Wikipedia talk:Chemical compounds
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Wikipedia has many thousands of articles on chemical compounds (if you include drugs, I would estimate well in excess of 10,000). The percentage that are "permanent stubs" or listed as having unclear importance is not particularly high, as far as I can tell. Participants in Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals, Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry, Wikipedia:WikiProject Biochemistry, Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology, and others are continually actively expanding and improving these articles. I fail to see any particular reason to single out short articles on chemical compounds for debate on what to do with them - they should be treated the same way as short articles on other topics are treated. If there are particular concerns about a specific article, it can be brought to the attention of the chemistry-related wikiprojects - or a suggestion can be made to merge short articles of related compounds using merge tags. This issue would be better addressed on a case-by-case basis, in my opinion. --Ed (Edgar181) 17:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why this can't be discussed on the Chemicals wikiproject talkpage. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC).
Another in the 'don't see the point of this' camp. This is a strange suggested venue for this discussion, and a strange set of articles to choose. Opabinia regalis 03:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
- As to seeing the point, I was doing cleanup in the "topics of unclear importance" category, and fond literally hundreds of chemistry stubs. >Radiant< 08:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I also don't see the point of this. We don't need Yet Another Policy. People in the relevant wikiprojects are working on improving these articles. Even the shortest articles typically have useful information in the infobox, which could be too much to condense into one big table/list. I haven't found any article on a chemical yet that I don't think could be expanded beyond stub status--if someone created it, usually it means that it is somewhat notable (of course, if you wanted to prove a point you could create an article on 2,3,5,7,9,11,13,17,19,23,27-undecamethylltriacontane, which would be basically indistiguishable from the billions of alkane isomers having a similar size). Finally, I believe the information on the chemical is more accessible when it has its own article than when it is an entry in a long list.
As an example, caesium perchlorate used to be a very short stub and someone nominated it for deletion. Just a few minutes of digging into google books provided enough information and references to assert its notability and to write more about its properties, uses, and history. I don't doubt that you could do the same for other similar articles; it's just a matter of time and effort. But we don't gain anything by deleting/merging/turning into lists. --Itub 08:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, I don't think this page is the right place to discuss this, that should be on the wikiproject chemistri or wikiproject chemicals. Just as a note (again) the compounds don't state importance, that has to be added. We gain nothing by deleting them, by retagging them, or by merging them. These articles are stubs, they are notable (as for many a google search will show), and they are tagged according the state they are in (expand is in the stub-tag, there is no importance stated, hence the importance tag. I am sorry that has a backlog, but maybe instead of deletion, add the contents that is needed. Leave assessments to people in a wikiproject, and when they don't have the time, please consider leaving them in the categories they are in (sorry for the frustration, but this comes up every 2 weeks). Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
- You are quite right. I've been aware of this backlog for awhile and was thinking about the west way to tackle it. Given sufficient chemist editors, I'm sure all of those could be expanded. Mass deletion is not a solution and was never the intent here. I've put a suggestion on the chemistry COTM; perhaps that will help. >Radiant< 15:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
