Talk:Cerrolow 136

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Reverted edit[edit]

Flyer22 Reborn, why did you revert this edit and warn Calculuschild (? The edit does not look like vandalism to me, nor unconstructive, although I have not verified the citations yet. I came to this from a question at the help desk. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 21:24, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Because newbie editors often try to create an article out of a redirect, usually to promote something, when the page should remain a redirect, and because I saw that the topic had been discussed. Calculuschild added text to a redirect, but it was not yet an article and it looked like this should be discussed. It still does. I found the edit unconstructive. WP:Huggle, like WP:STiki, is for vandalism or other unconstructive edits. No need to ping me if you reply. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:32, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The previous discussion is also linked to at the top of this page: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 March 21#Cerrolow 136. So regarding that and this, if editors want to keep this as a standalone article, I'm not against it. I don't have a strong opinion on the matter (although I'm usually for WP:No page in cases like these). Calculuschild's addition should obviously be cleaned up and categories should be added, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC) Updated post. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:58, 5 December 2019 (UTC) [reply]
Thank you for that comment, Flyer22 Reborn. I looked at the RfD discussion, and it was not concerned with the notability of Cerrolow 136. One editor argued for deleting the redirect altogether, and one for keeping the redirect in place. Not exactly a strong consensus, but it was a discussion open to any editor. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:03, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Calculuschild the text you added included the following: Used as a solder in low-temperature physics. This was followed by a ref tag with the ref name "lowtemp" but that ref was not defined in the text you added. it looks to me as if you copied this text from soem other Wikipedia article, as that is a form used to handle repeated use of a citation within an article, but it does not work across articles unless the body of the citation is also copied. Please see Referencing for Beginners for more detail on that. But more importantly, what article was this copied from? It doesn't seem to have been Wood's metal. If your edit is to be restored it will be very helpful to have a source for that statement, and in any case text copied from one Wikipedia article to another must be properly attributed. See Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia for detrails. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:03, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Calculuschild: DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:04, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Andy Dingley you commented on this at the Help Desk discussion linked above, but unless I am misreading you were also the one editor who wrote in favor of keeping the redirect as a redirect (neither deleted nor a stand-alone article) when it was discussed last March. Might I ask your current views, if any? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:10, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
DESiegel (DES), regarding notability, WP:No page states, in part, "When creating new content about a notable topic, editors should consider how best to help readers understand it. Sometimes, understanding is best achieved by presenting the material on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we do so. There are other times when it is better to cover notable topics, that clearly should be included in Wikipedia, as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context."
The RfD discussion concerned whether this page should be a standalone page. That's why I mentioned WP:No page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:25, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Flyer22 Reborn, that is clear, and i don't disagree with the geenral principle, nor am i prepared to say this should be a separate article as yet. I think we need a better temporal to handle this case than "unconstructive", but I hope we are past that now. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two issues.
Firstly, the article in March had no useful content. It had one sentence, which was about as specific as the overall Wood's metal article, and the same summary table. It was not a useful article as a separate article.
Secondly, a revert and template is rather WP:BITEy. Now I know that "unconstructive" is just boilerplate, but it's quite a shock for a new editor and this was obviously a GF edit and potentially an improvement worth keeping. At the very least it deserved a better explanation and a link to the Wood's metal talk: page. Maybe we'd still revert it. Maybe we'd merge some of the content into the overall article. But we might even decide that this new (and larger) start was sufficiently more than we'd had before to make it worth keeping. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:33, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Andy Dingley. i don't disagree, but we don't currently have that gentler wording in template form, that I know of. Certainly Twingle doesn't include such an option, and i suspect Huggle doesn't either. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 23:15, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would now like to review the merits of [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cerrolow_136&direction=next&oldid=890024097 this version of the page, as edited by Calculuschild as a possible start on a separate article.

  • The version consists of three short paragraphs, supported by four citations.
    • Of these the first is a materiel data safty sheet for the allow, giving some of its physical properties. It proves that the alloy exists, and implies tha tit has some comemrcial use, but hardly establishes its notability.
    • The second, http://www.zilt.co.uk/LowMelting/LensAlloy136.html is another data sheet, available from the wayback machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20181208074655/http://www.zilt.co.uk/LowMelting/LensAlloy136.html with different data but simialr scope t the first.
    • The third is unspecified, as I mentioned above, and is of no value until thew actual citation is provided.
    • The fourth is Similarity Methods in Engineering Dynamics ISBN 0444598138 pages 134 and 397. That looks like a reliable source to me, but none of the online views i have include either of thsoe pages, so i have no idea what information or how much is included.
    • A google search on "Cerrolow 136 alloy" finds a number og advertisemetns from suppliers offering this or simialr alloys commercially, with some statements of physical properties, but none of them seems to have any in-depth discussion of the alloy. It also turned up the Wikipedia article Cerrosafe which has content somewhat similar to that in Wood's metal. It has a table in a "Similar metals" section, which links to both Wood's metal. and to Cerrolow 136 , that is, to this redirect. Of course, this search would not turn up offline sources.
  • I am inclined to doubt if all the above is sufficient for a standalone article, although it jsut might be, depending on what the "lowtemp" cite includes and the extent of coverage in the book source. It might be that a section in either Wood's metal or Cerrosafe would be better, or perhaps all of these should be merged into Low-melting fusible alloys or some such title. I have done little with articles about alloys, and I am not really sure what the standards are. I know that for biological topics, an article for each separate species is the rule, but I don't know if that applies to each separate alloy. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 23:15, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad this discussion is happening (and I hope I'm adding to this discussion page correctly). I'd like to make a couple of points and ask for clarification:

1) As a materials science engineer, I often run into compounds with properties that are scattered about the internet without any unified source. As I collect these datapoints over time (which is not trivial without access to scientific papers/scholarly database, etc.) it seems appropriate to collect these properties into a public site, especially noting the utility of other specific pages (e.g. Gallinstan and Carbon_black, although one has a nice template and the other is just a bullet list in the middle of the page). In its current state, having Cerrolow 136 as a bullet point on another article does not really allow for a neat presentation of these datapoints.

2) I do have access to further citations for datapoints on Cerrolow 136, (as well as Field's Metal and Wood's Metal) but planned to fill those in over time as I dig them back up. Rest assured the three lines of text are not all that exist. I just need to collect them again, and having an existing page simplifies the insertion of that further data.

3) Regardless of the length of written prose, is there not any utility in having a page simply listing the material properties in a table? Even without pretty paragraphs to read it seems much more useful to the typical user than just a bullet point mentioning that the material exists.

4) The missing reference is [1]. As soon as I noticed I hadn't pasted in the full reference (a minute or so?) I went to correct it but the article had already been reverted.Calculuschild (talk) 21:30, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

DESiegel I also just noticed your other question: The text starting this article was taken from Fusible_alloy (if the Cerrolow136 page stays, I imagine that text in the Fusible_alloy page could be removed). And yes, there are dozens of other alloys listed out there without a separate page. I do wonder, if I stumbled upon data for another one of these alloys that happens to have no practical commercial use (maybe someone would call it "not notable...?") is there a convention to still provide the data we do have? For example it is known that gallium-aluminum alloys are extremely brittle and generally useless, but it is an important concept when dealing with these alloys and a fascinating phenomenon. Another alloy might be less interesting, but while we have it's properties why not provide them in a public location?Calculuschild (talk) 21:47, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@DESiegel: Is there any further steps I can make on this article or should I assume it's been shut down? I'm hesitant to make any further changes if I'm breaking some rules I don't know about.Calculuschild (talk) 18:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Guy Kendall White; Philip J. Meeson (2002). Experimental techniques in low-temperature physics. Clarendon. pp. 207–. ISBN 978-0-19-851428-2. Retrieved 14 May 2011.

Proposed article for entire group of Cerrolow alloys[edit]

  • Ha! Assume nothing! I was recently reading over some of the articles on low-temp melting metals and alloys and was surprised when I clicked on a link to Cerrolow 136 that I was taken to the article on Wood's metal instead, from which I had thought it to be quite distinct. From there I worked my way here (not easy!). I have read over the discussion here and on DESiegel's talk page, and I've had a look for sources that discuss this particular alloy. What I have found is that there are apparently a host of low-melt alloys developed by an originally Peruvian company called Cerro de Pasco Copper Corp., including Cerrolow 105, Cerrolow 117, Cerrolow 147, Cerrolow 174, etc. each of which melts at its corresponding number in degrees Fahrenheit. Given the breadth of alloys that appear to exist (Cerrolow 136 appears to be the best known), perhaps what we need is a full article titled "Cerrolow" (which currently redirects to Wood's metal) and to make redirects from each of the numbered versions of the alloys to that article which would discuss the overall class of alloys which it subsumes. The current redirect certainly seems like a poor solution, and I myself would be glad to assist with the development of the new article (note that I am NOT a materials scientist, just a guy with Internet access!). There does seem to be adequate discussion of the topic in independent reliable verifiable sources to justify at least an overall Cerrolow page if not a page specifically on the 136 version or any other version (which, I agree, is generally sparse). Thoughts, anyone? Pinging: @DESiegel: @Calculuschild: @Andy Dingley: @Flyer22 Reborn: Thanks! A loose necktie (talk) 08:50, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hello, A loose necktie, and thanks for your comment. I have split it off into a new section to make responding easier, and because of the time gap from the earlier comments above.
This seems like a good proposal, one which will handle the subject better than it now is, provided the sources are there. I had not known about this group of related alloys before. Can you tell us more about the sources you have found, please? are they online or not? who wrote them? Who published them? when? can you list them, or some of them, please?
I would suggest calling such a new article Cerrolow alloys but that is a detail.
I could help with formatting and copy-editing such an article, but could not help with the actual writing unless I had access to the sources. However, a reasonably knowledgeable non-expert with access to the sources should be sufficient. Calculuschild, would you be interested in helping?
I would suggest sting in draft space, perhaps at Draft:Cerrolow alloys, to asvoid problems for readers and other editors while the draft is being written. Once the basic text of the draft is written and copy-edited, with proper sources cited, it can be moved to the main article space, and proper redirect5s created. I presume that there would also be a link from (and to) Wood's metal.
I will re-ping the others pinged above, because of the change in section names. I hope this can move forward, but the essential is the list of sources. @Andy Dingley and Flyer22 Reborn: DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 14:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some references:

Thoughts? Also, it looks like we lost Calculuschild. He hasn't edited since January, never set up an email account. My guess is that as a result of his experiences here, he decided Wikipedia wasn't for him. That is such a shame. A loose necktie (talk) 21:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]




References

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