Wikipedia talk:Chemical sources

I have started this page to contain a full list of all external sources for chemical compound data (of whichever kind). For now:

• The lists are unsorted.
• Please add any links to full compounds on sites which are not yet here, or add the name of sites which you feel should be here. Do not change anything in the link to the compound, for now I don't care about which compound it links to, it should just be a working link.
• There is not yet a page linking here, they should later link to a special page.

some chemical pages now link to this page.

• If you know how to, and/or can create a special-page (of the type Special:Booksources), can you please drop Dirk Beetstra and/or Martin Walker a line?
• Most of the checking of the external links still has to be done, I could use some help, there.

Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC) (changes Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC))

although a lot of technical discussion currently eludes me (new guy), this might be a good one:

www.acros.be although, of course, commercial.Sikkema 01:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Dirk, for setting this up. Walkerma 04:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• A patch for the Mediawiki software has been submitted ('bug' 7364, here). Waiting is now for the implementation into the software. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Aim of this page

What are we actually trying to achieve here? If we want to reproduce the effects of Special:Booksources we need a unifying identifier, which simply does not exist in chemistry. Alternatively, the links presently contained on this page should be on the article pages themselves. JFW | T@lk 21:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope, we don't need a unique identifier, it can also be one out of a number of identifiers. So that identifiers like InChI, CAS, Smiles all link to the 'special:chemsources' (or whatever) feed this page with the proper set (leaving all other empty), making working links into the external pages. OK, a bit more complicated than special:booksources, but not impossible, I think (or better, I hope).

And no, these links should NOT be on the article pages themselves, it shoudl be here, if they would be on the article pages, they would fill up the page to unreadable sizes. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for this page. It represents new input; its methods of presentation may fail and the page could vanish, but it represents freshness and dynamism to me. I consider it virtuous. Many Wikpedia pages now seem to be stagnating. However, since I am too lazy to do much about that I guess I have no justification to complain. Thus I turn to pages like this to see things evolve on Wikipedia. You may delete this note in a day or two if desired; I won't pout! regford 19:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Running copy of special:chemicalsources

Hi all, a running copy of special:chemicalsources can be found on [1]. That site will be taken offline again in a couple of weeks, after which I hope we have a reasonable overview whether or not this functionality would be useful for wikipedia, and hence should be enabled on wikipedia itself, or that this functionality is not necessary. Could I ask you all to visit that site, try the specialpage, and, when you are there, also the <chemform> tag, and comment on these on my talkpage on that wikipedia (here).

In the meantime, this site still needs quite some updating, it looks quite messy. I am not sure if this is a final format, or that things should be totally revamped (of course all the sites with a (?) should be examined, and turned into appropriate links). I'd also like some comments on that, which can be posted here. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Can I know the origin of this website? It looks like a private site and it seems that nobody gives contributions there?_AbelinCAusesobad 10:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I see I forgot to answer this, sorry. Noone contributes there, it is purely a testsite, harmless additions can be made, the rest will be reverted, even if they are in good faith. The site is purely to show the possibilities of the additions, and for the mediawiki-team to see it actually is behaving stable and OK. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 01:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

SPAMs

Some people have suggested that the Suppliers section may constitute SPAM/commercial external links. Is this true? 68.39.174.238 21:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It is certainly not spam, it is an as complete as possible list of suppliers; it is not that one single supplier gets added here for the benefit of that single link only. But yes, they are commercial (but the same goes for the wikipedia:book sources list). For now, I do believe that this list, and the link to this list, gives on the pages on chemical compounds less reason for people to spam the individual articles. And on the about 4500 chemicals pages I know of, I indeed see not a lot added (though, it is difficult to see the effect when the link to this page would not be in the external links sections).

But I concur, also I become more and more against the commercial external links on pages, though many people in the concerned wikiprojects (chemistry, chemicals) will argue (and I can not completely disagree with them), that an important source for information on chemical properties is not via the online free databases, but via the suppliers (the data on new car is also more reliable and complete via the website of the supplier of that car than via the site of a recognized magazine on cars in general). This is certainly true for the MSDS (safety data) of the compounds, for which the best source is the supplier of the chemical. The free databases are often far from complete (containing only the common compounds), while a chemical company that supplies a chemical has to provide its safety data, and on the commercial site these are certainly correct for lyability reasons (though examples of misinformation do exist). So there is a bit a conflict there. The list is outside the article space, which gives a bit more freedom with respect to guidelines and policies. But if after a good discussion with e.g. the people behind the wikiproject spam (I do have contact with them, though I have not really discussed this specific example) it is deemed that the commercial links have to go, I can nothing but follow that. That does mean, that the main document space has to be cleaned as well, and also has to be kept clean (a sheer task; it is already proven difficult to keep main space clean of blogs, personal pages on myspace, etc.).

As a not too strong defence (it is a bit bending the guideline), WP:EL states in its list of 'what should be linked', 'Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.' .. MSDS data cannot be included into the wikipedia (not a manual, safety guard; it may fit into one of the other mediawiki projects, though before that would be complete for all the chemical compounds we are talking about ...). Then still, the most correct data is available from the supplier (as argued above). Including one supplier on a chemical page would show a strong bias, including them all would go against the policy not a linkfarm. But as I said, if there are stronger arguments towards the opposite, I am willing to hear them.

Another solution is linking to a dmoz, or an online database which by itself links to as many sites as possible. The chemboxes link via e.g. the CAS to an online search engine, which links again to the suppliers, but also there it can be argued, is it complete? Zearalenone, e.g. can only be found from some specialised sources, while having an MSDS is important information. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 01:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the new chembox, I'm having doubts about keeping chemical sources. {{Chembox new}} allows for the CAS numbers to link to emolecules. From there, chemical suppliers can already be found. Chemical sources seems now to be redundant, and it seems overtly promoting commercial interests, no matter how complete it is. I think we should turn {{CASREF}} into a separate page with chemical sources AND a search for emolecules since that site is not complete. --Rifleman 82 18:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I do concur that the site is loosing its function with the new chembox. I think we should (in a run through all chemical compounds):

1. upgrading the box
2. axing all commercial suppliers from the pages (except when used as a reference, so I mean the external links sections);
3. removing the chemical sources template

When that goes to completion, this page can go. I am not sure what you meant with the CASREF-template, that one is not necessary anymore if the page has a chembox new (well it is used in chembox new in some cases). But I agree with the general idea. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)