User talk:Beetstra/Archive 2

Latest comment: 17 years ago by TonyTheTiger in topic J&J Template
Archive

Archives


Talk started 20/3/2006
1 - 7/9/2006

Venlafaxine

Thanks for the note. I am also a chemist, and I work for a large pharma company in the US, though not the one that developed venlafaxine. I also have personal experience with venlafaxine withdrawal (fucking awful, to be blunt). I agree that pages on chemicals should stick to describing the chemicals themselves, and your edits seem appropriate. We should keep a paragraph describing venlafaxine-specific discontinuation syndrome, and link to the entry on SSRI discontinuation syndrome for a larger discussion. This particular side effect is common to a class of drugs, though the intensity of venlafaxine withdrawal seems to be worse than other antidepressants.

One concern may be that venlafaxine is both a SSRI and an SNRI (selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor), as well as a dopamine agonist, so a straight link to SSRI discontinuation may be a little misleading. I speculate that venlafaxine wihdrawal is aggravated because it acts on such a wide range of neurotransmitters, but that is neither here nor there.

Wiki entries on controversial drugs tend to attract a lot of POV diatribes, and I think that the anon editor whose rant I deleted will be back eventually. I actually agreed with the substance of his edit, but as it violates a number of POV and original research guidelines it had to go. Cheers, Skinwalker 13:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Edit War

Dirk..Skinwalker is deleting my edits regarding the effexor petition on a daily basis. I have read the guidelines and believe that this material is valid and appropriate for the page. I am getting frustrated by his behaviour as he has destroyed work by others to modify the section and include the material. Is there some way we can get this mediated so this does not go on? I will not let him do this ridiculous and arbitrary censorship as I believe that the expressed experiences of more than 13,000 users deserve a few sentences and should not be arbitrarily deleted. For while, the edits were as they were, and i had stopped changes as I considered that the end result was reasonable, but Skinwalker considers that the experiences of thousands of users is less important than his prejudiced POV. The fact that he works for a large pharma firm suggests that he may have a prejudiced perspective. Perhaps it is time for him to disclose if he has any links to the manufacture of SSRI's or other context in relation to this group of drugs. Right now, he is acting irresponsibly. The Effexor Petition represents the personal experience of thousands of users and he is putting himself ahead of their views. Again, I reiterate that the petition has the weight of preponderance of the experience of many thousands of users and should take precedence over the POV of one editor. The petition shows, in the main, the lack of proper education of patients by physicians and even includes the comments of a brave psychiatrist who took Wyeth's training and indicated that it did not inform adequately of the actual impacts. The guidelines do not require an authority in every case, and in this case, the information is very powerful whether Skinwalker likes it or not. Szimonsays Szimonsays 21:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Completing Version 0.5 reviews

Hi Dirk, thanks for offering to help with version 0.5. We've made it over 1000 articles! Now we only have about four weeks left to review articles for Wikipedia:Version 0.5. I was wondering if you could take a look at Wikipedia:Version_0.5/To_do and sign up for something? I'd like us to make sure we don't miss anything important. And once the end of the month rolls around we can take a well-deserved break...! There isn't much in the way of chemistry to review right now, but any help you can give would be most welcome. Thanks, Walkerma 21:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I can have a look, this month has a break for me already (going on holiday for a week next Saturday), so I could try and spend some time around that. Gets my mind of all the controversies I am running in now. I'll have a look! --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! The review process for core topics is mainly to check that the article is usable. Anything GA or above on the assessment scale should normally be OK, and most B-class articles are fine, as long as there are no horrible POV problems, atrocious English or similar problems. Some start-class articles are OK for core topics, if they are simply decent but short. All core topics have been assessed - look on the talk page of the article or look at the Core Topics list, so it shouldn't be too hard once you do a couple. Let me know if you need more help, and thanks again, Walkerma 21:36, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I revamped the list by Subst-ing in the bot table which nicely lists all of the articles already included. This was to save a lot of time doing that by hand, but it changes the procedure at Wikipedia:Version_0.5_Core_topics_review - now you add a 0.5 into the version column (or not if it fails), and add comments if needed. If you find the code for the table horrendous to work with, though, let me know and we can probably deconvolute it to something more readable. I'm simply trying to keep the time to a minimum. How about if you start at the top of the table - A/B-Class, and I'll work up from the bottom with the Starts (which involve more of a judgement call)? Thanks again, Walkerma 03:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Just saw your posting on my page relating to Sleep as an example. Here is some elaboration:
  • Try starting at the first article in the table that does not have a 0.5 in the version column.
  • Look over the article to see if it looks reasonable. For core topics, references are not required, though they are preferred. If the article looks like something we would be embarrassed by, fail it on quality. If it looks usable - not perfect, but it provides some useful information, then you can pass it. If there is a POV war or terrible English, fail it.
  • Tag it with {{V0.5}} for a B-Class article. We can worry about categories later.
  • Move on to the next article.

You shouldn't need to fail any articles on quality among the B-Class articles unless things have changed a lot, or if you see something horrendous that we missed. That should make it easy! Thanks again for your help. BTW, I hope we can reactivate assessments again at WP:CHEMS, and your expertise will be very valuable there. Walkerma 06:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at sleep. Your .."quite OK, some cleanup would be nice" sounds like a B. If you want to put in brief comments, you can add them by clicking the word "comments" in the V0.5 template and typing them on the page. These comments will eventually end up in the table, once I sort things out better. If you have a lot of detailed comments "This section needs copyedit, your need more refs for that part," etc, then you should put those on the article talk page. We only have a handful of active people at the moment, so we can't do a lot more review though we plan to compare the current and the assessed version before publication. You'll notice the Mathbot core topics table links to both the current and the assessed version directly (as does the chemistry table produced by Mathbot). We do plan to do more versions - I'm suggesting V0.7 for early next year, and working towards Version 1.0. We can't get every article perfect for 0.5, or even for 1.0, but reviewing, tagging and feedback all help encourage people to work on these things. As for locking, we may get to such things when we have stable versions, but things will have to be pretty basic for Version 0.5! Not sure if I answered everything, let me know if I can help more. Thanks, Walkerma 21:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I'll answer here, guess you are watching this page anyway.
Sleep was a B, indeed. While going through the article, you see some things while reading paragraphs, of which you think, these have a wrong style (in the case of sleep, I saw e.g. that the acronym REM (and NREM) were used a couple of times, before it stated Rapid Eye Movement). And there were more of those things. I really have to restrain myself to not repair these things, bacause then I might be busy for an hour (on average) with each article. Now there is still time for people to improve that, but say that sleep would have been one of the latest pages to be checked before a stable version was reached. I think that there should be a round of 'cleanup', where people are doing that type of copy-edit to an article before it goes into print (in a next round, a {{todo for V0.5}} on each selected article? --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
The todo sounds a very interesting idea, if you can set that up I'd be grateful (I would probably get tangled up). For V0.5 itself, there will only be a handful of people available to do such copyedits, so we probably can't handle it for that. But if we can compile information on what needs to be done, that would be useful, and also leave it on the article talk page.
In the last week or so I've reviewed all the known elements (117 articles in all), and as a chemist it was hard sometimes to walk away from problems, but I can't fix everything in Wikipedia myself, or even everything in Version 0.5. What I do is (a) fix the really easy stuff and (b) list the harder stuff on the talk page if I see what can be done to fix it. The latter can be seen as "sowing seeds" for the future, delegating the cleanup to people who care and know about the subject. Look at this note from June 6, then look at the work done, including adding some refs. If your todo system can help with that, it would be very useful.
With only a handful of people on Version 0.5 right now, we can't realistically do that amount of cleanup before publication (it would take literally years, by which time people would give up the project!). However, this is only a quick test, and remember that the German and Polish releases include essentially EVERYTHING except stubs and vandalised articles- warts & all (though scripts remove obscenities); even for V0.5 our level of quality control is much higher (that's why we will release 1500 articles, and the Poles will release 250,000 this fall!) And your todo comments can initiate improvements that we'll see in version 0.7, 0.8, 1.0 etc. Thanks, Walkerma 21:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Certainly cleanup is not for now, it is now senseless anyway, because we haven't even really sorted out which articles dó go into a stable version, and pages are changing too much anyway. I'll do some reviewing for now, when I have the time, and keep the 'todo for V0.5' in thought. I am willing to give that plan a go in 0.528, 0.68, or 0.84242 (or whatever subversion we get after this). A bot collecting the data on this 'todo-list' could give a feel for what really needs to be done. The items on this {{todo for V0.5}} should have less items than on {{todo}} (for articles that carry them), and could have predefined set of items that articles should go through For example with an item about the use of UK-English:

{{todo for V0.5 | Usage_English = UK | English = good }}

Articles that get a 'bad' on a certain item can be easily selected, and corrected (maybe people normally editing an article already do that, after which we only have to upgrade the status). But OK, I will keep this for version 0.74675. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Exothermic/endothermic

I am sorry, but I did not delete any information on the page, all the links are still there, I only rearranged them according to the Chemical Collaboration of the Month. I am reverting the revert. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:50, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Beetstra, I'm sorry but your changes we're very sloppy. I do see some pieces of good cleaning but many changes you made were for the worst. For example, you changed:
Endothermic refers to a transformation in which a system receives heat from the surroundings: Q > 0.
to
For an endothermic system the end state has a higher energy than the start state: Q > 0
For one there's no such thing as an "endothermic system". Second, changes in the measures of the energy of a thermodynamic system between two thermodynamic states is quantified by internal energy U not heat Q. You removed useful see also's such as exothermic. These are just a few of many examples where changes were for the worse. Please help clean and add to the article but please don't make detrimental changes to articles which end up putting strain on your fellow collaborators. To clean-up you're supposed clean-up is going to take a lot of work on my part? I will have pause on this matter for the moment.--Sadi Carnot 12:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, there may be flaws in my edits, I tried to get things going. I am sorry if there are things that are really wrong, but then revert and help me with improving the article. The article as it was, was incomprehendible to a non-chemist, I hope someone will pick up the things I did wrong, or either revert and try to get the Chemistry Collaboration of the Month running, and move on from there, and I am willing to help (maybe I can actually learn someting from it)! By the way, the links in the see-also section are removed per Wikipedia:Guide to layout#See also, so they had to go. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable. I'm presently working to start a new article, i.e. Thermoeconomics; after finishing this, over the next week, I'll look closer at the exothermic and endothermic articles so to see how we can blend our efforts together. Talk later:--Sadi Carnot 13:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

{{Chembox new}}

Yes, {{Chembox new}} has existed for several months now. It is a fully transclude version of the old chembox, with a few additions to cope with some non-standard boxes which I found along the way. All the values are added as parameters, eg MeltingPt=0 °C, and all are optional. It seems fairly stable, and is compatible with all the "old-new" chemboxes we have been using for the last year or so. Some editors have complained about table creep, so you may want to apply a little bit of self-censorship if you choose to use. However it has a number of advantages:

  • The format of the table can be changed (relatively) easily if wanted;
  • The table can be directly copied into foreign language projects (a recurrent request, given that we're doing all this work!)
  • Minor style faults can be bot-corrected.

Best wishes, Physchim62 (talk) 14:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

0.5 todo

Dirk, thanks for this, it looks very helpful, I'll look more closely at this tonight. I'm not the best person at working with templates, so it'll take me a little while to work out everything about it, and think how to use it best. Cheers, Walkerma 20:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It is just a simple setup, I think someone with more experience in V0.5 (or higher) could have a better look at it. Anywayz, I will see it after my holidays, I guess. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, have a nice holiday! Walkerma 03:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Welcome back! I hope you had a good time. Thanks for this model, I had been unsure of how it would work, but this certainly looks to be something we should discuss seriously. I think we should probably use something like this for the next release version, which will probably be version 0.7 (I've suggested 0.7 release in early 2007). For version 0.5, it would be hard to introduce because we are presently in a mad scramble to get in as many of the important articles as possible by the end of September (if possible). My opinion:
  • The basic idea is an excellent one, as it provides some feedback from our article reviews beyond the usual "incorporated (or not) in Version 0.5" edit comment. Often a fresh view of an article by an outsider can provide useful insights for those connected with the article.
  • Leaving comments should be optional.
  • One problem with the template as written is that it may get complicated. There may be twenty common types of improvement needed, and remembering abbreviations for all of these may be difficult. If you limit the common types to an easier 4 or 5, the comments will often be less useful beyond the inevitable "add references".
  • I think we should come up with a prototype system, then discuss its implementation once we have an agreement on what version we plan to work on next.

Does this sound like a plan? Regards, Walkerma 04:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I see I get into the old discussions directly (vide infra)!
As it is now, the parameters are optional. I would indeed go for a few things, if you need more than 5, the article is just not good. Some things are clear from the text itself. If there are many 'reference needed' marks, the page is not good, if it is one or two, one could ignore that, and incorporate the page into v0.5, for example. I could easily give it some extra parameters, e.g. 'comment, comment1, comment2, comment3' which are easy to remember, and just put the values of these parameters directly in a bulleted list, for the people who know the template a bit better, they can use the other parameters, or someone could go through the pages carrying the templates, and do a conversion where necessary. And if a parameter is not filled in, it should indeed result in an empty line. It is indeed something for the next step, now we should get a list of pages which should be there, and see what happens.
I'll get into 0.5 again later this week (where are we?), first catch up with the things that happened last week. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Dirk, please take a look at this! It seems to do what you want, and about 50 other things, as well as lots of bells and whistles - what do you think? Walkerma 16:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, this indeed does biography things, that is part of what I want, indeed .. I'll have a look! Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

commercial link removal

Dirk,

I only started deleting commercial links when I found that the commercial links that I was adding were quickly removed. I believe in consitent policy. If my commercial links are "offensive" to some because they are commercial in nature, then all commercial links must be. I am done deleting for now. If you have a resolution to this commercial link issue, I am more than willing to listen. I am relatively new to Wikipedia, so I apologize if I overstepped a bit and deleted too much. It will not happen again.

DrBird —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.245.157.18 (talkcontribs)

For what it is worth, I've been putting them back. Many of the links you removed are to the manufacturers or discoverers of these compounds, and so are notable. I take a dim view of a site that seems to exist primarily to SELL the items, however. I see all the Fermentek links as being valid, but I'm dubious about Geldanamycin.com on the Geldanamycin page, though. --Mdwyer 01:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
DrBird/71.245.157.18, there are consistent policies, links in the 'external links' sections should obey WP:EL, it may be that there are commercial links in that list, but I did not check how and by who these links were added (I may not have been around when the link was added). With your link I saw that you added it, and it does not obey WP:EL). In the way I see it, it does not link to a compound-property page, but to a general page, which for me is already enough.
Mdwyer, I did not remove the links, that was DrBird/71.245.157.18. There are problems with external links, there have been extensive discussions on that. A solution that is underway (though I still need a Wikipedia-programmer), would be a page like special:booksources, which would load Wikipedia:Chemical sources. For now, there is the template {{ChemicalSources}}, which enables to remove commercial links, but I do not remove links which directly link to the compounds property pages (I do remove links to companies homepages or similar, non-specific pages). --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I knew you weren't removing them. I was actually replying to DrBird, and I hijacked your page for a discussion. Sorry about that. In any case, I'm not familiar enough with the guts of the code to do more than just keep manually reverting things when I find them. The link DrBird keeps adding doesn't look like it fits WP:EL. The Fermentek ones seem valid to me. In other cases where I'm not sure, I will often move them with a note in the talk pages so someone can put them back if they think they are valid. --Mdwyer 05:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
DrBird is adding links to his own site, these do not comply WP:EL, moreover, these links did not link to the chemical property page, but to a general page. Links to chemical property sheets on commercial websites are not necessarily wrong, they give extra info, which is still necessary on many chemical pages. I see DrBird is still pushing, I will revert all his edits when he only adds or removes links in the 'external links' section (but I am going on holiday). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


Dear Mdwyer, Dirk Beetstra, and others,

Thank you very much for providing Dr. Doyle (AKA DrBird or 71.245.157.18) an explanation of your intentions re commercial links on Wikipedia, which I have now reviewed.

Wikipedia is a valuable Web resource, and our firm takes very seriously the need for the Wikipedia site to objectively serve the needs of its primary audience.

I would like to offer some comments here that are intended to be constructive for all concerned.

A. Level Playing Field. I am sure you would agree that there should be a level playing field for all parties on Wikipedia. If commercial links are permitted for any firms, then such links should be permitted for all firms. If commercial links are denied to some firms, than all firms should be denied such links.

B. Factual Errors. Though I understand the concept underlying your attempts to distinguish "discoverers" and/or "manufacturers" from mere "resellers" regarding biochemical reagents such as Geldanamycin, Leptomycin B, Sirolimus and Tacrolimus, etc., please note that you have not been successful at distinguishing these correctly.

C. Regarding "discovery":

--Geldanamcyin was discovered 36 years ago by the former Upjohn Company (Kalamazoo, MI) in cultures of a fungus from a Kalamazoo soil sample: J. Antibiotics, Vol. 23, pp. 442-447 (1970)

--Leptomycin B was discovered twice, independently, by Japanese workers [J. Antibiot., Vol. 36, pp. 639-645 (1983)] and at about the same time by the former Warner-Lambert Company, as subsequently reported [U.S. Patent No. 4,771,070]. This patent was applied for in 1986, and the actual work was probably carried out several years earlier.

--Sirolimus (a.k.a Rapamycin) was discovered in 1975 by Ayerst Research Laboratories (Montreal) in a soil fungus from Easter Island: J. Antibiot., Vol. 28, pp. 721-726 (1975).

--Tacrolimus (a.k.a. FK-506) was discovered by the Fujisawa Company, as reported in Euro. Patent No. EP184162 and J. Antibiot., Vol. 40, pp. 1249ff (1987).


D. Regarding "manufacturing": there are about 75 purveyors worldwide, including our firm, LC Laboratories, that sell products of this type. Some, such as Sigma and Calbiochem, sell tens of thousands of such products, a small percentage of which they manufacture themselves. Some, such as AG Scientific, have essentially no manufacturing capability whatsoever; they are only repackagers and resellers.

Here at LC Laboratories we manufacture essentially all of our very small list of products (about 100) ourselves. Even for those very few products that we buy and resell, we take on inherent responsibility for the product by conducting substantial purity and quality testing ourselves; this is necessary and is a substantial benefit to our customers because the sources of such compounds (various Asian countries, for example) are often highly questionable regarding quality. To the best of my knowledge, AG Scientific does not carry out any quality testing itself on the products it resells. To confirm this you would need to contact Mr. A.G. "Chip" Lindgren, the founder of AG Scientific.

E. Regarding "reselling": as noted to some extent in the previous paragraph, it is not a given that "reselling" is a trivial activity. There are literally thousands of sources of biochemical reagent sources around the world -- small academic labs, scientists literally making things in their cellars or garages, small primary manufacturers like LC Laboratories, larger primary manufacturers such as Sigma's RBI division, etc.

I would like to emphasize that even the resellers are providing essential services and value to the 180,000-odd biomedical researchers around the world. By collecting many important compounds into a single catalog or Web source, even pure resellers such as AG Scientific are providing valuable efficiency to its customers, enabling them to quickly locate and obtain reagents for their studies.

F. More about "discoverers": I can assure you that exactly zero of the "small-molecule" reagents sold by the ca. 75 biochemical vendors alluded to above, reagents such as the four I have already listed, or the 100-odd in the LC Labs catalog, or the many thousands of small-molecule products in Sigma's or Calbiochem's catalog, were discovered by these vendors. Again for emphasis: NONE. Compounds of these types are discovered by drug companies and, to a very much smaller extent, by academic laboratories.

[Sooner or later LC Labs will become an exception -- we will begin selling some compounds that we have discovered ourselves. Unlike other biochemical vendors, we also do pharmaceutical discovery research. LC Labs is a division of PKC Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and we are close to releasing some of our non-clinical, proprietary compounds to the research reagent marketplace, to enable other researchers to benefit from our discoveries (US Patent Nos. 5,643,948, 5,716,968, 5,750,568, 5,886,017, 5,886,019, 5,891,870, 5,891,906, 5,955,501, 5,962,498, 6,043,270, 6,080,784, etc. & foreign equivalents)].

G. LC Labs in particular: by trying to selectively block our commercial links on Wikipedia, you are strongly dis-serving biomedical researchers. As our home page notes, we are the highest-quality, lowest-priced supplier of every product in our product list (there might be 1-3 exceptions in certain currencies). In some cases our prices get down to 1/50th or 1/100th of those charged by firms like AG Scientific or Fermentek. You can verify these claims for yourself; we provide price comparison tables for all of our products vs. our competitors: http://www.lclabs.com/PriceComparisons.php4 See sirolimus (rapamycin) in particular: http://www.lclabs.com/PrC/R-5000prcompUS.php4

H. To wrap things up here: I and our IT team are strongly committed to the level playing field concept. On Wikipedia, for us this is something of a self-appointed role, much as your role of "link-remover" based on factual errors appears to have been a self-appointed role.

We will leave it to you to decide where you think this situation ought to go. If you think commercial links should be allowed for the important biomedical research reagents in question here, then we will insist that ours be allowed and will take all necessary steps to achieve that. If you decide "no commercial links", then we will assist you by automating the removal of all of same from the relevant Wikipedia entries, because we absolutely will not accept any discrimination between firms on any basis.


In closing, let me again thank you for stepping forward with an explanation of your viewpoint; I hope my offering here in return is received in the constructive way that it is intended. My associates and I look forward to resolving this particular topic to everyone's satisfaction.


Sincerely,

Paul E. Driedger, Ph.D. General Manager of LC Laboratories; President of PKC Pharmaceuticals, Inc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.245.157.18 (talkcontribs)

As I have said, the policy is described in WP:EL. You are adding links to your OWN site, that is explicitly described in WP:EL. The link that is on the page, may have been put there in another reason (when I have time, I will check). Your link is defined as WP:SPAM, I am sorry. Moreover, again, the link on the page is pointing directly to a product property page, you were adding to a homepage of a company. The rules are described in WP:EL, as I have done with some other similar conflicts, I will revert deletions again (already started). I have also already described that WP is working on a solution, which is quite far in the meantime (where do I find a programmer ..), that should serve all the chemists in the world. For now, links to property pages that are already on the page in the external links sections stay, all others go. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
First of all, welcome back! I'll help as much as I can with your Chemical Sources project. I'm not sure how much I can help, though. I'm more than a little concerned about the scope of the project. I imagine it is supposed to be similar to book sources, but it seems a little bit strange to look for bioengineered substances in the same place you'd buy something as mundane as isopropanol. I wonder if it needs to be split between chemical sources and biomedical/drug sources?
As for the LCLabs issue, I guess I'm a little more lenient about WP:EL than you. I think Paul's comments regarding AG and Fermentek have a fair amount of validity. I've agreed to stop my edit war and to flesh out the Chemical Sources page as soon as possible. I've got a similar issue currently simmering with surgery-images. com. They've cleaned up their site to look less linkspammy, and their site is now much more notable with some very good pictures, but by the strictest reading of WP:EL it's still spam. --Mdwyer 05:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I hope to get some work done soon.
I am quite strict about WP:EL, and there have been quite some discussions about this subject. First, although, wikipedia:chemical sources has a fair list of commercial suppliers, that part of the list is of the least concern to me, that is the commercial part, and well, I don't really care, the thing is more, that we need an unbiased source of information, and the links that were provided on the chemical pages are not unbiased (if they are to commercial companies, they are obviously commercial, but when they are to a government source, well, if NIH gets the link, PubMed does not get it, some of these non-commercials get their government money by the amount of data they provide, hence there is a bias problem there as well, though not that big as with commercial sites). There is so much chemical information out there, it would just give a too large list of links on every page.
For chemical substances with unique identifiers, that page should link to as much external info as possible. The page is still crude, and I would not mind to split it into more groups, if that is appropriate. I would leave the supplier list to grow, the other lists can change (I have (months ago) copied the supplier list to the MSDS list, and started to delete all the suppliers that did not provide an MSDS, e.g.). So making a list with pages providing medical data (not bare pricing) sounds OK with me, I'd like to see such initiatives on the page. Even if we can't get it to work like to booksources page, it is a good repository for all the links. Making an additional page, hmm .. one would get links which are on both pages, and well, should then the PubMed point to the medical page, and CAS to the chemical. I am not really fond of the plan, but if you think it is a viable idea, please discuss that on the talk page of the chemical sources page, if we have one working, the other should be 'easy'.
About the links now in question, the Fermentec page is linking directly to a property page, which is not a real problem to me, it is similar to linking to a page on NIH, or on Oxfords MSDS. Especially on stubby pages, those links are handy for now, because one can retrieve the info from that page, and make the page grow (when the chemical sources page is working, that is not necessary anymore, and such links can just be removed, if there is a CAS, the data is just one click further away). Dr. Driedger works for LC labs, and therefore, HE can not add links to a page on LC labs, if the link provides necessary info, he has to go via the talk page, make the suggestion, and see if it finds concensus (leaving the fact that he uses an IP instead of a user name). At the moment, when I see a link added to one of the 3000 chemical pages I have on my list, I am quite quick in removing them, except if I know (seeing the contributions list) the user does not add the link from a biased POV. I have gone through all of them already, and removed all links that were not pointing to the property page on the site, tried to get a full list on chemical sources, and added the {{ChemicalSources}} to them. If I missed pages (undoubtedly), they should get the template, and the list should be cleaned. I could go and check how the Fermentec page got added, and I have seen in some cases IP's adding that site, but also in another case by an editor who has quite some edits (which does not make him impartial yet, I'd have to study that). But some of the pages which have Fermentec on them, I guess about 30-35 in total on Wikipedia) are really stubby, I hope people will use the data page(s) (there is not even pricing on the fermentec page, if I saw it correctly) to make the page grow, and in the meantime chemical sources could get to it's full potential.
By the way, I drop the argument (handed to me by someone), that Fermentec is the inventor of the compound (though I could live with the argument, providing it is true, though I would then prefer a sentence in the history section like 'This compound was first reported by Dirk Beetstra in 1712', using only an internal link)
So in short, I see Dr. Driedgers (and more peoples) point in that some links on the pages are biased, it may not have been added in the past in a nonbiased way, but it does link to a page which provides a lot of data instead of mainly pricing info, and therefore is of use to wikipedia (lacking for now another solution). If there are more links which would be nice to have on these pages (for now, that is), they can either be added by an impartial editor, or be added after a discussion on the talk-page of the page the link has to be added to (and preferably both). That reasonably complies with WP:EL. If there is concern about the link, make sure the page gets to a good, full page with a lot of info (do not copy paste, please), and then remove the external links, you would not need them anymore then. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Chemistry-related stub updates

All four of these stub types are still oversized, and since you were so helpful in your input last time, I thought I'd give you an update of the counts of the memberships of the various permanent category hierarchies. If this factors into what's feasible as a new stub type, we can follow-up at WP:WSS/P, or else ask for more input at WP:CHEMS. Alai 09:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Organic compound stubs

Category:Chemistry stubs

Category:Biochemistry stubs

Category:Pharmacology stubs

OK, thanks for the list. Are these the stubs, or the articles in the categories? If these are stubs .. I might get demotivated now .. But the good thing is, I am going on a holiday soon (tomorrow). I am sorry, but I will have a look when I am back. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Those are the stubs only, sorry. :) Alai 18:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Organophosphorus compounds

This is also a red-link. hence why my bot removed it as well. Sorry about that, just simply create the category (I would, but I don't know what a Organophosphorus compound (Yet... anyway :)) Thanks. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 11:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

note, respond on my page please.

You asked about the deletion log. Here is what I found. 03:59, June 23, 2006 Pschemp (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Category:Organophosphorus compounds" (content was: 'Category:Organic compoundsCategory:Phosphorus compounds') hope this helps and as normal, please respond on my page. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 23:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Tramadol

My link is not spam. Really, info-site. Sorry for bad English.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.20.100.97 (talkcontribs)

I am sorry, but all I see is a site with only text in Russian (except for couple of English words). It may indeed not be spam, but the link is not appropriate on the English wikipedia, I would suggest you add it to the russian wikipedia. Also, if this is a link to your own site (if I understand your note to me correctly) the addition would not obey the policy described in WP:EL. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: NFPA 704

I have already manually changed over the Template:Nfpa references to Template:NFPA 704. All that's needed to be done is to change over the subst'ed Template:Nfpa references. -- Denelson83 16:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, those are amongst the ones I mean, as well as the commented out {{nfpa}} references in subst:chemboxes (which you will not find in a normal search, I have seen quite some of them (but can't find one now, may find one when I go back to my AWB programming later)). But I will take care of that (though you are free to do them as well). --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ethylene solubility

Thanks for keeping me honest. I got the number from the Merck Index. 25 mL gas in 100 mL water: ca 1 mmol or 28 mg. Seems reasonable to me. I mean even benzene has got a decent solubility in water. But in any case, I will insert a reference and would not be offended if you or others find better data.--Smokefoot 13:25, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah .. 25 mL gas in 100 mL water .. that makes more sense to me, but indeed, please add a reference. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello,

Thanks for helping with the parabens article. You are a welcome breeze of fresh air. Finally my concerns have been answered. Aslo, please look through the histroy pages for any relavant sentences that have been lost. Large sections have been ERASED! Thank again! --63.17.95.220 21:56, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I have seen that, I will go through them later on, for now I am trying to rewrite the current text into a non-POV way. More edits to follow (I do not promise to reinstate data, neither that more will be lost after I am finished). --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

WOW! You are awesome. The article is shaping up very nicely now! Keep it going! --63.17.95.220 22:06, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

UNBELIEVABLE! You are the skilled zen master of writings! Please tell me what books you recommend to read and learn from to be student of writing. How can I learn to write like that? I would like to learn how to make magic. A poor article is now gggggggreat. --63.17.95.220 22:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. It is always nice to make another customer happy! I hope now some others will kick in, there is still some work to be done (there is still a 'reference needed' tag, a.o.). I will keep an eye on it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:58, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Please monitor this parabens article. Ever time I added information two other editors (deletionists) retroactively removed it for unsubstantiated reasons. I am more than pleased with your edits. P.S. Do you recommend any books for me to read? I want to learn from the master. --63.17.95.220 23:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Note:: The article name was Parabens but someone today changed it to Paraben. I think it should be changed back to Parabens because Parabens represents the group of paraben preservatives. --63.17.95.220 23:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
It is on my watchlist, just as about 3500 other pages I am interested in. I have not read any books to do this, just some training on wikipedia in resolving edit conflicts, common sense, reading other articles about 'difficult' subjects, and well, a proper university training in chemistry. By the way, I have merely reorganised, hardly reinstated any of the deleted info. Some of the data that was deleted was duplicate (so I don't believe the other editors were wrong in deleting the duplicate information), though mere deletion does not always result in a better article. But an article to read would be WP:MOS. And well, as you can see here, sometimes going into a discussion with people results in a better page faster than when attacking people (you might want to try and get a better relation with the other, established, editors on Wikipedia you had an encounter with in earlier edits). For these you could read WP:AGF (and browse on from there, using the links provided), get an account (let me know which name you have chosen) and start making some small edits on subjects you know something about, you will see soon enough which edits will pertain, and how the wikipedia community works. Sometimes things get reverted, sometimes people reedit and you think, hmm, that is an improvement on what I did. Practice makes perfect!
About the name, the manual of style (or one of the pages that that page directs to) describes that the name should preferably be the singular form, sorry. --Dirk Beetstra T C 23:40, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Note: The other editors deleted information about the paragraph explaining about the cosmetic campaigns, etc... I believe there edits were not in good faith. I needed a nuetral party to edit. They won't be happy with you neutral editing. They do not want readers to know safe cosmetic campaigns are making an impact in America. About 90% of cosmetics sold at health food stores are now paraben free. There is a movement away from parabens. I read what DENE45 editor wrote about my information on the other editors ED talk page. DENE45 thinks I am annoying. I was suprised. Thanks for your intervention. --63.17.95.220 00:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

As I explained, plain deleting info might have been too much, but we are all editors, and we all make mistakes (hey, I made quite some, not too long ago a bold edit I made was also reverted). Sometimes in deletions one deletes too much (when there is info encapsulated in a lot of duplicate info, a single sentence or two may get lost), but then reinstate the parts that should not have been deleted, and try to find references to support that statement. Editors also have their own work and they edit Wikipedia because they like being here, and sometimes they edit in a haste (maybe now you were lucky I felt like putting time into this page). But what I meant was, when you decide to stay, and do some work around chemistry, there are some names that you will encounter over and over again, and Ed is one of them .. and I believe it is better to become friends with them. They are also willing to help when you ask them. Some editors may have an interest somewhere (though I believe they all keep a neutral point of view, and as far as I know, also Ed does not have such an interest), still they are useful to the community. Hope to see you around, I am calling it a day! --Dirk Beetstra T C 00:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello,

Click on the link to read what DENE45 wrote about me. Read the heading under Parabens. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Edgar181&oldid=78515329 I consider DENE45 to be a deletionist. This user wants to continue his POV pushing. Please leave this user a short message about your edits and/or deleting my useful contributions that should not be deleted. Thank you for everthing. I understand I am lucky you inter-edited the parabens article (I think I just made a new word). Thanks for your inter-editing. Good Luck. --63.17.95.220 00:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello, after looking at the parabens article again I noticed the image of parabens is slightly distorted. I new image would nice. Also, for the chemistry section adding the word >> top <<, explaining the image is at top right may be correct but I do not know if wikipedia likes at right or top right better. Since the image is at top right, I would assume top right may be better. Thanks. --63.17.95.220 03:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

There is not much chance at the moment missing the image, there is only one, so that should be OK for now (otherwise indeed maybe 'top right'.
I see that these statements were after you started calling people names (and earlier, you yelling). I don't know if Dene45 was influenced by that (he may well have been). Wikipedia is all about reaching consensus. If someone adds something he thinks correct, but it gets reverted, than that subject should be discussed on the talk page of the involved page (or maybe on the talk-page of one of the two editors). Reverting and yelling does not help. Remember that editors that are around longer than you may know better how to link, or how to set up a page, and some editors have a lot of expertise in certain subjects (I know Ed is working in medicinal chemistry/drug discovery, so he may be knowledgable in the area of parabens as well). I see that in the edits sometimes sentences get lost, but that goes both ways. Also you wrote over good pieces of text, and even as a last resort, calling names or yelling is not a good idea, it is better to discuss things on a talk-page, especially when new and when 'hiding' behind a IP. So again a hint: get an account, that at least will give you the credit for edits, and one can see what your previous edits (see your expertise, when you make good edits, one may know that a controversial edit may be OK, and they will not delete, but rather enhance), now we have to guess you are the same as another IP. In that way you can build up some respect, I am afraid you lost some in the edit-war. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello,

I its me the 63 paraben contributor. Now I understand my writing style for Wikipedia needs to be toned down. I like to add flowerly words to sentences that make them more dramatic. I thought it would be more intersting to read by adding modifier words. This is the way I have always written though. Also, I like to explain in detail. When adding sentences I need to get to the point and write shorter sentences, especially when adding commentary sentences such as the cosmetic industry versus the safety cosmetic campaigns. Commentary should be brief. I have learned from this experience. now.

Also, please go back in the history and look at the previous paraban image which is not distorted. The current image looks slightly distorted. The past image was fine. It may be possible to fix the image by pasting the old image back into the new parabens article.

Also. I would like to add the two words. top to make the sentence at top right and corporation to the unilevier reference. Readers should know the reference is a business.

By the way, if I had an account I would not be saying such words as deletionists and POV pushing. Without an account I feel free to say whatever I feel at any moment and make bold edits whenever. I may add a couple of words soon and you can review my edits. Thanks. --63.17.74.76 17:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

{Update: I have restored the paraben image. The article is now well written. The sentence that explains 100,000 times does not make any sense to me. I don't get it. I am not a chemist or a scientist. That sentence needs to be be rewritten or explains better for readers like me, average folks to understand. It is now time for me to take a wikibreak from wikipedia. I am thinking about contributing to the Potassium Sorbate article next. If I do I should make short sentences and keep the peace. --63.17.74.76 18:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

100,000 times sentence in paraben article in not accurrate.

Click on link for reference: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-para.html

FDA is aware that estrogenic activity in the body is associated with certain forms of breast cancer. Although parabens can act similarly to estrogen, they have been shown to have much less estrogenic activity than the body’s naturally occurring estrogen. For example, a 1998 study (Routledge et al., in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology) found that the most potent paraben tested in the study, butylparaben, showed from 10,000- to 100,000-fold less activity than naturally occurring estradiol (a form of estrogen). Further, parabens are used at very low levels in cosmetics. In a review of the estrogenic activity of parabens, (Golden et al., in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, 2005) the author concluded that based on maximum daily exposure estimates, it was implausible that parabens could increase the risk associates with exposure to estrogenic chemicals.


10,000 to 100,000 times is more accurrate!

The effect of butylparaben is approximately 100,000 times waker than estradiol, measured at a dose level which was 25,000 times higher than is used to preserve products. << Inaccurrate sentence.

The effect of butylparaben is approximately 10,000 - 100,000 times weaker than a estradiol (a similar form of estrogen). Further, their low concentrations level is under 1% in cosmetic formulations. << My recommendation for accurracy.

The part about meaured at a does level that was 25,000 times high does not make any sense to me. I have to question that part.

Since chemistry or science is not my expertise I will not write over other editors work as I did before. I will let you review the facts and the reference and decide. Thank you. 63.17.106.2 11:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess we need someone who has access to the original publication. But what I think it means: The activity was measured in that specific experiment at a certain concentration. That activity was 10,000- to 100,000-fold less than found with estradiol (also measured at the same concentration, of course). Probably that concentration is a specific concentration at which experiments are conducted with estrogens. But, that specific concentration was (apparently) 25,000 times higher than the concentration at which parabens are commonly found in products (which, by the way, would be a nice piece of info for the article, what is the concentration of paraben in some typical products). By the way, a simple calculation would then come to a activity-difference of 250,000,000 .. though that is probably not a fair calculation, things in chemistry are not necesseraly linear. Hope this clarifies a bit. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Parabens Article.

Hello,

I think the limit in cosmetic products for here in the USA is 0.4%. I believe companies usually use between 0.2% to 0.4%. Some companies could use preservative boosters such as chlorphenesin which reduces the need for a higher dose at 0.4%. It seems paraben are out of favor just because of a few studies when organic soy has a much more stonger estrogenic effect. A detailed comparison of soy versus parabens would be a welcome addtion to the article. Also, I beleive propylparaben has some estrogenic activity too which would then in turn make some statements in the parabens article false. Some people are eating pounds of tofu every month. Someone needs to do a more studies and soy. I would avoid soy anyways. The parabens article is my favorite article about preservatives. All the other articles on preservatives are basic text. The parabens article is detailed and has a heart (good commentary on both sides of the issue). I would be suprised if the paraben controversy section was not edited by POV editing from time to time. Thanks. --63.17.120.14 01:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Well, my main goal at the moment is keeping the pages about chemical compounds 'clean', I am mainly a chemist (molecular, synthesis), I don't know that much about pharmaceutics (but I can rewrite paragraphs when the literature is available, and trying to keep as much info as possible; I know enough biochemistry to understand the point, and I know my way around databases of chemical compounds by now). I am a bit inactive at the wikipedia at the moment, since I am trying to get myself into php (trying to prog some additions to the wikipedia), so I may not respond quickly. So, when you can find (preferably scientific) references that show that also propylparaben is an active estrogen, then indeed parts may need rewriting.
About comparison soy vs. parabens .. I do not think it belongs in this article, but it may have a place in another article. You could put it in, but then don't be surprised if I split it of under a (maybe awkward title) and just create a link. I have done that more often on controversial subjects, have a page which tells about the scientific part, and have a approx two-liner section titled 'controversy about .. ', and in there a prominent link to a controversy article. But that depends on 'how big' the controversy section becomes in comparison to the whole article, and how the subject connects to other pages (in this case e.g., the article about deodorants could have a sentence that says something like 'one common component of deodorants (parabens) has been a subject of controversy' (quite neutral). Now parabens would be linked, but people would maybe be interested in the controversy, not in the paraben, and when they click paraben, they only see a small paragraph about the controversy. When also linking the word controversy to, say, 'cosmetic additive controversy' (not a good title, noone would type that directly, but well), that article could tell about the additives which are controversial, and the parabens could have a paragraph in there. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Newbie remark

Hi Dirk I am still really a newbie. The effexor article sure draws passionate feedback. I saw some other of the contributors, very impressive. I read the current version of the article again, and i really believe that it has improved considerably notwithstanding a bit of an editing war. I am not really as familiar going around Wiki as I wish i could be, but time is so limited. thanks for your earlier message of assistance. sorry i didn't respond to that, but i am really not familiar on how to do that. must spend a bit of time learning.Szimonsays szimonsays

Nitrous oxide

Thanks! --Guinnog 09:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Suppliers

Hi Dirk,

I am currently working for BASF, and an avid fan of the wikipedia website. However, one thing I can not understand is why you insist upon deleting my product links from any given product to BASF as a listed supplier. I believe this website is for the benefit of all interested parties, whereby users / customers of products such as 2-ME represent the predominant interest. This particular medium has already proven to be most constructive in connecting an experienced producer / user (BASF) with those that require support / help in handling the material. These products are of a hazardous nature, and thus any additional source of information can not adversely effect the informative nature of the website.

Best regards,

Daniel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.6.8.72 (talkcontribs)

Hi Daniel,
There are several reasons why I removed your link:
  1. Mainly, the IP that you use (141.6.8.72) belongs to BASF, so I already figured out that you were working for BASF, and additions of links to 'your own' website is a thing that is descibed as a "don't" in the WP:EL.
  2. When such external links to own sites are of interest to the page, their addition has to be discussed on the talk page first, which did not happen (again, see WP:EL),
  3. The link was added by an anonymous user (you are using an IP-number), which suggest spam/vandal behaviour (I am sorry if this offends, I know there are many anonymous users who are not in this category, I could even argue that wikipedia relies to a great extend on them!),
  4. External links to pages of suppliers, even when they are to a data page that does not contain pricing info &c., have a high degree of bias (and I can even argue that for pages to non-commercial sites),
  5. If we would include all companies having specific data, the list would become too long, cluttering the page.
Having said this, there are some links there at the moment, to which all of the above would also apply. I, and some others on wikipedia with me, have made the choice not to go through all the pages and remove them (as you argue, they are of value) now, but try and find another solution (for now, the solution is caught by {{ChemicalSources}}. I am at the moment lobbying hard to the developers of the wikipedia (mainly Brion and Tim, see [[special:version|first line of this page) to get a solution in place, a solution that I have running on my local wikipedia at the moment. Shortly, we are trying to set-up a page similar to special:booksources, but then with a whole row of chemical identifiers (I have 10 programmed at the moment!). When this page is up and running (it is going to be special:Chemicalsources), I will go through a list of about 3000 chemical pages, cleaning them out thoroughly, and linking all instances of the chemical identifiers to the special-page. The repository for links is at wikipedia:Chemical sources, a page which still needs a lot of work, feel free to add BASF there!
I hope this explanation is satisfactory, otherwise, don't hesitate to contact me. I hope you will help us improve the wikipedia, happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:01, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Nephalim's Buprenorphine FAQ

It appears you took one look and removed it. I read the external linking and it does appear appropriate. Please tell me why you removed it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nephalim (talkcontribs)

Having a look, brb. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, I had a look. The reason why I removed it at first, was that the edit looked a bit vandalous, not only the link was included, also a stray 'A', and the edit was performed by an anonymous editor (on an anonymous IP this could be a link to an own website, which would not comply with wp:el, moreover, there is a vandal-warning on the talk-page of the ip, already). I did have a glance at the page, and the tone of the page looked like 'personal research' (though it is not included in the page, but have a look at wp:or). I think the way you have chosen now (adding it to the talk page) is at least an appropriate one, maybe others can help in the decision. By the way, I am not fond of this type of links, imagine everybody linking to a personal page with their own experiences with ethanol (though I understand that with medicine the group will be way smaller, still it might amount to hundreds of such links). Could you write a request for the link being added to the talk-page? I guess that after a couple of (positive) answers, and/or a couple of weeks, you are free to add the link (point to the discussion on the talk page in your edit summary). Hope to see you around, happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
(copied to talk:buprenorphine, please continue discussion there) --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

NPG-6 website

Hi Dirk, The Nylon-6 Promotional group (NPG-6) is a group to "Enhance the opportunities in Nylon-6 related industries by means of more collaboration and communication.” The website: www.NPG-6.com has a lot of information about the members, but also about Nylon-6 applications/properties/production processes. It would be helpfull if the NPG-6 link would be present on the Nylon-6 and Caprolactam page. With kind regards, Mcsys 09:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

RE: Oxymorphone: (RV to 78205382 (2006-09-27 23:53:17) by DrCipher using Popups - rv edits, please keep NPOV)

I think you referenced the wrong RV (16:53, September 27, 2006 (hist) (diff) m Oxymorphone (→Illicit Use - added "to" between "referred" and "in the film"). I only added the "to". Sorry if my edit was done wrong, if so, if you would please let me know what I wrote that was not NPOV that would be great. I did see the RV you most likely were referring to (22:48, September 28, 2006 68.201.208.80 (Talk) (→Illicit Use)) which I did not add which was not a NPOV. I was looking and looking for what you were referring to in my rv not keeping a NPOV. Then I found the culprit rv under the afore mentioned edit. Thanks for all the contribs in the field.

DrCipher 05:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)DrCipher

editing

The template works for fools alright, but not for people who do not scientifically adhere to correct capitalization. ;-). Just kidding, keep up the good work, Dirk! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 12:28, 22 October 2006 (UTC).

I'll take that as a compliment. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

chemical.poolspares.com

Before you continue spamming, chemistry.poolspares.com instead? 4th on your list, I'm honored! Femto 17:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Greetings - you asked me to comment on the new tool. I am not quite sure what its role is. Is it that it provides searches in a WP context? Petermr 21:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't exactly understand your question. The specialpage indeed provides searches in a WP-context, similar to the special:booksources page. I know the booksources page has magic-linking possibilites, though that would be possible here as well, that is not a the target, I propose to use templates to link to the specialpage.
What I tried, is to find a way to be able to remove all biased links on chemical pages, all 'chemical identifiers' on a chemical page can now be linked to the special-page, and people can select their own link to an external source. Now the links in the chembox are generally to chosen external sources, mainly non-commercial ones, but whereever they link to:
  • The choice of the url to link to will be biased by the editor
  • If organisation A getlinked, B (who may have the same info, or better) does not get the link, and I presume that some non-commercial organisations get paid by how much data is retrieved from them, how efficient they are.
  • If the compound is not yet covered by a non-commercial organisation, one may have to choose to link to one of the suppliers (but this will not happen very often).
  • If A does not have the compound in the database, one would have to link to B, so one would have to search for the correct link.
(and there may be more of this type of )
It also allows a more rigorous cleanup of all the external links sections in wikipedia (which have to be cleaned anyway, but links there are now merely retained for convenience).
I hope this answers your questions. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Your edit on de-WP

Hello Beetstra! You made this edit to de:Portal Diskussion:Chemie/Archiv/Juli 2006. That page is an archive so I moved the discussion to a more appropriate page, de:Wikipedia:Redaktion Chemie, the editorial department for chemistry stuff on the german Wikipedia. Regards, --Rhododendronbusch 23:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Chemicaliën

Hoi Beetstra,

Bedankt voor je melding op nl:Overleg portaal:Scheikunde. Ik heb daar op dezelfde pagina gereageerd. Over wel soort spamming gaat het (voorbeeldje?)? Op wikipedia NL hebben we daar toch niet echt last van.

Ben jij actief als chemiemedewerker op de Engelse wiki? Dat zou misschien reuzeinteressant zijn om eens overleg te plegen over de wederzijdse problemen. Ik ben zo'n 8 maanden geleden begonnen met een deftig sjabloon op de pagina's met chemicaliën te hangen met daarin alle info. Daarbij heb ik gemerkt dat er dikwijls verschillen tussen de wiki's zijn (waarbij de Engelse minder betrouwbaar is gebleken en de Duitse juist kwalitatief heel goed). Het zou tof zijn mochten we elkaar op de hoogte houden van de veranderingen op beide wiki's.

Groeten, Annabelleke 07:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC) (Annabel@wikipedia NL)

Chemical sources

Dirk, I've had a chance to look a little more closely at the features you are developing. I really like the idea of the Chemical Sources page and the <chemform> tags. And in general I think it wold be a good addition to Wikipedia. The features work seemlessly with each other. I'm a little worried though that the usefulness of the page may be limited by the websites that are linked to. It seems that many of them are not searchable or do not allow deep linking. Compared to Book Sources, in which every source is searchable, it ends up looking a bit irregular. Hope this helps. And keep up the good work. --Ed (Edgar181) 10:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ed, thanks for that. Indeed, there are many which are not deeplinkable, although the of the majority I haven't even tried that (all the questionmarks). And well, the page might need a major revamp (hence also the {{cleanup}} on Chemical sources here. Before I put too much time in that, I think it is better to get it up and running, I have done some major ones, and do one or two every now and then. When it is up and running, it may be that people will actually help (or we turn it into a chemistry collaboration of the month .. though I am afraid this one is going to be even more inpopular than the work on thermodynamics). Or better, organisations repair their own link.
About those sites that are not deeplinkable, what I hope is that the webmasters of those sites rethink their policy, or create a possibility to deeplink (service to customers, isn't it?). If not .. well, it is not actually my problem that they don't get an automated deeplink, it is only inconvenient when the information cannot be found on any other site. See you around, and again, thanks for the review. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi Dirk, my quick look at the site gave me the same viewpoint as Ed, it was very frustrating to be taken just to the basic entry page. However, I support your optimism. Believe me, you'd be amazed at the amount of attention Wikipedia gets, even in chemistry, and we may be able to start a trend. I hope that once we can start a WikiProject on this type of thing (as discussed recently at WP:CHEMS), we can coordinate this and contact all of the sites requesting they open things up better, and perhaps back-link to our page in return. It's in their interest, it will increase traffic to their site if we make it easier/more useful for chemists. Then we need to extend the capability of the script so we can look for compounds in journal articles! Walkerma 03:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
In the meantime, on V0.5, the core topics are almost finished (please continue so we finish!), then the next thing to clear up is Wikipedia:Version 0.5 Biography Review. Once that is completed we're pretty much ready to publish! Eyu and Ncurse are working through the last FAs. Walkerma 03:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi Dirk,
What's the source language of this chemistry search page? I just wanted to have a look on the source. If it's php, I should be able to understand it and help you filtering some things so you only get links that certainly work.
Annabelleke 17:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
PS: In a few days I will upload the CAS template to the Dutch wikipedia and include it in the template for chemical compounds

Natural disasters

I've just done most of a rewrite of Natural disasters. Thought you might like to take a look, to see if it's back up to Class-A yet. Waitak 09:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a look, and ask for a second opinion. First glance indeed gave the impression it was much better now! Cheers. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I don't have a huge personal stake in the topic, but thought that the effort required to bring it up to snuff wasn't extreme, so decided to have a crack at it. Maybe you could put a version of your comments on the talk page? I'd love to have another go when there's time, but others might be interested as well... Merci! Waitak 11:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:FAC

Yoh, Dirk, I just put the lead(II) nitrate article up for FA-class. Feel free to contribute your support. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC).

Spelling

Thank you for your comment on spelling in Organic chemistry. I think what you say is more acceptable than that of Vrik8, especially as we are trying to spread the free knowledge internationally. I have looked up IUPAC as you suggested and they seem to favour the US spelling on sulfur, so sulphur seems out, but they don't want anything to do with aluminum. The name is definitely aluminium. I am surprised that there has ever been any question about it. Thanks again LouisBB 22:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the welcome, Dirk! I'll do my best to help out. Cheers, riana_dzasta 00:07, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of company links

Dirk - I received your comment about deleting my page from the natural graphite page, but can you then explain to me how to create a company profile on Wikipedia?

Thanks, Deanna Hamm Deannahamm 21:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If you are working for that company, I would advice you to stay a bit out of the way of that page, or very carefully create a page which is completely neutral. But stay away from things related to original research, and also read what wikipedia is not. There are already several pages linking to the company page, but all are redlinks (maybe not even pointing to the same non-existent page, you might want to repair that, making sure they all link to the correct company name, e.g.). Even if one has a monopoly, or strong market position in a product, it is better not to provide links from the product to the company. A single link (in case of monopoly) might be reasonable (to the page of the company on wikipedia, which then could have a link to the company homepage), but otherwise the sentence is better omitted. For a lot of compounds the companies are not unique, and a sentence stating 'Acetic acid is sold by ..', with a complete list of retailers (which will never be complete) is just senseless.
It is always difficult, there are always subjects where one knows a lot about, or even, would be a premium specialist in, but that one better should avoid editing (I have hardly done anything on the page which is the subject of my current post-doc, only some rearrangement/formatting, as far as I recall, no content, even how tempting it is to me). One can do some editing of course, but please take the above policies/guidelines serious, there are cases where pages about persons or companies get deleted, with a protection against recreation. In previous discussions on my talkpage I have explained what the current policy is, and I am working hard to find a solution which, hopefully, should keep all parties happy (considering links to external pages). I hope this clarifies. --Dirk Beetstra T C 02:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

IRC

Hi Dirk, I know 1.0 is not a "core topic" for you, but we're having a meeting in 3 minutes, see Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team#IRC_meeting, join us if you wish. Walkerma 23:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I emailed you the start of the discussion. Walkerma 00:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Royal Society of Chemistry

Greetings. You have made some good changes to this article, but I wish you had discussed some of them first. I'm not going to change anything now. I specifically put the Divisions under headings and the Marlow Medal under the Faraday Division because of the one objection to merging in the Marlow Medal. It seemed to me, after reflection and changing my original view, that if all the other medals are described here and are described under the Division that sponsors them, them me might solve the problem of size (there are lots of medals) by splitting off new articles on each Division. I thought my structure made that easier. Your structure makes it more difficult to add details of other medals. I am also concerned about the merge tags I added for articles that were created by the people at RSC Publishing in Cambridge. I think they could be targets for deletion that migh raise the whole question of articles on journals, which I think are important. I want to facilitate that set of merges. Lets see how it goes. --Bduke 11:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry that I did not discuss it first, though I only did formatting, no real changes. The format of the article as it was, was just .. strange. I mean, a heading "Organic Division", which only contains "for organic chemistry" .. made no sense at all (I now see that you just made the sections yesterday, sorry :-) ). If the text grows to say, three-four sentences per division, then it is indeed better to split them up again (which is very easily done). If it grows even further, I would even suggest to give the divisions an own, main article (but I don't think it will get that far). And I personally do not like single sentence paragraphs, there must either be more to tell, or they are probably telling something similar as other paragraphs, so can be merged. I think, that the article as it is now, might even be at start class, while in the previous format it was more a stub, and that without adding extra info!
About prizes and medals: Only the Faraday division had more info, but the medal does not tell about the Faraday division. But I think that should grow into a full list of presented prizes and awards (there must be way more!), and then might be an own section "Awarded prizes and awards".
I have been following the article for some time, and saw your edit of earlier today, and had a look. I know that RSC was making these articles, and as such, I do not really object, if they keep a NPOV (I have been 'fighting' that for some time with some pages, in this case I can't say that I needed to do much about it, but may not have followed this article fully). I am a bit ambiguous about the merging of the journals. I believe that also 4 line articles can be complete, and can exist. They don't have to be big. But also redirecting Chemistry World to Royal Society of Chemistry is possible (would it be silly to add a neutral vote to the merger discussion?). --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
(copied discussion to talk-page of RSC, we can discuss this matter further there Dirk Beetstra T C 12:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)).

Vietnamese translation

Hi, I've posted a Vietnamese translation of your Chemistry extension at m:Talk:Chemistry#Vietnamese. I'm not sure if you're the one to ask about translations, but I'd greatly appreciate if you could get this translation incorporated into your extension. Thanks. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 08:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm the one, indeed. I have submitted your changes as a patch to bugzilla, have been applied in r17663. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it seems that the translations got mangled when the patch got applied. In place of the accented characters, there are now question marks. [1] – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 19:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I see it. Can you make a patch-file (between the file as it is now on svn and your version), create a bug in bugzilla.wikimedia.org and then in the next post, upload your patch to bugzilla? I think it goes wrong somewhere in the process. Guess that is a better way of doing it. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

WE abuse

Dirk: when you get a chance, take a look at Isobutylgermane and especially the editing of the primary author. Sort of a one-man self promotion project. Thanks, --Smokefoot 04:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Did a copy-edit. Will do a bit more, later. Reprogramming the mediawiki takes too much time :-p. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Epoxide

I came across something in a text which sounded counter intuitive. Let's say we have the epoxide 1,2-epoxypropane, and expose it to HBr. Does the Br- nucleophile attack the less hindered carbon? --HappyCamper 05:23, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I would say .. yes, it must be. a) the 1-carbon is less hindered, and b) the 2-carbon would be a bit more electron-rich (due to the electron release from the methyl), and the higher electron density should make it a bit less prone to nucleophilic attack. But now we have the product .. 1-bromo-propan-2-ol .. Would that stuff rearrange to 2-bromo-propan-1-ol? Hmm .. don't think so, why would the bromide be rather at a secondary carbon and the alcohol at the primary carbon .. though .. musterd gas works like that, I think. But my Jerry March is in the lab, I can have a look, later, when I have arrived at work. Hope to hear more! --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay - I'm back! I did not think about the inductive effect, but that explanation makes it even more perplexing...This is what my source suggests (pg. 325 of 6th Ed. Fessenden and Fessenden) - if the protonated epoxide has a significant amount of carbocation character, then attack will occur at that site for acid-catalysed clevage. This is true for 3° carbons. So, I would expect something like
   O              O X
  / \       HX    | |
H2C-CH2-CH3 --> H2C-CH2-CH3
    |               |
    CH3             CH3
If a 2° is present, there is little selectivity. Apparently,
   H+
   |
   O                  O-Et                     O-Et                          Br                       Br
  / \       EtOH      |                        |                             |                        |
H2C-CH2-CH3 ----> H2C-CH2-CH3 (~31%) + H2C-CH2-CH3 (25%) but with HBr, get H2C-CH2-CH3 (~76%) + H2C-CH2-CH3 (~24%)
                          |                |                                   |                |
                          OH               OH                                  OH               OH
    
Then, it goes on to say that for halides, they like to attack at the least hindered carbon. What I am not sure about, is what actually makes the halide so special then? I seemed to recall epoxides being rather straightforward. I guess what would clarify this are the conditions under which the halide attacks differently from what intuition would say, and the factors that drive it. --HappyCamper 17:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah .. acidic conditions, those I did not take into account.
The pathway may be
                     H+
   O                 O              -  HO        -         HO X         
  / \               / \        --> |    | +       |  X-     | |        
H2C-CH2-CH3  -->  H2C-CH2-CH3      |  H2C-CH2-CH3 |  ---> H2C-CH2-CH3  
    |                 |        <-- |      |       |           |
    CH3               CH3           -     CH3    -            CH3
What I think happens here is that you have the intermediate ring-opened carbocation, which is more stable on a higher substituted carbon, and that one recombines with the halide anion. Otherwise I can not understand this. Jerry March does not give a lot of info, it says only it opens readily, for HF you need a bit more force (as in added ringstrain, or by using another reagent, e.g. SiF4), the other three halide acids go easily. What do you think .. would this be it? --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:03, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
This makes the most sense. I have a feeling our chemical intuition is right. I'll come back if I find some more information. Thanks for your replies! --HappyCamper 22:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Re your comment to me on my User Talk:mbeychok page

Your comment on my Talk page:

Dear Mbeychok. I have responded to the reactions on theoretical plate, and also to V8riks answer on his talk page. Why is it, that when chemical engineers are editing an article, contributions of other chemists are described as 'comic strips' and 'cracking jokes'? Until now I have not seen any of these remarks on any of the 3500 pages on my watchlist (except when made by first-time editors). Could we please get into an open discussion, and try to write an encyclopedia readable for the normal public. If a subject cannot be explained to the normal public (say, a high-school student, though a target person with a lower education is preferable), it may be worth considering to not put it into the wikipedia, but into specialised mediawiki projects. Or otherwise, please tone the subject and the discussions down to give it an entrypoint suitable for the above described public. Thank you. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

My response:
Dirk Beetstra, when or where have I characterized anyone's edit of Theoretical plate as "cracking jokes" or any such derogatory remarks? As for the discussion on the Distillation page, all I did was ask V8rik if he did not consider the "Simple analogy" section to be non-encyclopedic?
Your remarks indicate to me a dislike of chemical engineers, so you have stereotyped me as someone you don't like. And you have reverted the edit by Ketankhare purely on the basis of that dislike rather than on the merits of the "Simple analogy" section involved. mbeychok 21:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I already answered on your talkpage (we can keep the discussion there, better to keep it on one place (or choose to copy it integrally here, either way is OK). --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Dirk, this is my last response on your talk page or mine on this subject until you post an apology for bringing me into this. Just in case you think otherwise, your intended or non-intended slur about "50 years of experience" in your comments to Ketankhare on the Theoretical plate talk page did not go over my head. mbeychok 21:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Read relevant talk page. Ketankhare 05:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Please stop removing importance tags without doing anything useful

The way to reduce maintenance backlogs is not to split it up into smaller categories and to say that if there aren't enough pages in each category to be a backlog, then the entire thing isn't a backlog. The backlogs should actually be processed. While yes, that particular tag does say something misleading, the purpose of the category, and all of the other templates that put things into the category (such as {{notability}}) are to question the actual notability of an article. Perhaps, in theory, splitting {{importance}} from the category would be a good thing to do, but in practice, people almost always use it in the same way as {{notability}} is used, not in the way that it's meant to be used according to the text of the template, so it wouldn't do much good. --Rory096 03:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject

It feels very nice to get support. My examination will be starting soon and will get over on 12 December 2006. After that there is a lot of work to be done I suppose. I had started the project long back, it is dormant as of now. Anyways, could you be kind enough to write your comments in the relevant sections of the project page. The link is here Chemical and Bio Engineering WikiProject Ketankhare 16:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ketankhare"

J&J Template

Oddly, the article page has a lot of external links. Thus, I was a little strapped. I believe most of my template creations are well received by their transclusion sites. I understand that external links may be a problem. Maybe I should remove all external links on the template. TonyTheTiger 23:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I am surprised that you say that the reversion was not due to the external links but because you don't find templates with corporate brand useful. This is unusual. I imagine that you have an active role in some of the pages that the template linked to. We need to coordinate what you think a useful template would be for J & J and discuss what changes need to be made. I would like to replace some sort of template that won't get torn down by you. TonyTheTiger 00:43, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I have removed most unlinked text in the Template:J&J. Let me know if you think it would be useful to add it to the selected brands now. TonyTheTiger 19:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Template:ChemicalSources

Did this ever become active? It's a little misleading to call it an external link when it goes somewhere internally - would there be any perceived harm in removing it until/unless the Special: page mentioned above is approved? -- nae'blis 06:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the remark. Well .. yes and no .. I have been waiting for some time for someone to chip in and write this, and then started to hack it myself. We do have a properly working copy now since about 3-4 weeks (see http://chemistry.poolspares.com). I have asked around to chemists to give their opinion, but have not heard a lot. It feels like there is no need for it, and indeed, I will renew the discussion on the chemicals portal, and otherwise indeed consider to remove the template (well, if it gets implemented, I will also remove the tag, along with a massive number of external links which then get covered by the special:chemicalsources).
But, in a way, yes, I do believe it does harm to remove it, there is still a bias when external links are added, in this way they at least go (sometimes) to the list, and external links can be removed without discussion. The only problem is indeed that it is technically not an external link, but I do, for now, not see another solution to get this on all pages. Maybe the template should be cut loose from the external links section, and be a box at the bottom, with a couple of links programmed by CAS, and in there a link to the chemicalsources page (which needs reformatting, then). I percieve that when there is no link to a full list, people will blindly add links again, with all reasons as stated in another discussion on my talk-page. But maybe we have to live with that problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Dirk, I've not been on wikipedia long, so perhaps you can give me a global perspective about what this chemicalsources is hoping to achieve, and how it fits in with wikipedia generally. I compared your chemicalsources "Water" article with the water article on wikipedia. As far as I can tell, the point of chemicalsources is to focus only on the chemical elements of that substance. If true would that mean that the chemistry would be removed from the water page and pages like bromobenzene (which are all chemistry) would move from wikipeida to chemicalsources? Sorry if this is obvious question! --Quantockgoblin 08:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Uhh .. obvious .. not at all (I even have to distill out the question, you provide me with a line of thinking which I have apparently, not made clear) .. No, I would like the special:chemicalsources to start to exist on wikipedia, just like the special:booksources (which already exists). Chemical compounds and all stay here, but on the pages of the chemicals all the chemical identifiers get a link (using a parameter) to the special:chemicalsources (so a http://en.wikipedia.org/w/special:chemicalsources?CAS=123-45-6, e.g.). Clicking the link brings up the result page where all the 'search on CAS' links result in searches (within that database/company) on that CAS number. So chemical pages will stay here. Now the external link that is connected to the current CAS number is biased, just as the addition of only one or two suppliers. The page, where the special:chemicalsources is now demonstrated, is only a temporary site, it will go, maybe soon. Hope this clarifies. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Splitting "NN"

Off the top of my head, it's not entirely clear-cut. Granted it's large, at 5,000-ish, but it's far from being the largest "maintenance" category. I think at bottom it's a matter of what's the best "producer-consumer" relationship: if it were split up, would multiple specialist groups assess notability and clean them up (one way or another) more rapidly. Or would it lead to the same people simply having to deal with more categories? You might ask at some of the larger wikiprojects if they have an interest in "processing" separated-out categories in their area (as you may have noticed I'm trawling around the idea of doing the 'uncategoriseds' on that basis). Alai 15:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

That's why I thought of you. But OK, so that category is not that big. Someone was deleting the tag from articles not stating any importance, 'complaining' that there were too many articles clogging that category .. I have put them all back with the comment that that was not going to solve the problem. Did think of you, but could not remember your name at that point, and digging was too much work at that point :-p. I'll leave it at this, that category is biggish, but not too big. It is OK with me, then. I'll clear out an {{importance}} every now and then. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Splitting by month is another possibility, even if there's only one group of "consumers". It also has the advantage of being easily bottable, once up and running. Alai 15:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Seems like a plan. I'll feed this back to .. well .. he or she who was removing the tags .. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and suggested this at Category talk:Wikipedia articles with topics of unclear importance. Let's see if this meets with general approval. Alai 18:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Beetstra/Sandbox

Just letting you know, you created the above in the mainspace, not your userspace. Perhaps you should recreate it in the userspace and then throw db-author on the above article. Have a nice day! -- Kicking222 21:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Already done... nevermind! But, you know, have a nice day anyway. :) -- Kicking222 21:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Sandbox

I've moved your sandbox to User:Beetstra/sandbox. Cheers, Mak (talk) 21:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Oops .. Sorry .. Funny to see that three people directly jump onto that .. cheers all! --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)