Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements

What's the source for this information? Obviously, the information itself isn't copyrighted. But does that mean that entire factbooks can be copied wholesale? An interesting question.

(Not a legal opinion): To date, facts or collections of facts can't be copyrighted, although there are pernicious efforts to change this. However, the presentation of the facts can be. A particular list of the properties of Beryllium, in a particular order, might well be copyrighted. People have copyrighted facsimile copies of out of copyright books, on the basis of the slight changes that reprinting introduces, but I don't know how successful such attempts are.

"A particular list of the properties of Beryllium, in a particular order, might well be copyrighted." In that case, I have a concern that the present Beryllium and other similar-formatted articles are copyrighted.

A more educated legal opinion: the governing authority is USSC Feist v. Rural, a case of one phone directory copying numbers from another. In that case, the court affirmed the doctrine that data itself is beyond copyright and dismissed the case. What copyright covers, they said, is the act of creativity, which can be expressed in terms of selecting which data to express, organizing the data a certain way, or wording it a certain way. In the case of phone book entries, it was ruled that an alphabetical list was about as uncreative as it gets, and so no copyright applied. But in the instant case here, I think we may want to come up with a format of our own (which can't be any worse than the one there any way) and just plug the data into it. This could be done programmatically, though, from the existing text. It's OK to *use* copyrighted material to produce non-infringing material.

Yeah, I think this isn't that hard to deal with. We can make some modifications to this to be extra-safe.

What is the original source? Perhaps someone can go to another source and confirm the information and add a few more tidbits.

It's just facts, and if someone wants to sue us over something like this, then it will just be good publicity for us and bad publicity for them. (And, by the way, since it is my money at stake, I'm the only one who gets to decide about these risks.) ;-) --Jimbo Wales

The -2 fonts work on the latest Internet Explorer,Netscape, Konqueror, Mozilla -- which are all free browsers. Why degrade the experience of 95% of our visitors to accomadate those people who haven't upgraded in the last 3-4 years? Should we also destroy the table -- some older browsers can't display it correctly.

Using font -2 on superscripts and subscripts is not a good idea. The browser knows they are superscripts or subscripts because they are marked as such, and so will adjust the font size accordingly. If your browser doesn't do this to your satisfaction, then get a new browser. Adjusting the sizes so they look right on your browser is bound to give bad results on browsers which get it right in the first place. --Zundark, 2002 Feb 3

Your answer seems perfectly logical except: The <sub/p> tag Doesn't seem to work correctly in IE 6, Konqueror 2.2.2 or Mozilla 0.9.4. Odly enough Communicator 4.7x comes the closest to recognizing the <sub/p> as either super or subscripts and sizes the font correctly. Is there a setting that I need to check? Of course this is a moot point if all these browsers are going to properly display super/sub-scripts in the future -- then forcing the browser to downsize a downsided font would be ridiculous. maveric149

I've never seen a browser which doesn't downsize subscripts/superscipts at least a little. Modern browsers ought to allow the user to create a reader style sheet, which could be used to (among many other things) to control the font size for superscripts/subscripts. --Zundark, 2002 Feb 3

Ready for comments on the organization, look, size etc of the properties table I created. Are there any important properties that I missed? What about the order in which I list them; is this logical? How about the groupings -- is there a better way to do this? I am a biologist not a chemist, so I really can't say what the priorities should be. Would like to place the same table in all element pages. Also would like to get any ideas on the organization/layout & appearance of the headings. Does the order make sense? How about the titles? Remember, I plan on implementing this same format in each of the 109 or so element articles. --- maveric149

Comment Thread #1: I think the table is great, especially the colored bars at the top of each section. I like how the table is in the upper-right, and the text flows around it on the left. The symbols like the angstrom symbol worked perfectly. But, on my browser, the small fonts don't work well at all. Electronegativity has a 10⁶ where the 6 is completely illegible. In fact, I didn't at first realize there was a character after the 10. There are also a few places where a superscript of 2 or 3 on the units is illegible, and at first I couldn't even tell there was something there. I'd suggest using the "sup" and "sub" tags without any "font size=-X" tags at all. That will make some rows of the table taller, but at least everyone will be able to read all the text. --[anon]
STATUS: Mis-Feature Removed. Sadly the -2 fonts had to go - I shall miss them until modern browsers by default display super and sup-scripts very nicely. - Thanks for kind words and the input. --maveric149

Comment Thread #2: The table works well, but I like the simplicity of the tables found in amino acid more (with the borders just 2 pixels thick.) If this isn't hard to implement I would prefer this kind. --sodium (who's IP address now seems to change daily :)
STATUS: Change Implemented. Yep, it was easy. Thanks for the comment -- the table looks much better for such a minor change. --maveric149

Comment Thread #3: The article currently has a lot of mismatched sup/sub tags which ought to be fixed. You can get a list of them by clicking the "Validate this page" link at the bottom of the page. --Zundark, 2002 Feb 3
STATUS: Bug Fixed. Thanks for the heads up -- I would have hated to have to do that to all 109 elements pages after I copied this format those pages. --maveric149

Comment Thread #4: The State of matter link should point to the preexisting Phases of matter article. Bryan Derksen
STATUS: Link Created. Looks like somebody already provided a redirect. Even though I prefer the terminology of "Phases of matter" to the somewhat older "States of matter", Google has overriden me: <"States of matter" +physics> returned 13,200 results. And <"Phases of matter" + physics> returned only 2,230 results. However, since there is a redirect, I don't personally plan on moving the "phases" article to a more aptly named "states" article.--maveric149

Comments Thread #5: I personally don't like the floating table, though I have to admit it looks pretty. However, I do have to ask why the section headings are done with font tags rather than "=== Title ==="? --Carey Evans
Believe me I would prefer to use "=== Title ===", since it is much easier to do than font and bold tags. However, "=== Title ===" always seems to place a space after the heading -- which I found to be distracting because the table is just to the right (the table is in that position to save space and make to article visually appealing). Doing it the way it is now saves more space and makes the article easier to follow. Besides, the extra workload doesn't matter, since I will make a headings and table template out of this article as soon as feature requests/changes subside.--maveric149
Seems to me there's a fairly good chance someone will come along in a few months and boldly change them anyway to be more Wiki-like. --Carey Evans
Maybe so. But it would take a couple of hours to convert all 109 or so articles to the more "standard" format. More likely scenario, is that someone will change a couple -- then, I or somebody else will edit those articles to match the others. -- maveric149
The key to Wikipedia presentation should really always be simplicity, for the user *and* the writer. I think the use of === tags and other standard wiki-conventions is more elegant and follows the pattern set by other articles. Saving space is not *that* important an issue. Setting the formatting of an article too rigidly will make it hard for people to continue changing and improving the content. user:sodium
I agree that elegance of design for editors and end-users is very important. However, I don't see this particular issue as being a big deal; the font tags that were used are very simple: < font size="+2" >' ' 'Heading Title' ' '< /font >< br > (I learned how to use font tags by reading Wikipedia:How does one edit a page -- so I don't see how they could be considered to non-"standard wiki-conventions" -- whatever those may be). This is nearly the equivalent of using < b > for bold instead of ' ' ' -- it's more of a matter of style than conformity to any one way of doing things. Besides the tags render correctly in the most recent Konqueror, IE, Navigator, Mozzila, Opera and Galeon and I plan on being around for a very long time to clean-up any messes that may be created in the future. If you like we can continue this discussion tomorrow evening on my :Talk page. --maveric149
STATUS: Issue debated and considered closed; No Action Taken.

Comment #6: comment grouped under similar one under Comment Thread #5

Comment Thread #7: Per the edit comment, W/cmK is "watts per centimetre-kelvin". It should really be "W/mK", i.e. watts per metre-kelvin, the SI standard measure for thermal conductivity.--Carey Evans
STATUS of 7a: Feature Implementation in Testing Phase. Thanks Carey. I most definetely would like the entire table expressed in SI units. Found this link by checking Google. I'll go through the units on the table to make sure they are all SI compliant. Thanks again for pointing that out. --maveric149
I also agree that it would probably be better to standardize to SI rather than the current cgs units in the table. Trelvis
STATUS of 7b: Not Sure Exactly How to Proceed. Yep, this is already on my radar. I'm still undecided about whether to simply convert the cgs units to SI and not display them at all, or maybe have them in parenthesis (like it already is in the boiling and melting point fields) or even create a separate column for the cgs values. Do working scientists and current students still use non-SI metric units anymore? I know I did a few years ago in general chemistry. Anyone have thoughts either way on this issue? Should we go totally SI and preserve the relative simplicity and elegance of the table at the risk of rendering it less usable for a significant minority of technically inclined end-users? Or should we have a dual SI/cgs unit table and have it "cluttered" with similar looking units and therefore confuse many (if not most) of the average (i.e. relatively non-technical) end-users and visitors to the page? --maveric149 Yep, I was right -- The table does look cluttered with the cgs values in parenthesis. Tried adding an extra column in just those feilds that had both SI and cgs units in it, but that didn't work (all it did was add an extra column to the entire table - which was ugly, and consumed a lot of space). I am tempted to remove the non-SI values and then provide conversion info on the as-yet-to-be-created linked articles on the various units (W/m*K for example). What does everyone think about this idea? --maveric149

Comment Thread #8:
a(?) I note that the table of general information now has nice colorful backgrounds on the section headers. How about making the color used on an element's table match that used as its color in the periodic table? Anyone who does a lot of browsing around in the elements will then be able to tell at glance that they're looking at an alkaline earth or a noble gas, for example. Of course, now that I look a the periodic table I see that it will need some more colors to make this useful, but the basic idea is still neat. It'd make Wikipedia seem like more of a unified source of information. Bryan Derksen
a(=) What a wonderful idea! That will definitely be done.
STATUS of 8a: Feature Implemented.
b(?) You are right though, the periodic table entry needs a lot of work to make this happen. I have no idea why the table looks the way it does -- the "alternate" periodic tables are far more visually appealing and (and in my opinion) useful. --maveric149
b(=) My guess would be that the table used on the main periodic table is intended to be as simple and as easily-displayed as possible, so that it will be useable by as wide a variety of browsers as possible. The various alternate tables are available for people with high resolution displays and such. Bryan Derksen
b(?) You are plobably right -- My display is set at 1024x768 and even the "small" periodic table takes up my entire browser window. However this version of the table does downscale when I decrease the size of my browser window, which should mitigate for much of the problem. I still think the main periodic table is rather odd though, and I find it most difficult to navigate -- so I am unsure about what to do with it. --maveric149
STATUS of 8b: Not Sure Exactly How to Proceed.
c(?) Either way, the color scheme will be done to each of the tables -- just usure about which table to use as the primary (If this particular thread gets too long, I will move it to Talk:Periodic table). -- maveric149
c(=) Oh, and regarding the periodic table, there was no particular reason why I picked the colors I used for the various element groups other than that they looked reasonably good and were distinguishable; if you can think of a better color scheme I'd love to see it. Bryan Derksen
Mea culpa. Sorry, I didn't know you had changed it -- looks good. However, I am going to do some searching on Google to see if the different periodic families already have colors associated with their presentation in various periodic tables. And if so, I would like to see if there isn't already soom sort of informal convention on which families are depicted in particular colors. --maveric149
Even if there isn't a convention, I'm thinking that perhaps I tried getting too fancy in giving every different group a different color. It looks kind of cluttered, and it winds up with 37 pink transition elements and only 5 halogens, chalcogens, etc. Plus, some of the colors I wound up using aren't very pretty. I'll put a list of links to some other colorful periodic tables I've found into talk:Periodic table for reference and discussion there. Bryan Derksen
STATUS of 8c: Changes Implemented.

Comment #9: comment grouped under similar one under Comment Thread #5

Comment Thread #10: a(?) We may want to think about how we will make room for multiple forms of a metal (see plutonium for example - how will temperature ranges of stable forms be presented? - not a huge deal, but the current table won't be cut and paste for these types of complications. Trelvis
STATUS of 10a: Feature not needed for Beryllium, but is Planned where Appropriate. This won't be a problem; there will just be several fields in the table for the different changes of state for the various stable forms of a metal. --maveric149
b(?) For the isotope part of the table it would be good to include the dominant decay for unstable isotopes (alpha, beta, gamma)? Trelvis
STATUS of 10b: Feature Implementation in Testing Phase. Will do; need to play around with the formatting to make this work, but it shouldn't be a problem.
Overall this looks great and will be quite useful. Trelvis
Thanks for your ideas on improvement, I will implement them as I have time, and as appropriate for the particular elements in question.-- maveric149

Comment Thread #11: Is the table in this article redering incorrectly for anybody else? --maveric149
STATUS: Bug Fixed Just took a look a the HTML code for the table, and made a few changes:

removed nested table, it wasn't displaying properly in Mozilla and it doesn't look necessary anyway. Moved the align="right" attribute to the main table tag.

Changed header rows to <th> tags instead of <td>

changed colspan="3" into colspan="2", since the table only has 2 columns.

put quotation marks around all attribute values that I noticed without them. Bryan Derksen
Wow, thanks again Bryan! --maveric149

Comment Thread #12: I hope the table never gets as wide as it did in revision 71 again, for any other elements - it didn't work very well in my browser, see [1]. It probably doesn't work very well in set-top boxes either. --Carey Evans

Comment Thread #13: Place comment about the layout and organization of the article here.

I've added in some slightly edited berylliosis info taken from the CDC web site. Their copyright notice basically says that if you don't need to login or use a password to see apage, than you're free to use what's on the page. As its a US government site, I assume that means there are no copyright problems about this. Revert the page if I'm wrong -- Malcolm Farmer

Looks fine to me. Thanks for the addition! You needn't worry about the copyright issue - I plan on integrating some OSHA stuff in the same section, which requires me to simplify and rewrite the CDC info anyway -- besides, it probably is public domain and even if it wasn't it would be difficult to defend a copyright on such a small amount of text (especially since it almost certainly was paid for by Joe and Jane Public). Cheers! --maveric149

Sandbox

Isotopic
Isotope	NA	half-life (t_1/2)	DM	DP
⁷Be	{syn.}	53.12 days	epsilon	⁷Li
⁹Be	100%	Be is stable with 4 neutrons
¹⁰Be	trace	1.51 ×10⁶ y	beta^-	B¹⁰