetyl group contains −CH₃ adjacent to a different group, so in the loosest sense it could be called a "methyl compound", but I would usually only call a compound such if methyl were somehow separated from the main carbon chain (mainly by attachment to heteroatoms, or methyl substituents on cyclic backbones). I could understand calling methyl ethyl ketone a methyl compound, though I'd disagree with it, but I'd draw a much firmer line for acetaldehyde.

Any other thoughts? Fishsicles (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

It takes a special sort of person to do consistently good work with categories. This is the stupidest mistake I've ever made, thankfully reverted by User:JWBE when they saw it half a year later. (I'd spent several days expanding Tosylamide/formaldehyde resin, followed by correctly categorizing another arylsulfonamide. Not that that's an excuse.) I have occasionally fixed errors from other editors, rather than introducing new ones. E.g. moving Category:Deaths from chloroform out of Category:Chloroformates (which still cracks me up, I guess it's an easy mistake for a non-chemistry editor to make).

That's a long-winded lead-in to saying your suggestions make sense to me. It might be worth also running them past JWBE. Lastly, it's probably a good idea to add short explanations to category pages to reduce the chance of someone messing them up later. (I didn't bother adding a note to Category:Chloroformates, but I did create Category:Chloroform, which should hopefully supplant it for the shelving of our chloroform-related pages.) Preimage (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Presumably whatever we do here to Category:Acyl_compounds should sync with commons:Category:Acyl_compounds. The proposal doesn't make sense to me. "The category as it stands instead includes categories of compounds grouped by (carboxylic) acyl groups, which isn't something I'm immediately opposed to, but I think it's better framed as a category of categories". Isn't that what it is now? DMacks (talk) 07:55, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

We use a 3-level categorization for amides: Category:Amides > Category:Carboxamides > Category:Acetamides. If I've read it correctly, the proposal is to switch to an analogous hierarchy for acyl compounds: Category:Acyl compounds > Category:Carboxacyl compounds > Category:Acetyl compounds. Which matches the corresponding Gold Book definitions: amides, acyl groups. I admit it's clunky from an organic chemistry perspective. We shouldn't be slaves to nomenclature, and the term carboxacyl is used so rarely it's not even in Google Ngrams; it has zero Google Scholar hits, three Google Books hits, and 12 Google web hits (mostly patents). So yeah, it seemed to me that it would be an improvement in consistency ... but the more I look into it, the more I seem to be arguing myself out of the position that it's a good idea. Preimage (talk) 08:24, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

This isn't what I'm proposing. My proposal is rather than using a hierarchical Category:Acyl compounds, we instead create a category of categories meant to contain those compounds which are grouped by acyl moiety, without assigning a categorical class to those compounds.

To avoid getting lost in the weeds, the main proposal is moving Category:Acyl compounds to Category:Chemical compounds by acyl group, which contains only categories that group compounds by acyl group (as the existing category), rather than also (implicitly) including every compound to contain an acyl group. I agree that if we wanted to have a Category:Acyl compounds, a hierarchy like yours would help with consistency - but I agree that it's clunky and less than ideal, so I think the smart thing to do is sidestep a formal "acyl compounds" category. Fishsicles (talk) 13:58, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

>The proposal doesn't make sense to me. "The category as it stands instead includes categories of compounds grouped by (carboxylic) acyl groups, which isn't something I'm immediately opposed to, but I think it's better framed as a category of categories". Isn't that what it is now?

It's de facto a category of categories, but the name of the category implies it should include all acyl compounds. Per WP:CATEGORY, a category name

as much as possible, defines the category's inclusion criteria in the name itself.

If this category is intended as a category of categories, it should be something of the form Category:Chemical compounds by acyl group, matching other container categories. Fishsicles (talk) 14:10, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

The article on Potassium is at Good Article Review. I've rescued the section on dietary requirements but the chemistry is out of my area. All that's needed is to find suitable citations for some uncited paragraphs, and the article will remain a GA. Good luck with it! Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:43, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

I recently added the synthesis route of a newly approved drug, gepotidacin, on its article page. The synthesis route is described in a patent, and later was reported by a review article. I added a diagram of the synthetic route, described the route briefly, and cited the patent.

Later, I noticed the synthesis section I added was removed by an experienced editor, who commented that WP is not a lab manual, thus my addition is undue, and patents are not reliable sources. I'm confused about this comment because many chemicals have a synthesis section on their pages, and chemical drugs are essentially just chemicals. Also, some drugs, like the one whose page I just edited, are really complex compounds, the synthesis of which I assume should be of interest to many readers. Then I just undid the deletion, recovering the edit I made. The citation of a patent, though, might be inappropriate, so I changed it to a secondary source (a review article).

I'm curious that is it really not a good idea to include synthesis routes on the pages of drugs? Please help. If it is not, then I'm gonna delete the synthesis section. Sweet Hat 325 (talk) 11:41, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

In Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry the description of the layout of a substance article includes a "preparation" section. So it can certainly be included. Wikipedia is not a how-to instruction book, but you have only given a bare outline of the procedure, not including how to separate products from solvents, or impurities, or what containers or amounts to use, so your section is not a lab-manual procedure. Possible prearation methods include teh first published, a lab procedure, or an inductrial process. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:56, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

I review a lot of articles at AfC, so maybe I can be of help. Including a synthesis section is generally fine, provided that a) it's covered in a secondary source, such as a review (not a patent), and b) adding this section does not expand the article to the point that it's WP:UNDUE, and does not add trivia such as reaction times, molar ratios, reaction/manufacturing equipment, etc. Lots of chemical articles contain a Synthesis section, but these are typically commodity chemicals. "Fine" chemicals such as drugs tend to run into the problem of the synthesis being more complex AND there being less to say about the substance itself, making UNDUE concerns a bigger deal. But there is no hard and fast rule. My guideline is if it looks like the article is about a synthetic method, with descriptions of the drug and its effects tacked on as context, then it's not acceptable. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 13:19, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

"If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Organic synthesis people like to add preps, but my guess is that no reader of Gepotidacin is looking for its preparation. So the contribution is unlikely to serve our readership. The prep scheme is Gepotidacin is completely inappropriate, even though it is well intentioned. The scheme is also filled with nitty gritty details in English, which is also not ideal. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

😂I almost loled when I see your comment. Yeah, it's really a good point that most readers of drug articles might be seeking medical information, and they are most uninterested in synthesis.

But I'd say maybe some are still interested, because preparing the drugs is the starting point of everything else, so I briefly skimmed a number of pages of medicines and found that:

• A part of them include synthesis, like aspirin, metformin and atorvastatin; some even have an intensive introduction to their synthesis, like ibuprofen. Perhaps those contents of synthesis were added by organic chemists, as you said.
• Some drugs do have a chemistry section, but are more focused on the chemical properties of the drug itself, like the appearance and solubility of the drug, or the different physiological properties of enantiomers. Synthesis might be very briefly mentioned, with citations to further literature for readers who are interested. These include lisinopril, levothyroxine, omeprazole, metoprolol, etc. I think this extent is the most appropriate.
• The others don't have a chemistry or synthesis section at all.

I also agree that in my scheme of the synthesis of gepotidacin, a lot of detailed conditions are included, maybe too much. Maybe it's a good idea to simplify the scheme, cut the majority of the synthesis section to 2 or 3 sentences that briefly describe the route, and cite literatures in case some readers are interested. Is that alright?

Also, is there a better way for me to elaborate on the synthesis of those complex drugs? Maybe start a new article on the synthesis if it's really significant, or go elsewhere like wikibooks?

For a new editor like me, the borderline of being due/undue is very blurry. I hope that guidelines for editing drug pages will be established in the future.

Thank you for your suggestion! Sweet Hat 325 (talk) 16:16, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

One approach is to create a separate article, but the overall prep is probably not notable on its own. Alternatively, one could pull out one or two instructive steps and put them into reagent/methods articles as case studies. Some classic organic syntheses, most of which are completely useless unless one sips the "we-learned-a-lot-in-this-total-synthesis kool-aid" have their own articles: strychnine, B12, taxol. The preps for aspirin and some other biggies merit description within the parent article because these compounds are produced on a massive scale with an impactful supply chain. IMHO. As mentioned above, try to omit English from reaction schemes.--Smokefoot (talk) 16:42, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

-Smokefoot, your increasing inclusion of personal distain for organic chemistry aspects is starting to overshadow many of the possible points you might want to make. That's why instead we have WP:DUE and WP:SECONDARY as site-wide standards. We can have an article if there are multiple reliable sources demonstrating notability of its topic as a whole. Like it or not, whole books have been written about "classic organic synthesis", so being highlighted in one demonstrates that that one is a notable example. DMacks (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Sweet Hat 325 As you can see from this discussion, the amount of chemistry included in a drug article is a matter of debate, with WP:DUE being the main consideration, I think. One alternative which you ought to be made aware of is the use of the {{Chemical reaction}} template which allows a modular approach using English and wikilinking if wanted. For example, I don't think that anyone would be likely to object to covering at least the final convergent step of the synthesis, making the learning point in the text that this is a reductive amination:

a 4-aminopiperidine

+

 

an aldehyde

 

NaBH(OAc)₃

 

 

 

 

gepotidacin

I may be in a minority of one but I think that using patents as citations for the first published synthesis of a drug is acceptable. Patents are not valid if someone "skilled in the art" can't reproduce the synthesis from what is published and since there can be literally billions of $ at stake, pharmaceutical companies take great care that their patents are accurate in that respect. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

	This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I am seeking input from WikiProject Chemistry members on Draft:American Peptide Society 2, an article about the American Peptide Society — a nonprofit scientific organization founded in 1990 that hosts the biennial American Peptide Symposium (dating to 1968) and publishes the journal Peptide Science through Wiley. === Background === The article has been declined twice at AfC, with reviewers stating that "all sources are primary." However, the article includes independent secondary sources from: * ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer * FASEB (listing APS as a member society) * University of North Carolina and University of Bristol chemistry departments (award announcements) * Chemical & Engineering News * Wiley Online Library === Why I'm asking here === The American Peptide Society is comparable to organizations like the Protein Society and Biophysical Society, both of which have Wikipedia articles with fewer independent sources. I believe the article meets notability guidelines for scientific organizations and would appreciate a review from editors familiar with chemistry-related content. The article covers: * History and founding (1990) * The American Peptide Symposium series (29 meetings since 1968) * Awards (Merrifield Award, du Vigneaud Award, Hirschmann Award, etc.) * Publications (Peptide Science journal, proceedings volumes) * Notable members and international collaborations === Disclosure === I have disclosed my connection to APS via {{connected contributor}}. Any feedback on improving the article or navigating the AfC process would be greatly appreciated. Larssahl (talk) 17:22, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

@Larssahl: It is clear that you are using an LLM in the draft in this reply. According to the decliners, the draft has a promotional tone, and you have not provided any secondary sources about this organization. Write a rap about how we can address the issues with your draft, and why you are seeking our help. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:44, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi @LaundryPizza03, thanks for engaging. You're right in that I have used an AI tool to help process sources and format citations. I am not a Wikipedia expert and was trying to get things right. However, I am very much a real person who has been associated with the American Peptide Society since 2011, when, as a Communications Staff member of the Chemistry Department at UNC Chapel Hill, I began doing graphic design for the 2013 Symposium in Kona, Hawai’i, which coincidentally was held there since I lived in Kona for almost 20 years and recommended the location to the two co-chairs of that year, Professors Marcey Waters and David Lawrence, both at UNC CH. Since then, I have built and created websites and content both for the Society itself and its biennial symposia. In that capacity, I have also taken about 12,000 photographs and a large library of videos for the Society.

This effort is part of an almost pro bono effort by me. I am paid only a nominal fee for the web work I do. The Wikipedia page is something I volunteered to do as a compliment to my other outreach, and is both a personal challenge and a work of aloha for the people of the APS. During my years at UNC, I fell in love with this work and after my recent retirement, it has become a treasured connection to both the science and the people. Parenthetically, I hold a Master's Degree in Technical Communication.

On the substance: the second decliner stated "all sources are primary," but that is not accurate. After the first decline, I added several independent secondary sources:

·      ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer - verifies 501(c)(3) status

·      FASEB.org - confirms APS membership in this federation of 130,000+ researchers

·      University of North Carolina and University of Bristol press releases - independent coverage of APS awards

·      Chemical & Engineering News - coverage of Ralph Hirschmann

·      Wiley - publisher of the Society's journal

I am asking for your kind help as I see comparable society articles such as Protein Society, and the Biophysical Society, exist with fewer sources, and to the best of my ability I addressed the "primary sources" concern, but the reviewers have not engaged with that point.

As for the rap, I respectfully decline, but appreciate the humor. Happy to become part of a discussion that improves this work and allows the article to be published.

Aloha - Lars Larssahl (talk) 21:45, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

One of the main things needed is secondary about the organization itself. Not simple directory-info, public filings, etc. DMacks (talk) 21:51, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, @DMacks — that's a helpful clarification. I understand the distinction now: verification of facts vs. substantive coverage of the organization itself. I will search for existing secondary coverage and may pursue media outreach to generate such coverage. I appreciate the guidance. –~~~~ Larssahl (talk) 14:12, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Please don't try and generate your own coverage. To begin with, look at the notability criteria for determining whether Wikipedia should have an article on a given organization. Our term "notability" can be a bit misleading, as it's obvious to anyone who does a bit of digging that the APS is a big deal. Rather, we use it as shorthand for the existence of in-depth coverage, independent of the original organization, in multiple secondary sources (e.g. books or review articles), allowing a substantial article to be written based on these sources. In other words, you'll need to find 1–2 more references like this:

• Merrifield, Bruce (1993). Life During a Golden Age of Peptide Chemistry. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. ISBN 978-0-8412-1842-0.

Here are some other references I found that are not substantive enough to strongly support notability, but may be of use when writing the article:

1. Shimonishi, Yasutsugu (2002) [1997]. "Preface". In Shimonishi, Yasutsugu (ed.). Peptide Science — Present and Future | Proceedings of the 1st International Peptide Symposium. Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media. pp. xxxv–xxxvi. ISBN 978-0-306-46864-3.
2. "Josef Rudinger Memorial Award 2018". The European Peptide Society. 2018-05-06. Retrieved 2026-01-27. The Merrifield ... [Award], administered by the APS, ... recognize[s] the highest achievements in the chemistry ... of peptides at an international level
3. "2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Morten Meldal". The European Peptide Society. 2022-10-08. Retrieved 2026-01-27. some of the most prestigious awards in peptide science, including the Vincent du Vigneaud Award by the American Peptide Society

After you've found enough good references, rewrite the article to be primarily based on them. Some citations of first-party sources will be inevitable, but try not to include too many, even if it means shortening the article substantially. After you get that through AfC, you can use WP:Edit requests to request expansions as necessary. Though also bear in mind that WP articles should follow summary style, rather than covering every last detail of a particular topic. Preimage (talk) 15:57, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Instead of using LLMs for reference processing, I would suggest User:Citation Bot. Fishsicles (talk) 14:26, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

I created the article 'Guanine radical cation' in November 2025. It has been over 60 days, but it is still tagged as 'noindex'. Could a New Page Patroller please review it so it can be indexed by search engines? Thank you Serbacc (talk) 14:27, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello, I marked this article as reviewed, but please understand that there are currently over 16,000 articles that have yet to be reviewed, some of them dating back more than 7 months, so the expectation for a new article to be reviewed immediately may be misplaced at this time. -- Reconrabbit 15:16, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Please note that User:An anonymous username, not my real name and perhaps some others have very recently done mass AfD nominations of Chemistry related data pages. So far I have seen ones for Boiling points of the elements (data page), Lithium chloride (data page), Melting points of the elements (data page) and Atomic radii of the elements (data page); there may be more science related pages done or planned. Maybe I missed it, but this is certainly something that I think should have been discussed here first for a concensus.

You can express opinions on this both here and at the respective AfD pages (go to the main page then follow the link). AfD discussions are typically open for at least 7 days. Ldm1954 (talk) 02:12, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Comment, there have been multiple comments/votes at the AfD pages, which to me tend towards WP:SNOW keep. There are a few issues on data pages for specific compounds as mentioned below by Fishsicles which I think merit further discussion to establish a consensus for the future. Ldm1954 (talk) 16:24, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

In my view, at least some of (the information in) these data pages should be moved to WP:Workpages, to be stored in the project workspace rather than the article namespace. E.g. the comparison of values between different sources in Melting points of the elements (data page) is relatively unusual for an article (we'd normally either list the most reliable value or provide a range, rather than 3+ different values), but necessary for our work behind the scenes to maintain consistency across content.

NB. If we do decide to turn some data pages into workpages, links to them will need to be moved from articles into the banner of related talk pages so that editors can continue to easily find them. See WP:Source assessment for a separate but related use case for workpages. WP:MAINSPACE categorizes data pages as Pages in mainspace that are not universally considered articles-proper, similar to lists, disambiguation pages, and set index articles. The old posts from User:Bluerasberry at Category talk:Chemical data pages#Nature of these data pages and from User:Piotrus at Wikipedia talk:Workpages#Workpages are dangerous and should be avoided may also be of relevance to this discussion. Preimage (talk) 17:07, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

(Update: After thinking it over, I think NLIST applies. I've !voted accordingly at the deletion nominations.) Preimage (talk) 05:50, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

I am for deletion in this case. The datapage information should be stored in Wikidata and imported to the infoboxes as needed on Wikipedia. The information provided is relevant and should be included on Wikipedia somewhere, but a whole separate page that is not easily accessible to the reader and features poor formatting is not it. Jg.lamp (talk) 21:25, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

• Need a plan to move to Wikidata These pages are from 2005 and by Wikipedia and comparable Internet publishing standards, this content was acceptable then. We have had Wikidata since 2012 and Wikidata could accept content like this since about 2017 or so. I get that we need a transitional period to migrate data and that have limited labor, partnership, and staff resources to do this. It is tolerable to keep this content in Wikipedia for longer but every year that passes without a plan to move this to Wikidata and interconnect this with Wikipedia is problematic. We have no in-line citations. There are a thousand data points to verify, and we are relying on trust in anonymous editors when increasingly we need more systematic verification. Wikipedia is not at all a place to have human editors manage verification of tables of numbers. Wikidata can do these things, but actually we cannot well manage it there, and even if we could there is no way to move a Wikidata verified table of numbers into Wikipedia.

I think a table like this is in-scope for Wikipedia. There are some tables we need in Wikipedia for general reference, for certain fields. I am comfortable keeping these for years longer but we do need a plan to migrate this kind of content to structured data management systems. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:32, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Going off the prior discussion, I've been looking at some of the single-compound pages like calcium hydroxide (data page). These pages seem mostly superfluous with the contents of a chembox, and some of them (as the aforementioned) have a bunch of empty entries. Is there a reason for maintaining these as separate pages rather than integrating them into compound pages as part of the chembox or perhaps collapsible tables? Fishsicles (talk) 16:11, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Some pages, such as Water (data page) include extensive data on spectroscopy and thermodynamics that would be impractical to include in Chembox in sheer size. Collapsible tables is an idea. Might be an idea to keep data pages that are this extensive and merge/remove data pages that include very little data such as CaOH. Jg.lamp (talk) 21:27, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

There have been several previous projectspace discussions about these pages: AfDs, Village Pump discussions, WT:CHEM, WT:CHEMS. For reference I've appended a table of previous AfDs (i.e. excepting the four open right now); I haven't yet read the other discussions listed here. Preimage (talk) 07:20, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

A lot of the ions listed on this page seem to be extrapolations of periodic trends, not anything actually established to exist - and I very much doubt these periodic trends apply unconditionally (e.g. the assumption of astatine and tennessine acting like the other halogens is AFAIK still rather spurious). The page also doesn't distinguish between onium ions with stable parent hydrides and those only prepared as organyl derivatives. My opinion is that everything here should be removed unless reliable sources attest to the ion's actual existence; ideally we should further distinguish ions by whether they're only known in the gas phase, known in solution (whether an adduct or not), or known in actual compounds, but to me this is less significant than pruning out things that are unlikely to even exist. Fishsicles (talk) 15:28, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

I am supplying references, and neutralising likely original research/guess work. Some of those terms only appear in Wikipedia and not previously published. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:22, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Going through the data page cleanup discussed previously, the main value that has not found a direct correlate is entropy and enthalpy values for non-STP states. Before clogging up the Template:Chembox talk page with requests for additions of deltaH of fusion/vaporization/formation for each state, I wanted to ask here what would be best. Jg.lamp (talk) 21:55, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

I was quite surprised about this move, since "hydroxy" seems appropriate (see e.g. doi:10.1351/goldbook.A00204). Furthermore, articles in Category:Functional groups do not tend to have "functional" in their name. Leyo 20:32, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

I recommend undoing that move. There are sufficient implications that such a move would require discussion.--Smokefoot (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

That's certainly not a clear-cut uncontroversial move (and for the record I oppose it)...definitely should be undone promptly. DMacks (talk) 21:29, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

I have reverted the moved. @VidanaliK: you may wish to join this discussion to explain your reasons for a move. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:02, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Stated reason for the move was

the actual name of the group is hydroxyl; hydroxy- is just the prefix

I'm very curious about a source on this, as it's contrary to every prescriptive distinction that I've seen, which favours "hydroxyl is the radical, hydroxy is the group" (as the linked Gold Book definition above). Usage of "hydroxyl" beyond simply the radical is still in sufficiently common use for me to consider it as a synonym (even IUPAC does it sometimes), but to assert hydroxy is "just the prefix" without citation while moving a major page is... spurious. Fishsicles (talk) 16:14, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

It would be sweet if someone could add additional sources. Bearian (talk) 00:37, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

@Bearian I see that Google Scholar has over 300 just looking within article titles, so expanding WP should be easy. I'm otherwise engaged at present. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:47, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the link! Bearian (talk) 13:05, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

 Done - great work by Graeme Bartlett and Smokefoot! Bearian (talk) 13:08, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I am making this request as a researcher, rather than a Wikipedian. I would like to see, when possible the following in the data for chemicals: band gap, electron affinity, ionization energy (first). The HUMO/LOMO pair could be substituted for EA and IE although they are not the same. This could either be in the box or the data page. Ldm1954 (talk) 20:33, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Band gap is already in Template:Chembox Properties. Is this edit the sort of thing you were thinking of?

Electron affinity and ionization energy would need to be added. Unfortunately our regular chembox maintainer was banned a couple of years ago, though I suspect there are some other regulars around that might be able to do that for you.

The paper Bredas, Jean-Luc (2014). "Mind the gap!". Materials Horizons. 1 (1): 17–19. doi:10.1039/C3MH00098B. (cited by HOMO and LUMO) claims The calculated HOMO–LUMO gap, i.e., the difference between the calculated HOMO and LUMO energy levels, only provides an approximation to the fundamental gap; the quality of that approximation strongly depends on the specifics of the computational methodology. I think that indicates that the HOMO–LUMO gap, which isn't directly measurable, isn't guaranteed to be consistent between different sets of quantum-chemical calculations either, which suggests it might be best to avoid (though I'm sure you know a lot more about this than I've been able to learn). Preimage (talk) 13:37, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

That type of edit is what I was thinking of.

EA & IA can be measured and are more reliable than calculated HOMO/LUMO as you say, but often have not been measured. Ldm1954 (talk) 14:28, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

You could try asking at Template_talk:Chembox. The template is protected from regular editors. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:46, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

We have a number of pages on Grignard reagents: CH₃MgCl, C₂H₅MgBr, C₃H₇MgBr, (CH₃)₂HCMgCl, C₃H₅MgBr, C₆H₅MgBr. The pages seem to vary between the bromide and the chloride, but typically other RMgX compounds are present as redirects - e.g. methylmagnesium iodide and methylmagnesium bromide both point to methylmagnesium chloride (even though that page itself claims that the bromide is the more common form of CH₃MgX).

This vexes me. I doubt that each individual halide warrants a page for its slight differences from the analogues, but neither should a chloride redirect to a bromide as if they are synonyms. My thought would be to move these pages to either e.g. methyl Grignard reagent or methylmagnesium halide. I can't say I like either of these solutions but I think I like them more than status quo. Any other thoughts? Fishsicles (talk) 18:43, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

This messiness doesnt bother me, but I confess to liking the slightly chaotic and eclectic style here, which says to me: "we've got you covered". I once had triethyloxonium redirect to trimethyloxonium because the information would be nearly equivalent and useful, but that approach got firmly slapped because they are different species. In my view, that change placed priority on "order" over helpfulness.

But I respect your tastes if you want to lobby to unify all the methyl and all the phenyl Grignards. I think that chloride/bromide-based Grignards are more significant commercially because of cost factors, but academic contributors like bromide/iodide end of the halide spectrum.

Another complication in the Grignard business is that they dont exist without ether coligands: some have Et2O and some thf.

For people who are really into these reagents, the halides may make a difference, i.e. cross coupling with MeMgCl might differ from MeMgBr (BTW, I need to check but I think that we might gloss over the presence of LiX in some organolithium reagent pages).--Smokefoot (talk) 21:00, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, the key question I have - and one that I'm not nearly informed enough about the internal mechanisms of the Grignard to answer - is whether the halide has any particular effects. In my experience the literature usually defaults to bromide; the explanation as I've been told is that it's easier to prepare the Grignard with a heavier halogen because the CX bond is weaker. What I'd want a more detailed analysis on - which may not even exist, as AFAIK the Grignard's internals are still a bit fuzzy - is how that in turn effects the performance of the actual Grignard reaction.

I understand on one hand wanting to keep things casual. as any distinctions between these reagents in practice is beyond my ken, but I'm also leery of equating too many chemical species in the age of machines that lie to you. doi:10.7326/aimcc.2024.1260 shows the risk of those equivalences getting bandied about where they don't belong. Fishsicles (talk) 01:33, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

The halide sometimes does have a relevant difference. One notable is the solubility of the RMgX, if you are trying to run a reaction fairly concentrated. Another is the ease of the metallation (I designed an undergrad experiment that easily quantifies the significant rate dependence on X, though the students had forgotten too much gen-chem to discuss it in terms of redox potentials). More-practical concerns are the financial, safety, and stability concerns of the RX precursor, leading to some X being more popular than others. DMacks (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Redirects are designed to help the reader find information on a topic when there isn't a page named for the specific topic but the topic is covered in some other page. It's not only for alternatives of the article topic itself (synonyms, etc.), but "Subtopics or other topics that are described or listed within a wider article. (Such redirects are often targeted to a particular section of the article.)". If, for example, article A is about notable topic A but also covers topic B that doesn't have its own article for whatever reason, a redirect B→A is exactly within guideline.

If a certain RMgX reagent (a specific R and X) is notable enough to have an article, then WP:GNG and WP:NCHEM both say it's reasonable to hvae an article about it with its name. If several variants (other X) are not notable enough on their own except as variants, it's reasonable to make them a subsection (possible header "Other halides"). That's analogous to how we often cover modifications of reaction protocols that have different names in the main article about a major named reaction rather than having a generic-named article about the reaction type. Given our desire to have chemboxes, I think it's cleaner to have separate articles for each specific X than to have just an article on the class, to make sure that the chembox actually fits the guidelines for infoboxes ("for the article, at the top, containing key info"). DMacks (talk) 02:15, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Status quo. After reading these comments, I'd say leave alone the articles on the individual RMgX's. Gosh knows, for the transition metal (as well as organic) halides, we have individual articles for each halide variant.--Smokefoot (talk) 03:53, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, this sounds best now that you articulate it. An "other halides" section can introduce the alternatives, and if as it develops there's enough specific information about them, it can easily be spun out to another RMgX page. Fishsicles (talk) 14:03, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Could someone with copy of Cotton or similar look at the third paragraph of Rhodium#Chemical_properties? Only the last sentence is sourced. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:59, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Pinnick oxidation § Proposed merge of Lindgren oxidation into Pinnick oxidation, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Staraction (talk · contribs) 07:57, 11 March 2026 (UTC)