![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 24 October 2011 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep. |
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This is the talk page for a list of important publications in chemistry, organized by field.
Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:
There has been debate about policy for this page with a view to keeping it NPOV and the following items have received some support by consensus. If you want to edit the page please take note of these policies.
|
Earlier comment to January 31st, 2006 archived to /Archive 1
Comment to February 2008 archived to /Archive 2
Comment to February 2011 archived to /Archive 3
I think the above section reached a consensus five months ago to delete the "Introduction" and "Latest and Greatest" criteria. Since there is no further comment, I will take the initiative and remove these two criteria at the beginning of both the talk page and the article.
The next step is to decide which publications to delete. The above discussion mentions the texts in physical(3), analytical, environmental and medicinal chemistry. Could we now have more comments on whether these six texts should be deleted? Dirac66 ( talk) 04:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that and apologies for inactivity on this page for some time. I have no problem with the new truncated list of criteria, except that I might perhaps support under "influence" adding something like "or has had a massive influence on the teaching of chemistry". I think a small number of books have had such an influence. I have always thought that "Atkins" and "Cotton and Wilkinson" had such an influence but it might just have been for my generation and other books have had a similar influence in other generations. As for the list of entries to be deleted, my list differs from yours. It would be:
I have added (1) and (5), as both seem to me to be standard texts.
I do not agree about:
The first is not a text book in the accepted sense but a scholarly work that did have a great influence, although it needs sourcing. The second is rather beyond a text I think, and it is sourced.
I have to say that both of us have let the organic chemists off rather easily as some of those entries are close to being texts. For 4 of them, the word "introduction" should be removed from the "importance" section, as it should for the first Lavoisier entry.
We need to have another go at finding sources, and them trying to expand, with a clear criteria of "no source, no entry". -- Bduke (Discussion) 01:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, taking it slowly I have added the reference for C & W, removed "introduction" for the organic entries and modified the 3rd criteria. The list for deletion now seems to be:-
but I would suggest we postpone doing the deletions to allow others to comment or find better references that show they meet the new criteria. -- 58.164.105.228 ( talk) 00:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Dirac66 ( talk) 01:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I have been looking at the other lists and found several that are not included in List of important publications in science. They are now. I have also been thinking about Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls, which started these lists off. It is essentially inactive. It has a silly name that is confusing. It does no bring editors to this list. I am considering a different tack for it and hope to raise this more widely in a few days. I have also been examining the other lists and I will report the start to this in the table below.
List | No. of entries | No. of refs | No. of articles |
---|---|---|---|
Chemistry | 32 | 15 | 3 |
Mathematics | 108 | 41 | 36 |
Statistics | 34 | 20 | 3 |
Biology | 61 | 1 | 5 |
Geology | 34 | 1 | 2 |
Physics | 86 | 30 | 8 |
Medecine | 9 | 9 | 1 |
I will try to add to this in the next few days. "No. of articles" indicates the number of items in the list that actually have a wikipedia article. We should be aiming for all of them to have an article to indicate that all items are notable. That Mathematics has the most articles is not surprising, as there are a lot of very old documents that are notable and have articles. Provisionally this table is showing that we do not have too many items in the list, but our criteria is somewhat tougher than others I think. I will get back to the list of 6 under discussion here when I have finished this survey. -- Bduke (Discussion) 01:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I have added 3 more lists to the table above. It is clear that there is significant variation between lists and also within lists. For the latter, for example, one section (sub-discipline) of the physics list gives a lot more entries but with no explanation of description or importance. All lists have significant problems with notability, or at least demonstration of notability through references. Chemistry is not unique in this and is in fact better in the ratio of references to publications. It is difficult to count the number of publications that have their own article. While going through the lists I came across several instances where I thought "Surely this must have an article" and indeed it did but it was not linked in the item on the list until I added it. This is odd, as having its own article is certainly the best way to demonstrate that the item is notable. Many list just get any redlink deleted rapidly. -- Bduke (Discussion) 03:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
OK, back to the deletions. The list is:-
I am going to delete 6. I have been the main editor supporting it. I do indeed think it is important, but I have done an extensive search. It is mentioned several times, but not to the extent of it being more notable than others. Indeed I have found sources that say his The kinetics of chemical change in gaseous systems (Oxford, 1926) was more important. I will also delete Day and Underwood. I can find nothing that says it stands out as notable. An article in Analytical Chemistry (59, 1987, 829A - 835A) reports a survey of US Chemistry Departments. Day and Underwood is the 3rd most popular book (11.3%), below Harris (23.6%) and Skoog and West (31.1%). I know nothing of Electrochemistry. There is the claim that Bard and Faulkner is the most used text, but it is not sourced and would that make it notable for inclusion anyway. I will delete that one also. I can find no sources whatsoever other than book sales. I will consult some colleagues about The Practice of Medicinal Chemistry. I want to think more about Phys Chem texts. -- Bduke (Discussion) 05:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
I sought the views of a colleague in medicinal chemistry regarding "The Practice of Medicinal Chemistry", Camille Georges Wermuth editor. His reply is interesting: "It is one of a few in the area - nothing particularly notable - but then textbooks are often like that. For a more influential med chem book you might consider Selective Toxicity by Adrien Albert". He is one of the founders of the field so it might be referenced as influential. I'll see if I can take a look. -- Bduke (Discussion) 23:38, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Description: The latest version (electronic) of this popular undergraduate book in Physical Chemistry comes with embedded multimedia. Easy to use and navigate and integrated into the Internet.
Importance: This book covers all the major topics of Physical Chemistry for undergraduates. It contains 19 chapters and about 100 multimedia interactions. Since it is now published by the Authors and not a book company, the price is considerably lower than hard copy versions. In addition it is available in shorter modules at even lower prices: Thermodynamics (Chpt. 1-6); Electrochemistry (Chpt. 1,7,8); Chemical Kinetics (Chpt. 1, 9, 10); Quantum and spectroscopy (Chpt. 1, 11-14); Statistical Mechanics (Chpt.1, 15); Liquids, Solids and Transport properties (Chpt. 1, 16-19)
This entry is now for debate here whether it should be kept or deleted. The debate will close on 25 July, 2011. Please discuss below.
I have closed this discussion and removed this entry. It is clear there is consensus that this does not meet our criteria. -- Bduke (Discussion) 03:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
With the need to find sources for lists of publications as highlighted by deletion discussion on related lists, I asked a colleague who collects old books on chemistry and he came up with this list:-
If anyone could find these and see whether they can be used. please do so. -- Bduke (Discussion) 00:42, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Here's another reference that may be useful:
Regards, RJH ( talk) 16:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
This list has just survived a deletion discussion and it has now been moved to a new title. The move was possibly inappropriate as there was no consensus anywhere and specifically there was no consensus of each of the individual list talk pages. I was, for example, going to start a discussion here. It was certainly premature. It is possible that some of the science list will be moved back. I also note that Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls, which is the project supporting this list, has been revitalized after a long dormant period. A new project for bibliographies, Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies has been started and it is suggested that Science pearls becomes a taskforce for that project. I am about to go on a wikibreak, "out bush" as we say in Australia, and my internet access may be poor and infrequent. I thought I would start a discussion here and hope that some people would contribute in my absence. I have acted for several years as an unofficial coordinator of this list, pushing discussion of every new item to the talk page until consensus to keep it or remove it was reached. I think that kept our standards higher than some other lists, but recent work on other science lists, prompted by AfD discussions on them, has put them ahead of us.
Please let us have some views here. -- Bduke (Discussion) 23:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
My $0.02:
Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 06:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
A perennial issue on this and similar pages is how to set criteria for the list. I have carefully considered existing guidelines and tried to craft a broad set of policies that satisfy them. I have posted it on the Science pearls talk page. I would welcome your comments. Of course, these guidelines are not intended to be binding for any particular page, but might help you choose your own selection criteria. RockMagnetist ( talk) 00:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 24 October 2011 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep. |
![]() | This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This is the talk page for a list of important publications in chemistry, organized by field.
Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:
There has been debate about policy for this page with a view to keeping it NPOV and the following items have received some support by consensus. If you want to edit the page please take note of these policies.
|
Earlier comment to January 31st, 2006 archived to /Archive 1
Comment to February 2008 archived to /Archive 2
Comment to February 2011 archived to /Archive 3
I think the above section reached a consensus five months ago to delete the "Introduction" and "Latest and Greatest" criteria. Since there is no further comment, I will take the initiative and remove these two criteria at the beginning of both the talk page and the article.
The next step is to decide which publications to delete. The above discussion mentions the texts in physical(3), analytical, environmental and medicinal chemistry. Could we now have more comments on whether these six texts should be deleted? Dirac66 ( talk) 04:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that and apologies for inactivity on this page for some time. I have no problem with the new truncated list of criteria, except that I might perhaps support under "influence" adding something like "or has had a massive influence on the teaching of chemistry". I think a small number of books have had such an influence. I have always thought that "Atkins" and "Cotton and Wilkinson" had such an influence but it might just have been for my generation and other books have had a similar influence in other generations. As for the list of entries to be deleted, my list differs from yours. It would be:
I have added (1) and (5), as both seem to me to be standard texts.
I do not agree about:
The first is not a text book in the accepted sense but a scholarly work that did have a great influence, although it needs sourcing. The second is rather beyond a text I think, and it is sourced.
I have to say that both of us have let the organic chemists off rather easily as some of those entries are close to being texts. For 4 of them, the word "introduction" should be removed from the "importance" section, as it should for the first Lavoisier entry.
We need to have another go at finding sources, and them trying to expand, with a clear criteria of "no source, no entry". -- Bduke (Discussion) 01:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, taking it slowly I have added the reference for C & W, removed "introduction" for the organic entries and modified the 3rd criteria. The list for deletion now seems to be:-
but I would suggest we postpone doing the deletions to allow others to comment or find better references that show they meet the new criteria. -- 58.164.105.228 ( talk) 00:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Dirac66 ( talk) 01:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I have been looking at the other lists and found several that are not included in List of important publications in science. They are now. I have also been thinking about Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls, which started these lists off. It is essentially inactive. It has a silly name that is confusing. It does no bring editors to this list. I am considering a different tack for it and hope to raise this more widely in a few days. I have also been examining the other lists and I will report the start to this in the table below.
List | No. of entries | No. of refs | No. of articles |
---|---|---|---|
Chemistry | 32 | 15 | 3 |
Mathematics | 108 | 41 | 36 |
Statistics | 34 | 20 | 3 |
Biology | 61 | 1 | 5 |
Geology | 34 | 1 | 2 |
Physics | 86 | 30 | 8 |
Medecine | 9 | 9 | 1 |
I will try to add to this in the next few days. "No. of articles" indicates the number of items in the list that actually have a wikipedia article. We should be aiming for all of them to have an article to indicate that all items are notable. That Mathematics has the most articles is not surprising, as there are a lot of very old documents that are notable and have articles. Provisionally this table is showing that we do not have too many items in the list, but our criteria is somewhat tougher than others I think. I will get back to the list of 6 under discussion here when I have finished this survey. -- Bduke (Discussion) 01:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I have added 3 more lists to the table above. It is clear that there is significant variation between lists and also within lists. For the latter, for example, one section (sub-discipline) of the physics list gives a lot more entries but with no explanation of description or importance. All lists have significant problems with notability, or at least demonstration of notability through references. Chemistry is not unique in this and is in fact better in the ratio of references to publications. It is difficult to count the number of publications that have their own article. While going through the lists I came across several instances where I thought "Surely this must have an article" and indeed it did but it was not linked in the item on the list until I added it. This is odd, as having its own article is certainly the best way to demonstrate that the item is notable. Many list just get any redlink deleted rapidly. -- Bduke (Discussion) 03:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
OK, back to the deletions. The list is:-
I am going to delete 6. I have been the main editor supporting it. I do indeed think it is important, but I have done an extensive search. It is mentioned several times, but not to the extent of it being more notable than others. Indeed I have found sources that say his The kinetics of chemical change in gaseous systems (Oxford, 1926) was more important. I will also delete Day and Underwood. I can find nothing that says it stands out as notable. An article in Analytical Chemistry (59, 1987, 829A - 835A) reports a survey of US Chemistry Departments. Day and Underwood is the 3rd most popular book (11.3%), below Harris (23.6%) and Skoog and West (31.1%). I know nothing of Electrochemistry. There is the claim that Bard and Faulkner is the most used text, but it is not sourced and would that make it notable for inclusion anyway. I will delete that one also. I can find no sources whatsoever other than book sales. I will consult some colleagues about The Practice of Medicinal Chemistry. I want to think more about Phys Chem texts. -- Bduke (Discussion) 05:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
I sought the views of a colleague in medicinal chemistry regarding "The Practice of Medicinal Chemistry", Camille Georges Wermuth editor. His reply is interesting: "It is one of a few in the area - nothing particularly notable - but then textbooks are often like that. For a more influential med chem book you might consider Selective Toxicity by Adrien Albert". He is one of the founders of the field so it might be referenced as influential. I'll see if I can take a look. -- Bduke (Discussion) 23:38, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Description: The latest version (electronic) of this popular undergraduate book in Physical Chemistry comes with embedded multimedia. Easy to use and navigate and integrated into the Internet.
Importance: This book covers all the major topics of Physical Chemistry for undergraduates. It contains 19 chapters and about 100 multimedia interactions. Since it is now published by the Authors and not a book company, the price is considerably lower than hard copy versions. In addition it is available in shorter modules at even lower prices: Thermodynamics (Chpt. 1-6); Electrochemistry (Chpt. 1,7,8); Chemical Kinetics (Chpt. 1, 9, 10); Quantum and spectroscopy (Chpt. 1, 11-14); Statistical Mechanics (Chpt.1, 15); Liquids, Solids and Transport properties (Chpt. 1, 16-19)
This entry is now for debate here whether it should be kept or deleted. The debate will close on 25 July, 2011. Please discuss below.
I have closed this discussion and removed this entry. It is clear there is consensus that this does not meet our criteria. -- Bduke (Discussion) 03:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
With the need to find sources for lists of publications as highlighted by deletion discussion on related lists, I asked a colleague who collects old books on chemistry and he came up with this list:-
If anyone could find these and see whether they can be used. please do so. -- Bduke (Discussion) 00:42, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Here's another reference that may be useful:
Regards, RJH ( talk) 16:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
This list has just survived a deletion discussion and it has now been moved to a new title. The move was possibly inappropriate as there was no consensus anywhere and specifically there was no consensus of each of the individual list talk pages. I was, for example, going to start a discussion here. It was certainly premature. It is possible that some of the science list will be moved back. I also note that Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls, which is the project supporting this list, has been revitalized after a long dormant period. A new project for bibliographies, Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies has been started and it is suggested that Science pearls becomes a taskforce for that project. I am about to go on a wikibreak, "out bush" as we say in Australia, and my internet access may be poor and infrequent. I thought I would start a discussion here and hope that some people would contribute in my absence. I have acted for several years as an unofficial coordinator of this list, pushing discussion of every new item to the talk page until consensus to keep it or remove it was reached. I think that kept our standards higher than some other lists, but recent work on other science lists, prompted by AfD discussions on them, has put them ahead of us.
Please let us have some views here. -- Bduke (Discussion) 23:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
My $0.02:
Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 06:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
A perennial issue on this and similar pages is how to set criteria for the list. I have carefully considered existing guidelines and tried to craft a broad set of policies that satisfy them. I have posted it on the Science pearls talk page. I would welcome your comments. Of course, these guidelines are not intended to be binding for any particular page, but might help you choose your own selection criteria. RockMagnetist ( talk) 00:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)