Chem540grp1f08

Your class edits

Welcome to wikipedia. It has been noticed by several wikipedia editors that you are editing chemistry articles as part of a graduate class in physical organic chemistry. This is not forbidden on wikipedia. Indeed it is a valuable educational exercise which some of us encourage. However, it does raise some issues. In particular, issues have been flagged on some of your user pages about images that have been uploaded. They need to be edited to meet wikipedia policies. You also need to be fully aware of all the wikipedia policies and guidelines and this can often be difficult and confusing for new users. You need to seek someone on wikipedia who can act as a mentor to assist you. Could you please let your instructor know of this message that I am going to add to the talk pages of all the students in the class that we are aware of? I can be contacted on my talk page. I am a retired chemistry academic, although not in your specialty. I am a quantum computational chemist. I am an experienced wikipedian and wikipedia administrator. I am willing to help you. However, I am in Australia, so may be asleep when you are editing. I am also not really an expert on images on wikipedia. Concerns about your edits were raised on my talk page. I am going to move that discussion to the talk page of the WikiProject Chemistry at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry#Looks like a graduate chemistry class is editing my favorite articles. Please comment there and I am sure some others will offer to help you. --Bduke (Discussion) 22:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

About referencing ...

I also am a regular editor in Wiki-chem area and ask that you please pass this message on to the other groups in your class: References in articles ideally should include article titles and DOI's (for journals) or ISBN's for books. It takes a little practice to find these numbers but they're there in the tables of contents for most on-line journals. Also, my own policy is to avoid primary literature except when the report describes a discovery or a "first." Otherwise, reviews and books are preferred reference types. Wikipedia's aim is not to compete with or replicate Chemical Reviews, Progress in ..., Comprehensive ..., etc., it's supposed to provide an overview like, well, a real encyclopedia (only more chaotic!). Good luck with your school project.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)