Talk:Xenon

Why does article text not show up in the edit box?

Why does the text of the article not show up in the edit box? Peter Jackson 09:34, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Good question, Peter ...and one that has bothered me for some time. The answer is that the little bit of text shown in the main article (and not in the edit page) is somehow generated by the {{Basic elemental info}} template at the top of the edit page...which also creates the "info box" in the main article.

If you want to add or revise the "info box", you need a degree in computer Science to find out how to do so ... and I have never been able to do that. As matters stand now, that template is used for most of the elements. We can add more text to the article but we cannot edit/revise/expand the template-generated stuff.

Look at the "Properties" subpage ... it has a table of info that is also not editable and is also generated by some hidden method. That subpage further contains a hyperlink to http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/54.html which leads to a "Not found" error message. But that hyperlink cannot be deleted or changed because it is also created by some hidden method.

Personally, I think that the {{Basic elemental info}} template on the main article edit box and the hidden method used on the Properties subpage was a cockamamie (screwy) idea ... but I don't know what to do about it. Perhaps you can make more sense of it all than I can. - Milton Beychok 18:45, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

If there is a problem with the template contents and no technical person to fix it the template could be removed from the article and the details input manually, like with phosphorus (as far as I know). David Finn 19:14, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The information is "hidden" in several subpages. Last year there was a long discussion of this in connection with the Period table. David Yamakuchi defended his approach vehemently while most(?) disagreed. But, of course, this did not change the pages ... --Peter Schmitt 19:48, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I have added the back our original Elem_Infobox template which I have always favored. These cascading information type of templates just seem to lead to troubles. Some data is still missing from the box, feel free to add in the missing elements. David E. Volk 20:00, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

(Unindent)David, the result of what you did does indeed display the info box in the article's edit page and make it editable. But it resulted in two info boxes on the main article display page. If the {{Basic elemental info}} in the edit box is deleted (which you did not delete), then the article's display page has only one info box. However, the display page no longer has what little actual text was there (since that is also removed when the template is deleted.)

The only really good method is to provide a blank, tabular info box made available by using a template and let each author fill it in to the best of their abilities. This attempt to automate things using a single data base hidden somewhere just is not workable. - Milt

And there is still that hyperlink on the Properties subpage which leads to a "Not found" error but which cannot be deleted. - Milt

Took the bull by the horns and made bold revisions so that article is now editable

I decided to be bold by:

• Deleting that {{Basic elemental info}} template and using the Elem_Infobox that David Volk gave us. I just wish we knew how David did it, so that we can do the same for other CZ articles about chemical elements.

• Copied the uneditable text generated by that {{Basic elemental info}} and then pasted it in as editable.

• Corrected a number of the wikilinks.

• Deleted Howard's test sentence.

The net result is that we now have an article that can be edited. Unfortunately, someone will have to do the same thing with a number of other existing CZ articles about various chemical elements. It will be quite a chore. Milton Beychok 02:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The table in the "Properties" subpage is uneditable ... and I don't know how to change that. Milton Beychok 02:19, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Howard, i cut and pasted from phosphorus and manually changed values. I much prefer the original chem_infobox and elem_infobox than the self-populating template that David made.(David Volk - no tilde on smart phone)

Maybe you need a smarter phone. :-) When you cut and pasted from phosphorus, I hope you excluded oxygen.

Seriously, the templates did not really seem to consider isotopes and nuclear chemistry. Would you, as a chemistry editor, care to recommend if there should be separate articles on important isotopes, or if there should be common items in isotopic subsections of elemental articles? Howard C. Berkowitz 18:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Isotopes, Chemistry templates

Howard, now you have got me started! First, I think that important isotopes should have a large section in the main element page. Second, an isotope subpage should exist for all elements, in which things like radioactivity, nuclear spin, and other parameters should be given for each isotope.

Now on to complicated chemistry templates - Some of us early on decided that we wanted a simple chemistry template box, as opposed to the hugely complicated versions that WikiPedia uses. I have always been in favor of having most of the properties listed on a subpage, and only showing common uses and dangers, MW, etc on the chembox. One of the biggest problems with the complicated template version is that it actually requires a subpage, for every element, called boiling point. So that is well over 100 article subpages that hold nothing but a single number. I think they may be a slew of other subpages that David (Yamaguchi?) also uses for his version of the templates. The other issue I have with the complicated template is that in order for the chem box to be on the top, the article seems forced to have an exceedingly bland lede. I am guessing because I have so far refused to use his version of the template on anything that I have written.

The easiest way to insert the chem_infobox or elem_infobox is to copy them from ketoconazole or phosphorus and correct each value in the template. That way you can also write you own lede to the page. David E. Volk 18:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

PS My phone is smart enough, but I am not smart enough or motivated enough to upgrade my touch type keyboard yet. David E. Volk 18:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)