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I've been having trouble figuring out what to do with Trisodium phosphate and Sodium phosphate. These both refer to the same chemical. It seems like Trisodium phosphate is the name commercially used for selling the chemical as a cleaning chemical. Sodium phosphate is the name used on food ingredients lists, etc., and I *think* is the "systematic" chemical name, but I'm pretty rusty on my chemistry. Does anyone have any suggestions? I assume that we want one article with a redirect, rather than two separate articles on the two uses, but I could be wrong. -- Creidieki 19:29, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I took a look at the IUPAC rules as listed in my CRC Handbook of Chem & Physics, and it looks like you can do either sodium phosphate or trisodium phosphate. Personally I prefer sodium phosphate for Na3PO4, but IUPAC actually gives you a choice. One confusing notation in widespread use is "Sodium phosphate tribasic" (for Na3PO4), and sodium phosphate dibasic (for Na2HPO4) etc. I think we just need to choose one of the two IUPAC names and have a redirect from any other names, and include links to the hydrogen and dihydrogen phosphate salts. We should also be consistent between the sodium and the potassium phosphates in whatever we use. Walkerma 20:11, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have copied the relevant sections from Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines here, as it seems to cover the discussion that went before. All comments are more than welcome! Physchim62 7 July 2005 10:56 (UTC)
To answer Wim's point, I do not think that the rest of the style guidelines have reached a point where they are useful to those outside the WP:Chem—they are still a work-in-progress. However, the title section seemed to have a good enough consensus to be presented to the non-initiated. Physchim62 8 July 2005 10:08 (UTC)
While tidying NMR spectroscopy, Nuclear magnetic resonance, and Phosphorus, I noticed that sometimes we have e.g. 31P and sometimes we have e.g. Phosphorous-31. It seems like the latter would be clearer to non-chemists, and easier to link to the article on the element, but also a bit clumsy to use repeatedly. I was also thinking there should be something indicating "this is the isotope of Phosphorous that has an atomic mass of 31" to the novice reader, though I'm not sure whether that should be in the element's article, in some footnote, or someplace else. I thought this would be a good place to get some feedback on that and perhaps establish a working standard. -- Beland 04:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Are we meant to be using systematic names all the time except for the exceptions named on this page, or are we meant to use whatever we feel best? -- PhiJ 09:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
there already: article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize
Here is what the page currently says: Element names Traditionally, the names of three elements have been spelt differently in US and British English. With the onset of computer searching of databases it became necessary to standardize these spellings as follows: [1]
COMMENT: To employ a Britishism: bollocks. The reference given to the 1990 IUPAC redbook, as the WP:V, is 3 years out of date. Since 1993 IUPAC has recognized cesium and aluminum as alternate names, which means you can use what you like. Sulphur (vs. sulfur) isn't even listed as a varient any more in IUPAC tables: [2]
So. What the page MEANS to say is: With the onset of computer searching of databases it became necessary to try to convince others of the standardization of these spellings as the British have spelt them, since it has been becomming rapidly apparent that most of the chemical world uses other spellings than what the British have traditionally learnt, oh my. Which indeed any search will find the English science world does, if one does a simple Google Test for any of these terms and counts hits.
So how about we be honest? IUPAC doesn't care. Really, it doesn't. Thus, THERE IS NO INTERNATIONAL STANDARD. That's a fiction gotten up to get Wikipedia to use British English here, where the American variant is more common in the English-speaking scientific world. So how about we simply switch to what's most commonly used? I'm willing to do it by any database hit test you like. Sight unseen. And winner take all. Steve 00:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
We are already in a position where the majority of the world's users of scientific English aren't Americans. English is the language of science. Of course for the majority, english is now not their first language. This is not a question of the Brits and American's trading. It was a decision taken by IUPAC which has a majority of members who are neither American or British. Unfortunately the US has a record of ignoring IUPAC while other countries accept its recommendations. A good example is the wide use of kcal/mol in ACS and AIP journals, while all European journals strongly discourage that use and often insist on the correct SI unit of kJ/mol. -- Bduke 08:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
They're not backing off, it is clear that aluminium and caesium (and sulfur) are preferred, that's why they're listed in the table of preferred names. The 1993 document also lists ferrum for iron, natrium for sodium, etc, but nobody is suggesting we go back to speaking Latin. If you try to change this long-standing guideline, you will be reverted. Point. -- Physchim62 (talk) 15:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Recent literature search (last ten years) for "aluminium oxide" vs. "aluminum oxide." The American spelling has more than 10 times as many references. So much for an "international standard."
-- Cubic Hour ( talk) 10:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
With this in mind, I've added a bit of text to the description for this. I'm not changing the "consensus" standard yet, just adding a bit to explain that wikipedia goes against what's demonstrably more common in the literature.-- Cubic Hour ( talk) 18:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
So IUPAC prefers caesium. But I still hold that Cesium should be the title of the wikipedia entry. Firstly, Cesium is the spelling used by the American Chemical Society and given that most wikipedia users are American I think that should be reflected. (Source?)
But more importantly, "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognise, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." - (By this argument we should start using cave man speech and dumb down our language, which you should see is wrong.) The caesium spelling flies clearly in the face of this general rule. 1. Majority of English speakers clearly recognise Cesium better than Caesium (Source?) 2. Cesium maintains the reasonable minimum of ambiguity 3. Linking to those articles is not second nature given that most people will use cesium in writing other articles.
Of course, it is only a general rule, but look at the reason given for breaking this rule.
"With the onset of computer searching of databases it became necessary to standardise these spellings as follows"
Right, if that's the logic, we should use the spelling most commonly found in databases, Cesium! Although it might sound jingoist, most scientific databases are run from American universities and organizations. These use primarily the American spelling cesium. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Maquih ( talk • contribs) 17:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC).
Just a comment about American spelling. As a Canadian, I was trained early to use British spelling and I used to scoff at what I thought were ignorant American spellings. Then I found out that the US spellings were created on purpose, to make it easier for non-English immigrants to deal with the inconsistencies and needless complexity of English on their arrival in the US. Since then, I have been a supporter of US spellings. Seems like a good reason to adopt US spellings for the rest of the non-native English world.
Whether anyone's head will blow up is rather besides the point. The current google scholar score for "cesium": 272,000. The current google scholar score for "caesium". 40,900. The scientific community at large as clearly settled on the "cesium" spelling. Wikipedia makes itself more difficult to use by using spellings that are used by the minority of the world. The consensus here seems to be to use the American spelling.-- Cubic Hour ( talk) 23:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Any results based on journal cites are biaised by the fact that American journals insist on American spellings, whereas European journals will accept either. They're also irrelevant, in so far as cesium and aluminum are—quite simply—wrong. They are tributes to the illiteracy of a dictionary complier and of a journal editor (respectively). There are a lot of people who use wrong spellings, but so what, does that mean that Wikipedia should do so as well? Physchim62 (talk) 12:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I support Walkerma for the reasons he gives. Also, moving away from using IUPAC standards will lead us into very confused waters. We are an international encyclopedia. We should use international standards where they exist so readers can be educated in them. Redirects are used for the common spellings in some parts of the English speaking world. -- Bduke ( talk) 22:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
(Outdent) Your concept that IUPAC "preferred names" are some kind of "standard" is not in keeping with what IUPAC intended [3]. As they say:
A major new principle is elaborated in these Recommendations. The concept of ‘preferred IUPAC names’ is developed and systematically applied. Up to now, the nomenclature developed and recommended by IUPAC has emphasized the generation of unambiguous names in accord with the historical development of the subject. In 1993, due to the explosion in the circulation of information and the globalization of human activities, it was deemed necessary to have a common language that will prove important in legal situations, with manifestations in patents, export-import regulations, environmental and health and safety information, etc. However, rather than recommend only a single ‘unique name’ for each structure, we have developed rules for assigning ‘preferred IUPAC names’, while continuing to allow alternatives in order to preserve the diversity and adaptability of the nomenclature to daily activities in chemistry and in science in general.
Thus, the existence of preferred IUPAC names does not prevent the use of other names to take into account a specific context or to emphasize structural features common to a series of compounds. Preferred IUPAC names belong to ‘preferred IUPAC nomenclature’ Any name other than a preferred IUPAC name, as long as it is unambiguous and follows the principles of the IUPAC recommendations herein, is acceptable as a ‘general’ IUPAC name, in the context of ‘general’ IUPAC nomenclature.
The emphasis on that last sentence is mine. They are talking about organic compound names, to be sure, but that's as close as they ever come to saying what they mean by their concept of "preferred." Clearly, it's is to be subservient to common usage, since it allows alternatives "to preserve the diversity and adaptability of the nomenclature to daily activities in chemistry and in science in general." Daily activity of chemisty is PRECISELY what we're talking about, when one term is used far more in the literature and the internet than another. It's not supposed to be a straightjacket, so long as there's no ambiguity.
For my part, I'll believe in the sincerity and workability of your belief that IUPAC "preferred names" are really supposed to mean "standards", with no alternative acceptable, when you find me some place where IUPAC ITSELF says this. So far as I can tell, they bend over backwards to say the opposite. So, let's see you pagemove Deuterium and Tritium to the IUPAC-preferred Hydrogen-2 and Hydrogen-3 instead of having the redirects go the other way. See what happens. S B H arris 01:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry to interrupt, but where exactly does IUPAC say that "caesium" is preferred? The closest I remember seeing is a periodic table or a table of atomic weights where they in fact use "caesium" in the table but with a footnote that says "also spelled cesium". That didn't look like a "standard recommendation" to me, but more of an editorial decision. -- Itub ( talk) 06:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
[reset tabs] I'm sorry if you can't accept that it [aluminium/caesium/sulfur + niobium/lutetium/protactinium, just to name the pre-uraniums] is a IUPAC standard, despite the references that I (and you youself) have supplied. What would you suggest we do with Category:Caesium compounds if we apply the general guidelines to such spellings? What should we do when someone creates praseodymium sulphate? Physchim62 (talk) 16:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not going to comment about the spelling again since we've already made our points multiple times without convincing anyone. But since so many people here care about cesium, perhaps someone will be interested in the discussion about the existence of Cs3+. Talking about the chemistry rather than the spelling may be a refreshing change. See
Talk:Caesium/archive1#Cesium.28III.29. --
Itub (
talk) 15:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been following the debate here, and I understand why Caesium is used in the article, although I disagree with the reasoning for its use. Clearly the few holdouts in favor of the odd and impractical "caesium" prefer the term because it is the IUPAC convention, although even this is not exactly clear. "Cesium," in addition to being more readable, is more popular in the scientific community in general, being accepted and indeed preferred by many major standards-governing bodies the world around ("caesium" is clearly a holdout and will fortunately go the way of "sulphur"), and is widely accepted by (and indeed used by members of) the IUPAC, the major dissenting body being the Royal Society of Chemistry (which one might expect). I am not usually one to argue based on Google hits, but in this case the overwhelming majority of "cesium" within the international scientific community should indeed be taken as an indicator of the best spelling. I'm completely fine with "aluminium" (very common internationally), for what it's worth. It just seems that there is a single argument here in favor of "Caesium," and the argument is not well made. "Cesium" has become accepted by the IUPAC for a very obvious reason: it is the most common and most widely accepted scientific spelling of the element. I completely agree with Itub's point that "we are not here to 'fix' the indiscretions of the Americans," (and "cesium" is not one such indiscretion) which really does seem to be the argument of the "Caesium" proponents, despite the international use of "Cesium" (even around WP). Spelling the element "Cesium" would not defy IUPAC standards in any real sense, especially since they've caved to popular use. Additionally, I would like to make the point that the so-called American "indiscretions" need not be so vehemently opposed; they are inescapable and most likely beneficial aspects of the evolution of language, since difficult spellings are more likely to change for the mere sake of simplicity (which is a very noble goal when no information is lost, as in this case). English is a phonetic mess to begin with; I tend to find American spellings simpler in most cases (e.g. "color" has more phonetic simplicity than "colour"). Reading "Caesium" throughout the article gives the sensation that one is reading the text of a Latin Mass, not an encyclopedic entry on a chemical element. Additionally, the formal debate on this topic (
[5]) makes it clear from the get-go that the "Caesium" proponents consider American spellings to be a bastardization of a once noble language, which is clearly a subjective opinion and one not meriting the implicit backing of WP. Eccomi 20:10, 29 November 2010 (UTC).
"Majority of English speakers clearly recognize Cesium better than Caesium" - possibly, but as a geochemist for 45 years I spell it caesium, as does my wife (an organometallic researcher) and people I work with from a number of English-speaking countries (Britain, South Africa, Australia) as well as English journals (eg Nature) and European journals in English. I had always thought cesium was an American peculiarity (that they have every right to use, as we do with our variety)- in fact when I read this I thought "that's right, I have also seen it spelled cesium" (so it is not clearly recognised by me, but probably mainly by Americans). There seems to be confusion here between those discussing the original topic (what Wikipedia should do) and those who think that either the Americans or the Brits are demented because of their spelling. The argument that Wikipedia is American and should use American spelling, as stated above, is invalid - the Wikipedia Manual of Style says "English Wikipedia prefers no major national variety of the language over any other" and simply requires consistency throughput an article. It is hardly the only element that has a different spelling, or even a totally different name in different countries (tungsten, wolfram), and unlike "sulphur", originally spelled "sulfur" (the official IUPAC recommendation) and not an American change, caesium is not a later change, cesium is. It comes from a word spelled "cae...." meaning blue sky and has nothing to do with the names of people like Caesar and the fact that personal names have been modified in different countries, so a change dissociates it from its source and reason for naming (its blue flame colour). There are other factors to consider such as the name of an element and its spelling usually being defined by the discoverer (not American in this case - and caesium). It is not a topic that I feel strongly about, and I think there is logic in having consistency in science (especially in the electronic age), and I think if there is consensus between international scientific organisations, that decision should be accepted by Wikipedia and everyone else (I would happily change) - however I am not aware that IUPAC has made any recommendation as has been stated above, and my understanding is that they accept both alternative spellings. So I will probably simply accept the requirements of any journal that I am writing for until then (which includes Wikipedia where its style manual shows there is no justification for others to change the original spelling used in an article). — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Rockierode (
talk •
contribs) 12:28, 24 December 2016 (UTC) .
I would just like to point out the the word Caesium is derived from the Latin word "caesius" so should it not be spelled that way? This is just my personal opinion. But i prefer Caesium rather than Cesium. 16 April 2020. Z.W.
Working though the RSC ontology, I can see the need for some guidelines about the naming of these articles. I propose the following:
The titles of articles about name reactions should generally conform to widely recognised secondary sources such as the RSC Name Reaction Ontology. However, some minor modifications may be necessary to ensure consistency with other areas of Wikipedia.
- When two or more surnames appear in the name of a reaction, they are separated by an en dash and not by a hyphen ( WP:DASH).
- Diels–Alder reaction not Diels-Alder reaction
- The name appearing in the title of an article about a reaction should be spelled the same way as in the biographical article.
- Ramberg–Bäcklund reaction not Ramberg–Backlund reaction nor Ramberg–Baecklund reaction
- The prefix " aza-" (and similar) is treated as a noun, and separated from surnames with an en dash. This avoids a confusion with double-barrelled names.
- Aza–Wittig reaction not Aza-Wittig reaction nor Aza Wittig reaction
- Oxy–Cope rearrangement not Oxy-Cope rearrangement nor Oxy Cope rearrangement
- The prefix "retro" is treated as an adjective, and separated from surnames with a space. This avoids an unsightly mixing of hyphens and en dashes.
- Retro Diels–Alder reaction not Retro-Diels–Alder reaction nor Retro–Diels–Alder reaction
- Words ending in -isation/-ization, such as "cyclisation" may be spelled either way: the choice for any given article is determined by the normal guidelines at WP:ENGVAR. Note that the RSC ontology uses the "-isation" form throughout.
- The choice of description of a reaction as "reaction", "process", "condensation", "rearrangement" etc is made by reference to widely recognised secondary sources. In case of disagreement, the most commonly used description is chosen. If the most commonly used description is unclear, the first acceptible description used for the article title is retained.
In all cases, it is important to create redirects from other possible names and spellings, especially when these are used in reliable sources.
Physchim62 (talk) 15:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Greek letters are spelled out, or displayed as characters. It seems rather messy - do we want to prefer either? It seems that titles do not support such characters, if I am not mistaken. -- Rifleman 82 ( talk) 18:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
"These international standard spellings should be used in all chemistry-related articles on English Wikipedia, even if they conflict with the other national spelling varieties used in the article."
This has nothing to do with Naming conventions because naming conventions do not dictate the content of pages. This is a WP:MOS issue. -- PBS ( talk) 12:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
The guideline states, "For technical reasons, it is not recommended to use non-numerical prefixes in article titles", but I am not aware of any technical issues relating to the use of non-numerical prefixes. Certainly there are many articles that violate this guideline. It appears to be outdated and I suggest removing it. Any objections? -- Ed ( Edgar181) 19:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Over the past several months there has been contentious debate over aspects of WP:Article Titles policy. That contentiousness has led to efforts to improve the overall effectiveness of the policy and associated processes. An RFC entitled: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice has been initiated to assess the communities’ understanding of our title decision making policy. As a project that has created or influenced subject specific naming conventions, participants in this project are encouraged to review and participate in the RFC.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 19:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I stumbled over the fact that 2C–H used an endash in its name while the rest of the 2C family, as well as all of the other related organics in the CSA schedules, and everything else I could find, used hyphens. I started a discussion on the talk page at Talk:2C–H#Page_move?, but we could use some more input please. —[ AlanM1( talk)]— 18:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
I believe we need to re-visit the policy stated in WP:ALUM, where it states that in chemistry-related articles the element names should be changed to a specific spelling. That policy is being used as an excuse to defy WP:ENGVAR, MOS:TIES and WP:UCN, see for example the discussion in Talk:Castle Bravo#WP:TIES_vs_WP:ALUM. The original documents on the subject use the american spelling, the IUPAC allows both spellings, and common usage leans away from the policy stated - Aluminum and Cesium are more common than Aluminium and Caesium. And I note that while typing these in, my browser has flagged the two latter spellings as misspelled.
I realize this got argued to death in 2008, but it appears the resulting policy is producing absurd results, so needs to be revisited. Perhaps to be more specific about what kind of articles need revision? Tarl.Neustaedter ( talk) 10:23, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
I want to note that WP:ELEMENTS there is a discussion going on on the naming and symbolizing of elements with no IUPAC name (now generally named like ununtrium). (An earlier part off the discussion is in archive, see the hatnote) - DePiep ( talk) 09:28, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
In section Exceptions there is this line:
I cannot discern whether the three additions (phosphines, ...) are or are not acceptable. The writing is ambiguous. Please can someone rephrase that? - DePiep ( talk) 20:02, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone has any source which describes and clarifies capitalization of chemical names, which start with sec-, tert-, ortho-, meta-, para-, alpha-, beta-, D-, L-, (+)-, (-)-, (R)-, (S)- and the numerical prefixes? I need it very much for ru-wiki discussion. — Maksim Fomich ( talk) 19:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Despite what this page says, though, iron(II,III) oxide is an article and not a redirect to magnetite (which is another article altogether). Double sharp ( talk) 02:59, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Currently, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry)#Use of Stock nomenclature states:
Stock nomenclature should not be used for compounds with mixed or non-integral oxidation numbers: hence triiron tetraoxide not iron(II,III) oxide (in fact, this article is difficult to name and, as an exception, redirects to magnetite).
The section on stock nomenclature has existed since July 2005. However, one can see that there, in fact, does exist an article at Iron(II,III) oxide which is distinct from the Magnetite article and it was created in April 2008. So for 12 years, apparently no one (apart from Double sharp above) has noticed this discrepancy in the very example that the guideline is trying to use to illustrate what not to do, suggesting that the guideline is not being enforced in practice. So what do we do here? I see several possibilities:
I don't have a strong view but the current situation is rather risible. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Seeing that there are no objections, I have removed Stock nomenclature #5. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:42, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
For the record, the previous section "IUPAC name vs. systematic name" has been replaced with the current section per discussion at WikiProject Chemicals. Mdewman6 ( talk) 01:22, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemistry#Updating_naming_conventions_for_groups regarding possible revisions to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Groups_of_compounds. Mdewman6 ( talk) 01:47, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
We're using at least two conventions to name compounds. For example, Special:Search/intitle:tetrachloride shows a roughly equal mix of "Element tetrachloride" articles and redirects to "Element(IV) chloride". Is this a correct consequence of WP:COMMONNAME, or is there some technical difference between the bonds (I'm no chemist), or would the titles benefit from some page moves? Certes ( talk) 11:21, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
219
86Rn
vs radon-219, that is the question, for me, anyway. I couldn't find anything in this article that clearly mandated [edit: I meant "clearly recommended"] the latter in prose, reserving the former for when space is limited, such as in equations, formulas, and diagrams like the periodic table.
The isotope names section /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Isotope_names has the following statement: "Isotopes are named and identified as [element]-[mass number] with regular lowercase and hyphen (carbon-13), or by equivalent symbol format 13C" which is not crystal clear but certainly seems to prefer "carbon-13" to the nuclide symbol, as indicated by it coming first. It's not a one off, either, as the nuclide symbol is consistently mentioned second, as if it is an alternative to be used when the first method is impossible or impractical, such as when space is limited.
The answer seems obvious. The latter is plain English, and is the IUPAC name. But it's very tempting to use the former, because it's so much fun for the Wikipedian to use the nuclide symbol template. It's a *lot* of fun, like getting your first Python program to work. It's also become the habit of many Wikipedians to use nuclide symbols at random in prose along with other forms. Thus the one article often has every form in it, 219
86Rn
, radon-219, and Rn-219 at random.
There's a discussion going on at the Talk page of the Nuclear weapon design article about this question. Here's the link: /info/en/?search=Talk:Nuclear_weapon_design#235U_versus_uranium-235. Please take look if you want to read about the advantages of using plain English in the prose part of a Wikipedia article, and mentioning nuclide symbols only in passing in the prose part, while using the admittedly ingenious and indeed beautiful nuclide symbols only where space is limited. Polar Apposite ( talk) 23:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Following the RM of Pyrylium from Pyrylium salt, I have decided to add a new point about names of ions, but don't know where to place it.
Articles about ions (such as Ammonium or Azide) or non-nucleophilic ionic functional groups (such as Pyrylium) may exist independently of articles about specific salts (such as Ammonium azide); such articles should use the ion name alone (not Ammonium salt, for example).
– LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 10:18, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Chemistry Project‑class | |||||||
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I've been having trouble figuring out what to do with Trisodium phosphate and Sodium phosphate. These both refer to the same chemical. It seems like Trisodium phosphate is the name commercially used for selling the chemical as a cleaning chemical. Sodium phosphate is the name used on food ingredients lists, etc., and I *think* is the "systematic" chemical name, but I'm pretty rusty on my chemistry. Does anyone have any suggestions? I assume that we want one article with a redirect, rather than two separate articles on the two uses, but I could be wrong. -- Creidieki 19:29, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I took a look at the IUPAC rules as listed in my CRC Handbook of Chem & Physics, and it looks like you can do either sodium phosphate or trisodium phosphate. Personally I prefer sodium phosphate for Na3PO4, but IUPAC actually gives you a choice. One confusing notation in widespread use is "Sodium phosphate tribasic" (for Na3PO4), and sodium phosphate dibasic (for Na2HPO4) etc. I think we just need to choose one of the two IUPAC names and have a redirect from any other names, and include links to the hydrogen and dihydrogen phosphate salts. We should also be consistent between the sodium and the potassium phosphates in whatever we use. Walkerma 20:11, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have copied the relevant sections from Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines here, as it seems to cover the discussion that went before. All comments are more than welcome! Physchim62 7 July 2005 10:56 (UTC)
To answer Wim's point, I do not think that the rest of the style guidelines have reached a point where they are useful to those outside the WP:Chem—they are still a work-in-progress. However, the title section seemed to have a good enough consensus to be presented to the non-initiated. Physchim62 8 July 2005 10:08 (UTC)
While tidying NMR spectroscopy, Nuclear magnetic resonance, and Phosphorus, I noticed that sometimes we have e.g. 31P and sometimes we have e.g. Phosphorous-31. It seems like the latter would be clearer to non-chemists, and easier to link to the article on the element, but also a bit clumsy to use repeatedly. I was also thinking there should be something indicating "this is the isotope of Phosphorous that has an atomic mass of 31" to the novice reader, though I'm not sure whether that should be in the element's article, in some footnote, or someplace else. I thought this would be a good place to get some feedback on that and perhaps establish a working standard. -- Beland 04:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Are we meant to be using systematic names all the time except for the exceptions named on this page, or are we meant to use whatever we feel best? -- PhiJ 09:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
there already: article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize
Here is what the page currently says: Element names Traditionally, the names of three elements have been spelt differently in US and British English. With the onset of computer searching of databases it became necessary to standardize these spellings as follows: [1]
COMMENT: To employ a Britishism: bollocks. The reference given to the 1990 IUPAC redbook, as the WP:V, is 3 years out of date. Since 1993 IUPAC has recognized cesium and aluminum as alternate names, which means you can use what you like. Sulphur (vs. sulfur) isn't even listed as a varient any more in IUPAC tables: [2]
So. What the page MEANS to say is: With the onset of computer searching of databases it became necessary to try to convince others of the standardization of these spellings as the British have spelt them, since it has been becomming rapidly apparent that most of the chemical world uses other spellings than what the British have traditionally learnt, oh my. Which indeed any search will find the English science world does, if one does a simple Google Test for any of these terms and counts hits.
So how about we be honest? IUPAC doesn't care. Really, it doesn't. Thus, THERE IS NO INTERNATIONAL STANDARD. That's a fiction gotten up to get Wikipedia to use British English here, where the American variant is more common in the English-speaking scientific world. So how about we simply switch to what's most commonly used? I'm willing to do it by any database hit test you like. Sight unseen. And winner take all. Steve 00:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
We are already in a position where the majority of the world's users of scientific English aren't Americans. English is the language of science. Of course for the majority, english is now not their first language. This is not a question of the Brits and American's trading. It was a decision taken by IUPAC which has a majority of members who are neither American or British. Unfortunately the US has a record of ignoring IUPAC while other countries accept its recommendations. A good example is the wide use of kcal/mol in ACS and AIP journals, while all European journals strongly discourage that use and often insist on the correct SI unit of kJ/mol. -- Bduke 08:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
They're not backing off, it is clear that aluminium and caesium (and sulfur) are preferred, that's why they're listed in the table of preferred names. The 1993 document also lists ferrum for iron, natrium for sodium, etc, but nobody is suggesting we go back to speaking Latin. If you try to change this long-standing guideline, you will be reverted. Point. -- Physchim62 (talk) 15:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Recent literature search (last ten years) for "aluminium oxide" vs. "aluminum oxide." The American spelling has more than 10 times as many references. So much for an "international standard."
-- Cubic Hour ( talk) 10:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
With this in mind, I've added a bit of text to the description for this. I'm not changing the "consensus" standard yet, just adding a bit to explain that wikipedia goes against what's demonstrably more common in the literature.-- Cubic Hour ( talk) 18:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
So IUPAC prefers caesium. But I still hold that Cesium should be the title of the wikipedia entry. Firstly, Cesium is the spelling used by the American Chemical Society and given that most wikipedia users are American I think that should be reflected. (Source?)
But more importantly, "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognise, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." - (By this argument we should start using cave man speech and dumb down our language, which you should see is wrong.) The caesium spelling flies clearly in the face of this general rule. 1. Majority of English speakers clearly recognise Cesium better than Caesium (Source?) 2. Cesium maintains the reasonable minimum of ambiguity 3. Linking to those articles is not second nature given that most people will use cesium in writing other articles.
Of course, it is only a general rule, but look at the reason given for breaking this rule.
"With the onset of computer searching of databases it became necessary to standardise these spellings as follows"
Right, if that's the logic, we should use the spelling most commonly found in databases, Cesium! Although it might sound jingoist, most scientific databases are run from American universities and organizations. These use primarily the American spelling cesium. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Maquih ( talk • contribs) 17:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC).
Just a comment about American spelling. As a Canadian, I was trained early to use British spelling and I used to scoff at what I thought were ignorant American spellings. Then I found out that the US spellings were created on purpose, to make it easier for non-English immigrants to deal with the inconsistencies and needless complexity of English on their arrival in the US. Since then, I have been a supporter of US spellings. Seems like a good reason to adopt US spellings for the rest of the non-native English world.
Whether anyone's head will blow up is rather besides the point. The current google scholar score for "cesium": 272,000. The current google scholar score for "caesium". 40,900. The scientific community at large as clearly settled on the "cesium" spelling. Wikipedia makes itself more difficult to use by using spellings that are used by the minority of the world. The consensus here seems to be to use the American spelling.-- Cubic Hour ( talk) 23:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Any results based on journal cites are biaised by the fact that American journals insist on American spellings, whereas European journals will accept either. They're also irrelevant, in so far as cesium and aluminum are—quite simply—wrong. They are tributes to the illiteracy of a dictionary complier and of a journal editor (respectively). There are a lot of people who use wrong spellings, but so what, does that mean that Wikipedia should do so as well? Physchim62 (talk) 12:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I support Walkerma for the reasons he gives. Also, moving away from using IUPAC standards will lead us into very confused waters. We are an international encyclopedia. We should use international standards where they exist so readers can be educated in them. Redirects are used for the common spellings in some parts of the English speaking world. -- Bduke ( talk) 22:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
(Outdent) Your concept that IUPAC "preferred names" are some kind of "standard" is not in keeping with what IUPAC intended [3]. As they say:
A major new principle is elaborated in these Recommendations. The concept of ‘preferred IUPAC names’ is developed and systematically applied. Up to now, the nomenclature developed and recommended by IUPAC has emphasized the generation of unambiguous names in accord with the historical development of the subject. In 1993, due to the explosion in the circulation of information and the globalization of human activities, it was deemed necessary to have a common language that will prove important in legal situations, with manifestations in patents, export-import regulations, environmental and health and safety information, etc. However, rather than recommend only a single ‘unique name’ for each structure, we have developed rules for assigning ‘preferred IUPAC names’, while continuing to allow alternatives in order to preserve the diversity and adaptability of the nomenclature to daily activities in chemistry and in science in general.
Thus, the existence of preferred IUPAC names does not prevent the use of other names to take into account a specific context or to emphasize structural features common to a series of compounds. Preferred IUPAC names belong to ‘preferred IUPAC nomenclature’ Any name other than a preferred IUPAC name, as long as it is unambiguous and follows the principles of the IUPAC recommendations herein, is acceptable as a ‘general’ IUPAC name, in the context of ‘general’ IUPAC nomenclature.
The emphasis on that last sentence is mine. They are talking about organic compound names, to be sure, but that's as close as they ever come to saying what they mean by their concept of "preferred." Clearly, it's is to be subservient to common usage, since it allows alternatives "to preserve the diversity and adaptability of the nomenclature to daily activities in chemistry and in science in general." Daily activity of chemisty is PRECISELY what we're talking about, when one term is used far more in the literature and the internet than another. It's not supposed to be a straightjacket, so long as there's no ambiguity.
For my part, I'll believe in the sincerity and workability of your belief that IUPAC "preferred names" are really supposed to mean "standards", with no alternative acceptable, when you find me some place where IUPAC ITSELF says this. So far as I can tell, they bend over backwards to say the opposite. So, let's see you pagemove Deuterium and Tritium to the IUPAC-preferred Hydrogen-2 and Hydrogen-3 instead of having the redirects go the other way. See what happens. S B H arris 01:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry to interrupt, but where exactly does IUPAC say that "caesium" is preferred? The closest I remember seeing is a periodic table or a table of atomic weights where they in fact use "caesium" in the table but with a footnote that says "also spelled cesium". That didn't look like a "standard recommendation" to me, but more of an editorial decision. -- Itub ( talk) 06:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
[reset tabs] I'm sorry if you can't accept that it [aluminium/caesium/sulfur + niobium/lutetium/protactinium, just to name the pre-uraniums] is a IUPAC standard, despite the references that I (and you youself) have supplied. What would you suggest we do with Category:Caesium compounds if we apply the general guidelines to such spellings? What should we do when someone creates praseodymium sulphate? Physchim62 (talk) 16:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not going to comment about the spelling again since we've already made our points multiple times without convincing anyone. But since so many people here care about cesium, perhaps someone will be interested in the discussion about the existence of Cs3+. Talking about the chemistry rather than the spelling may be a refreshing change. See
Talk:Caesium/archive1#Cesium.28III.29. --
Itub (
talk) 15:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been following the debate here, and I understand why Caesium is used in the article, although I disagree with the reasoning for its use. Clearly the few holdouts in favor of the odd and impractical "caesium" prefer the term because it is the IUPAC convention, although even this is not exactly clear. "Cesium," in addition to being more readable, is more popular in the scientific community in general, being accepted and indeed preferred by many major standards-governing bodies the world around ("caesium" is clearly a holdout and will fortunately go the way of "sulphur"), and is widely accepted by (and indeed used by members of) the IUPAC, the major dissenting body being the Royal Society of Chemistry (which one might expect). I am not usually one to argue based on Google hits, but in this case the overwhelming majority of "cesium" within the international scientific community should indeed be taken as an indicator of the best spelling. I'm completely fine with "aluminium" (very common internationally), for what it's worth. It just seems that there is a single argument here in favor of "Caesium," and the argument is not well made. "Cesium" has become accepted by the IUPAC for a very obvious reason: it is the most common and most widely accepted scientific spelling of the element. I completely agree with Itub's point that "we are not here to 'fix' the indiscretions of the Americans," (and "cesium" is not one such indiscretion) which really does seem to be the argument of the "Caesium" proponents, despite the international use of "Cesium" (even around WP). Spelling the element "Cesium" would not defy IUPAC standards in any real sense, especially since they've caved to popular use. Additionally, I would like to make the point that the so-called American "indiscretions" need not be so vehemently opposed; they are inescapable and most likely beneficial aspects of the evolution of language, since difficult spellings are more likely to change for the mere sake of simplicity (which is a very noble goal when no information is lost, as in this case). English is a phonetic mess to begin with; I tend to find American spellings simpler in most cases (e.g. "color" has more phonetic simplicity than "colour"). Reading "Caesium" throughout the article gives the sensation that one is reading the text of a Latin Mass, not an encyclopedic entry on a chemical element. Additionally, the formal debate on this topic (
[5]) makes it clear from the get-go that the "Caesium" proponents consider American spellings to be a bastardization of a once noble language, which is clearly a subjective opinion and one not meriting the implicit backing of WP. Eccomi 20:10, 29 November 2010 (UTC).
"Majority of English speakers clearly recognize Cesium better than Caesium" - possibly, but as a geochemist for 45 years I spell it caesium, as does my wife (an organometallic researcher) and people I work with from a number of English-speaking countries (Britain, South Africa, Australia) as well as English journals (eg Nature) and European journals in English. I had always thought cesium was an American peculiarity (that they have every right to use, as we do with our variety)- in fact when I read this I thought "that's right, I have also seen it spelled cesium" (so it is not clearly recognised by me, but probably mainly by Americans). There seems to be confusion here between those discussing the original topic (what Wikipedia should do) and those who think that either the Americans or the Brits are demented because of their spelling. The argument that Wikipedia is American and should use American spelling, as stated above, is invalid - the Wikipedia Manual of Style says "English Wikipedia prefers no major national variety of the language over any other" and simply requires consistency throughput an article. It is hardly the only element that has a different spelling, or even a totally different name in different countries (tungsten, wolfram), and unlike "sulphur", originally spelled "sulfur" (the official IUPAC recommendation) and not an American change, caesium is not a later change, cesium is. It comes from a word spelled "cae...." meaning blue sky and has nothing to do with the names of people like Caesar and the fact that personal names have been modified in different countries, so a change dissociates it from its source and reason for naming (its blue flame colour). There are other factors to consider such as the name of an element and its spelling usually being defined by the discoverer (not American in this case - and caesium). It is not a topic that I feel strongly about, and I think there is logic in having consistency in science (especially in the electronic age), and I think if there is consensus between international scientific organisations, that decision should be accepted by Wikipedia and everyone else (I would happily change) - however I am not aware that IUPAC has made any recommendation as has been stated above, and my understanding is that they accept both alternative spellings. So I will probably simply accept the requirements of any journal that I am writing for until then (which includes Wikipedia where its style manual shows there is no justification for others to change the original spelling used in an article). — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Rockierode (
talk •
contribs) 12:28, 24 December 2016 (UTC) .
I would just like to point out the the word Caesium is derived from the Latin word "caesius" so should it not be spelled that way? This is just my personal opinion. But i prefer Caesium rather than Cesium. 16 April 2020. Z.W.
Working though the RSC ontology, I can see the need for some guidelines about the naming of these articles. I propose the following:
The titles of articles about name reactions should generally conform to widely recognised secondary sources such as the RSC Name Reaction Ontology. However, some minor modifications may be necessary to ensure consistency with other areas of Wikipedia.
- When two or more surnames appear in the name of a reaction, they are separated by an en dash and not by a hyphen ( WP:DASH).
- Diels–Alder reaction not Diels-Alder reaction
- The name appearing in the title of an article about a reaction should be spelled the same way as in the biographical article.
- Ramberg–Bäcklund reaction not Ramberg–Backlund reaction nor Ramberg–Baecklund reaction
- The prefix " aza-" (and similar) is treated as a noun, and separated from surnames with an en dash. This avoids a confusion with double-barrelled names.
- Aza–Wittig reaction not Aza-Wittig reaction nor Aza Wittig reaction
- Oxy–Cope rearrangement not Oxy-Cope rearrangement nor Oxy Cope rearrangement
- The prefix "retro" is treated as an adjective, and separated from surnames with a space. This avoids an unsightly mixing of hyphens and en dashes.
- Retro Diels–Alder reaction not Retro-Diels–Alder reaction nor Retro–Diels–Alder reaction
- Words ending in -isation/-ization, such as "cyclisation" may be spelled either way: the choice for any given article is determined by the normal guidelines at WP:ENGVAR. Note that the RSC ontology uses the "-isation" form throughout.
- The choice of description of a reaction as "reaction", "process", "condensation", "rearrangement" etc is made by reference to widely recognised secondary sources. In case of disagreement, the most commonly used description is chosen. If the most commonly used description is unclear, the first acceptible description used for the article title is retained.
In all cases, it is important to create redirects from other possible names and spellings, especially when these are used in reliable sources.
Physchim62 (talk) 15:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Greek letters are spelled out, or displayed as characters. It seems rather messy - do we want to prefer either? It seems that titles do not support such characters, if I am not mistaken. -- Rifleman 82 ( talk) 18:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
"These international standard spellings should be used in all chemistry-related articles on English Wikipedia, even if they conflict with the other national spelling varieties used in the article."
This has nothing to do with Naming conventions because naming conventions do not dictate the content of pages. This is a WP:MOS issue. -- PBS ( talk) 12:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
The guideline states, "For technical reasons, it is not recommended to use non-numerical prefixes in article titles", but I am not aware of any technical issues relating to the use of non-numerical prefixes. Certainly there are many articles that violate this guideline. It appears to be outdated and I suggest removing it. Any objections? -- Ed ( Edgar181) 19:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Over the past several months there has been contentious debate over aspects of WP:Article Titles policy. That contentiousness has led to efforts to improve the overall effectiveness of the policy and associated processes. An RFC entitled: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice has been initiated to assess the communities’ understanding of our title decision making policy. As a project that has created or influenced subject specific naming conventions, participants in this project are encouraged to review and participate in the RFC.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 19:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I stumbled over the fact that 2C–H used an endash in its name while the rest of the 2C family, as well as all of the other related organics in the CSA schedules, and everything else I could find, used hyphens. I started a discussion on the talk page at Talk:2C–H#Page_move?, but we could use some more input please. —[ AlanM1( talk)]— 18:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
I believe we need to re-visit the policy stated in WP:ALUM, where it states that in chemistry-related articles the element names should be changed to a specific spelling. That policy is being used as an excuse to defy WP:ENGVAR, MOS:TIES and WP:UCN, see for example the discussion in Talk:Castle Bravo#WP:TIES_vs_WP:ALUM. The original documents on the subject use the american spelling, the IUPAC allows both spellings, and common usage leans away from the policy stated - Aluminum and Cesium are more common than Aluminium and Caesium. And I note that while typing these in, my browser has flagged the two latter spellings as misspelled.
I realize this got argued to death in 2008, but it appears the resulting policy is producing absurd results, so needs to be revisited. Perhaps to be more specific about what kind of articles need revision? Tarl.Neustaedter ( talk) 10:23, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
I want to note that WP:ELEMENTS there is a discussion going on on the naming and symbolizing of elements with no IUPAC name (now generally named like ununtrium). (An earlier part off the discussion is in archive, see the hatnote) - DePiep ( talk) 09:28, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
In section Exceptions there is this line:
I cannot discern whether the three additions (phosphines, ...) are or are not acceptable. The writing is ambiguous. Please can someone rephrase that? - DePiep ( talk) 20:02, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone has any source which describes and clarifies capitalization of chemical names, which start with sec-, tert-, ortho-, meta-, para-, alpha-, beta-, D-, L-, (+)-, (-)-, (R)-, (S)- and the numerical prefixes? I need it very much for ru-wiki discussion. — Maksim Fomich ( talk) 19:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Despite what this page says, though, iron(II,III) oxide is an article and not a redirect to magnetite (which is another article altogether). Double sharp ( talk) 02:59, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Currently, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry)#Use of Stock nomenclature states:
Stock nomenclature should not be used for compounds with mixed or non-integral oxidation numbers: hence triiron tetraoxide not iron(II,III) oxide (in fact, this article is difficult to name and, as an exception, redirects to magnetite).
The section on stock nomenclature has existed since July 2005. However, one can see that there, in fact, does exist an article at Iron(II,III) oxide which is distinct from the Magnetite article and it was created in April 2008. So for 12 years, apparently no one (apart from Double sharp above) has noticed this discrepancy in the very example that the guideline is trying to use to illustrate what not to do, suggesting that the guideline is not being enforced in practice. So what do we do here? I see several possibilities:
I don't have a strong view but the current situation is rather risible. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Seeing that there are no objections, I have removed Stock nomenclature #5. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:42, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
For the record, the previous section "IUPAC name vs. systematic name" has been replaced with the current section per discussion at WikiProject Chemicals. Mdewman6 ( talk) 01:22, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemistry#Updating_naming_conventions_for_groups regarding possible revisions to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Groups_of_compounds. Mdewman6 ( talk) 01:47, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
We're using at least two conventions to name compounds. For example, Special:Search/intitle:tetrachloride shows a roughly equal mix of "Element tetrachloride" articles and redirects to "Element(IV) chloride". Is this a correct consequence of WP:COMMONNAME, or is there some technical difference between the bonds (I'm no chemist), or would the titles benefit from some page moves? Certes ( talk) 11:21, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
219
86Rn
vs radon-219, that is the question, for me, anyway. I couldn't find anything in this article that clearly mandated [edit: I meant "clearly recommended"] the latter in prose, reserving the former for when space is limited, such as in equations, formulas, and diagrams like the periodic table.
The isotope names section /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Isotope_names has the following statement: "Isotopes are named and identified as [element]-[mass number] with regular lowercase and hyphen (carbon-13), or by equivalent symbol format 13C" which is not crystal clear but certainly seems to prefer "carbon-13" to the nuclide symbol, as indicated by it coming first. It's not a one off, either, as the nuclide symbol is consistently mentioned second, as if it is an alternative to be used when the first method is impossible or impractical, such as when space is limited.
The answer seems obvious. The latter is plain English, and is the IUPAC name. But it's very tempting to use the former, because it's so much fun for the Wikipedian to use the nuclide symbol template. It's a *lot* of fun, like getting your first Python program to work. It's also become the habit of many Wikipedians to use nuclide symbols at random in prose along with other forms. Thus the one article often has every form in it, 219
86Rn
, radon-219, and Rn-219 at random.
There's a discussion going on at the Talk page of the Nuclear weapon design article about this question. Here's the link: /info/en/?search=Talk:Nuclear_weapon_design#235U_versus_uranium-235. Please take look if you want to read about the advantages of using plain English in the prose part of a Wikipedia article, and mentioning nuclide symbols only in passing in the prose part, while using the admittedly ingenious and indeed beautiful nuclide symbols only where space is limited. Polar Apposite ( talk) 23:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Following the RM of Pyrylium from Pyrylium salt, I have decided to add a new point about names of ions, but don't know where to place it.
Articles about ions (such as Ammonium or Azide) or non-nucleophilic ionic functional groups (such as Pyrylium) may exist independently of articles about specific salts (such as Ammonium azide); such articles should use the ion name alone (not Ammonium salt, for example).
– LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 10:18, 11 November 2023 (UTC)