Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements

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• 27 May 2024 – Nonmetal (talk · edit · hist) FA nominated by Sandbh (t · c) was not promoted; see discussion

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"Range of variation" column

Sometimes it is filled with something, sometimes it is merged with the "Normal proportion" column. But most of the time, it just leaved blank. Why this column exist when it is completely empty in that isotopes page?

Completely deleting this column to all pages might be too disruptive, but IMHO this column can be removed for mononuclidic elements. There is only one isotope with abundance 100% for them, so they don't need this column. --Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 06:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree for mononuclidic elements. As for the others, maybe at some point they'll stop being empty as IUPAC turns more atomic weights into intervals, but that'll take a while and might not affect all elements. Double sharp (talk) 15:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I deleted that column for those 21 mononuclidic elements. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 06:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

How to help best

Hey there, I recently discovered this WikiProject and I'd really like to contribute to the good work that is being done here. I have looked around on the project pages, and am wondering what I could do that would be most useful. Should I adopt one of the element/period/group pages that are not GA yet (and not actively worked on by a project member) and focus on improving it? Patrol the recent changes on the pages followed by the project? Something else that is crucial but not obvious at first glance? A bit of everything? Thanks! Choucas Bleu (T·C) 14:40, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I think you should edit pages that you are most interested in. Every edit adds that page to your "watch" list. Also "watch" this page. I expect your list of topics will grow over time.

In case it is helpful, there is a tool for look for most-visited pages by category:

• Popular pages: Most visited pages in Elements during April 2024
• Popular "C" rated pages (where big improvements are easiest) Most visited "C" pages in Elements during April 2024

Johnjbarton (talk) 15:05, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for linking the tool, it is indeed quite helpful. Choucas Bleu (T·C) 15:26, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Choucas Bleu Hi! This is an effort initiated and continued by volunteers. People enjoy themselves here, so you should, too. Other editors will be genuinely glad to assist you in your effort if they can :)

What do you want from this project? As for me, I joined this project because I hoped to increase my knowledge of chemistry (surprisingly, it didn't really have this effect, and some other editors here know chemistry better than I do; they learned it elsewhere) as well as improve my English, since I come from a non-English-speaking country. I hope the editors who remember me from more than ten years ago will say that I have at least partially succeeded in that course. Over time, I grew a genuine liking to writing and thinking about how my writing will be perceived by others. What kind of content do I want, can I provide that? I asked myself questions and looked for answers to them, that was also a major part of the experience. I liked my writing, and others did, too; that came with practice. I also got a liking for collecting bronze stars.

I started working on fluorine because I expected that article to be an easy target, given how its chemistry is always formation of mononegative anions. I learned along the way that the task was more difficult than I imagined (okay, I learned some chemistry here). It wasn't easy, but in the end the goal was reached. Along the way, I met User:TCO (who is, sadly, not around anymore). He had a very positive effect on me, particularly with this essay of his. It taught me to want to provide value rather than collect stickers. I've been doing that ever since.

So, try to understand what it is that you'd like to do. If you're anything like me, I would suggest considering starting to aim for a bronze star on a regular element (not an overly important and therefore difficult one, like sulfur or gold), even regular elements have articles with tens of thousands of views every month. It'll teach you a lot along the way. Other editors will be glad to assist a new member finding his way. You can also ask me personally, I like to think I have a lot of tips to share, and I'll be glad to help out, too, though just in case, you better communicate with me per email since I'm not around for the time being. I harbor plans to return one day, but that day is not nigh yet. I won't be bothered if you contact me often, though I can't promise to respond quickly.

If you're not, well, be yourself; you do you. It's not gonna be fun if you don't enjoy it.

Also, do contact me anyway, since I can share a bunch of sources with you, which will help you greatly to write an article (they helped me a lot). Click on my user page, and on the panel on the left you'll see an option saying something like "Email this user."--R8R (talk) 18:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Nonmetal FAC #9

Is anyone able to comment on this nomination(?); there's no obligation. Thanks, Sandbh (talk) 03:43, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

For my fellow jargon-impaired editors:

• FAC is wp:Featured article candidates
• #9 is the 9th attempt at pass.
• the article is Nonmetal

Johnjbarton (talk) 14:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Adding some images to the superheavy elements

There are a number of superheavy elements with no macroscopic quantities, whose preview images come up as confusing diagrams of their crystal structure. So, I've decided to add some electron diagrams. I don't know if there have been discussions on this before (I couldn't find any), but I figured it was a big enough topic I'd put a notice on some talk pages. Mrfoogles (talk) 21:33, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

A link to the page(s) you are discussing would be helpful. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:05, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I was looking at Nihonium when I thought of adding them, but essentially all the elements articles above Einsteinium (not including that one). There are a lot of them, but Copernicium, Oganesson, Flerovium, etc. Mrfoogles (talk) 00:06, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@Mrfoogles: This has been discussed before, but not recently: the latest thread I can find is this one from 2013.

I oppose adding these diagrams because they're oversimplified and misleading – good to introduce the concept to someone unfamiliar with chemistry or atomic physics, but inappropriate to illustrate a higher-level article. Namely, electrons do not "orbit" the nucleus in a classical sense, but are governed by quantum mechanics wherein wave–particle duality is significant. We never know exactly where an electron is – only where it is most likely to be, as described by its wavefunction and observed in interactions with other particles – and atomic orbitals are not orderly, concentric rings as depicted in the diagrams.

While it also is not necessary to explain basic quantum mechanics in every element article, it's better to have no image than a misleading image, especially since quantum mechanical effects become more significant for superheavy elements. I ask that you revert your additions on these grounds. ^Complex/_Rational 23:46, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

It's true that the electrons are not physically in the positions shown on the Bohr diagram, and that they aren't actually in circular shells around the atom. But what Bohr diagrams show technically are energy levels, and that is a valid way to view an atom. I think that if there were photos of the electron density around superheavy atoms, those would be great images to use, but given that those photos don't exist (I assume, given most superheavy atoms evaporate long before they could be taken), I think this might be the best picture that can be there.

I don't think the image is misleading. If you look at this diagram, it's interesting to notice that not all of the electrons are in the lowest shell they could be in: 2 are in the outside shell when the second-to-outside shell is not already filled. So it actually does illustrate some complicated effects around which orbitals are the lowest energy, and it has some useful information. I think that the image isn't really misleading to people who do know about orbital shapes, because they know to treat it as an energy level diagram, and even if you did think electrons when in spherical shells around the atom, it isn't a drawing of spherical shells.

What I mean is it's an energy level diagram, not an orbital shape diagram. It doesn't dispel misconceptions, but I don't think it perpetuates them. I think it should be included because it has a decent amount of useful information, and it's the best image that exists currently, and it's nice to have a visual complement to an article. Also, it means the article previews aren't the confusing crystal structure diagrams anymore (which was the original motivation) Mrfoogles (talk) 00:22, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

But it does perpetuate a misconception. In darmstadtium, the 7s energy level is actually lower in energy than the 6d, yet it is drawn as higher. Meanwhile, for oganesson, the eight outer electrons are actually at three very different energy levels (two in 7s, two in 7p_1/2, four in 7p_3/2), so much so that only the four 7p_3/2 electrons should be available for chemistry. The model just doesn't work that well for superheavy elements when relativity is too important to ignore.

I removed the diagram for Nh as well. Yes, to some extent the crystal structure images are confusing, but the issue with such elements is that no image is actually possible. I wonder if it's possible to suppress images altogether for the preview: that would be preferable, IMHO. Double sharp (talk) 06:18, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Removing the ones other than Nihonium for now (thanks to a SVG bug, could only add a few anyway). Mrfoogles (talk) 00:28, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

A bit more context given people replied to this (surprisingly quickly): was going to add the images made by User:GregRobson, which all got turned into SVGs a while ago. Ran into the problem that a lot of the SVGs have some sort of bug where they display correctly on most software but not while minimized on Wikipedia, so I only added a few. (Think it can get fixed by running them through a minifier or formatter, but could not figure out how to reupload images to Commons). Leaving Nihonium up for an example to look at. Mrfoogles (talk) 00:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)