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== Lead sentence ==

To make it transparent for whom it may concern: I assumed a given sentence structure was standard (being preexisting in the majority of the periodic table) for the first sentence of element articles. I also assumed said standard had been chipped away at in spots over time (seemed like it at e.g. [[Neon]]), so I went and standardized all the outliers across the periodic table. If anyone thinks I unnecessarily disrupted things in the name of a fairly minor, possibly imagined, style convention and wants to hit me over the head with a mallet or have me undo/redo those edits, please feel free. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''论'''</span>]]</span> 16:26, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
:There was an extensive discussion and eventual consensus a few years ago to standardize the first sentence (or maybe two) of element articles. I can't find a link to it at the moment. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 15:45, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
::If I need to remedy the situation, don't hesitate to ping me. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''论'''</span>]]</span> 15:48, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

== Good article reassessment for [[Carbon]] ==
[[Carbon]] has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the [[Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Carbon/1|reassessment page]]. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. [[User:Z1720|Z1720]] ([[User talk:Z1720|talk]]) 16:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)


== Bad template causes duplicate reference errors ==

Looks like the {{tl|Isotopes table}} template is causing duplicate reference definition errors in every single page that uses it. I haven't tracked it down fully, but it seems like the duplicate is coming from {{tl|Infobox element/symbol-to-saw/CIAAW-saw-element-page}}.  Is anyone actively working on investigating this and fixing it? -- [[User:Mikeblas|mikeblas]] ([[User talk:Mikeblas|talk]]) 15:36, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
: Or, maybe not. It's ''always'' the template page itself that has a duplicate reference, which means it might be coming from a problem in the documentation. The template structure in the chemistry projects is really a house of cards; why is such a complex system necessary? -- [[User:Mikeblas|mikeblas]] ([[User talk:Mikeblas|talk]]) 15:47, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
::[[Template:Infobox_isotopes_(meta)/doc]] has the error, which is the /doc for all &#91;&#91;Template:Infobox * isotopes&#93;&#93;. The documentation gives lots of examples of usage, two of which emit that standard ref, and is therefore a dup. In real-life use, there would not be more than one use on any given article. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 15:55, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
::The ref is generated by [[Template:Infobox element/symbol-to-saw/CIAAW-saw-element-page/format]]. The ref is specific to a given element, but has the generic ref-name "CIAAW". Therefore, whenever this template is called for more than one element on the same page, it will be a ref error. I can envision actual article use-case for that (comparing sets of isotopes for different elements) as well as obviously in the documentation. Easiest solution is probably to include the element symbol in the ref-name. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 16:28, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
:::Why is that reference given a name at all? Are you sure these are the causes? I think the errors only recently appeared, but those two templates haven't been modified for months (at least). -- [[User:Mikeblas|mikeblas]] ([[User talk:Mikeblas|talk]]) 01:06, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
::::I have no idea your frame of "recently", but the most recent change I see was in January,[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_element/symbol-to-saw/CIAAW-saw-element-page/format&diff=1272133290&oldid=1048910717] and that change was adding the name to it. I recall there was a discussion a few months ago about duplicate refs in infobox vs article. I wonder if this was an attempt to enable that, with an unfortunate side-effect? Pinging [[User:Nucleus hydro elemon|Nucleus hydro elemon]]... [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 02:39, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
:::::I made this claim about a similar system for oxidation states back a few months:
:::::* References in particular are nasty business in this system so we have to work around issues. If the refs are defined in the oxidation state data they may duplicate those in the article; if not they may be missing. The only solution for refs needed in both places is to add the definition to the reflist ref= parameter in the References article and use &lt;ref name="Haire"/&gt; in the oxidation state data.
:::::[[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 02:56, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
::::::I think the least-worst handling is to have a truely unique 'name' in the infobox. That means there will never be an error--neither duplicate definition nor no definition. Instead, there might be the same ref with two different names, so it will be listed twice in the refs list. I can't find an actual guideline that this is wrong, merely that merging multiple uses of the same ref is a supported feature. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 04:10, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
::::::Why is that the only solutoin? I would've thought adding references exactly where they were needed (no more, and no less) would have been possible. Don't all articles (and their templates) do that? -- [[User:Mikeblas|mikeblas]] ([[User talk:Mikeblas|talk]]) 01:05, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
:::::I was attempting to solve duplicate refs at that time. It is fixed now. [[User:Nucleus hydro elemon|Nucleus hydro elemon]] ([[User talk:Nucleus hydro elemon|talk]]) 09:42, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
::::::Thanks. For the record, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_element/symbol-to-saw/CIAAW-saw-element-page/format&diff=prev&oldid=1287606351 this] was Nucleus's new change, which makes the box emit refs named "CIAAW[element-name]", so they are unique per element. I have followed their lead and updated a few element pages to use those now. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 15:19, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
::::::Thanks for the fix! That's marked progress, but it looks like there's still several doc pages with problems, surrounding a different repeatedly-defined reference, though. For example, {{tl|Isotopes table/header}} and {{tl|Isotopes table/ref group}} show errors for references named "NUBASE2026" and "AME2016 II". -- [[User:Mikeblas|mikeblas]] ([[User talk:Mikeblas|talk]]) 07:47, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

== Isotope half-lives ==

The most common source for half-lives on the isotope pages (and isotope infoboxes) is [[Template:NUBASE2020|NUBASE2020]], which provides a table of various data on thousands of isotopes and isomers. The table includes half-life values with uncertainties in its table. However, it also includes footnotes on about 300 nuclides giving the asymmetric uncertainty from its own sources, which are symmetrized in the main table, possibly to make the data easier to deal with.

Wikipedia seems to not have a standard way to write these (or choose which values to use). I went through the isotope pages for elements 111-118 and found the following:<br>[[Isotopes of roentgenium|Roentgenium]]: Uses symmetrized for all values sourced from NUBASE2020.<br>[[Isotopes of copernicium|Copernicium]]: Does not symmetrize <sup>286</sup>Cn, but does symmetrize <sup>277</sup>Cn and <sup>285</sup>Cn.<br>[[Isotopes of nihonium|Nihonium]]: Uses unsymmetrized valueus except for <sup>286</sup>Nh in the list. The lead section and infobox symmetrize it like is done in the rest of the article.<br>[[Isotopes of flerovium|Flerovium]]: <sup>284</sup>Fl and <sup>289</sup>Fl are the only isotopes sourced from NUBASE2020. The list symmetrizes both, the lead uses unsymmetrized for the one it mentions, and the infobox uses symmetrized for <sup>289</sup>Fl but unsymmetrized for <sup>284</sup>Fl.<br>[[Isotopes of moscovium|Moscovium]]: <sup>290</sup>Mc (the only isotope sourced from NUBASE2020) lists the unsymmetrized form followed by the symmetrized form in brackets in the list, and just the unsymmetrized form elsewhere.<br>[[Isotopes of livermorium|Livermorium]]: Only uses symmetrized.<br>[[Isotopes of tennessine|Tennessine]]: Gives both forms like moscovium in the list, uses unsymmetrized in the lead, and the infobox symmetrizes <sup>294</sup>Ts but not <sup>293</sup>Ts.<br>[[Isotopes of oganesson|Oganesson]]: Gives both forms in the list, and uses unsymmetrized elsewhere.

I have edited nihonium, flerovium, livermorium, and tennessine to match the format in moscovium and oganesson. I'm considering changing the others to this format in the list and unsymmetrized elsewhere, but I think I'd like to see some more discussion on it first before changing all the articles, because this could change up to about 85 of the isotope list articles and potentially a few dozen other articles. [[User:Copernicium291|Copernicium291]] ([[User talk:Copernicium291|talk]]) 12:43, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

:Regarding "possibly to make the data easier to deal with.", we don't have to guess: the source says explicitly:
:* {{tq|It is a policy of NUBASE2020 to use one standard deviation as a representation of uncertainties associated with the recommended values.}}
:They outline the procedure they use. In my opinion, NUBASE is an authoritative secondary source and should be used in all cases in preference to any primary source. Absent notable evidence against this single source I think it should be used exclusively. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 02:15, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
::My preference would be to stick with NUBASE2020 except when there's a ''later'' primary source (e.g. for isotopes that hadn't yet been discovered when NUBASE2020 came out). [[User:Double sharp|Double sharp]] ([[User talk:Double sharp|talk]]) 02:27, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
:::I think these cases should be handled outside of tables to avoid asserting that new primary sourced material is similar to NUBASE2020. I also think this makes the content more interesting. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 04:02, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
::::On the other hand the tables seem more useful if all the data is in the same place and sortable, so how about marking such rows in some way, like italicising the data? This is what is done for example at [[Moons of Jupiter]] for the moons discovered recently enough that the [[Jet Propulsion Laboratory|JPL]] has not yet integrated proper orbital elements for them. [[User:Double sharp|Double sharp]] ([[User talk:Double sharp|talk]]) 04:41, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
:::::I did not see any rows in the table on [[Moons of Jupiter]] that appeared different. 
:::::(To be honest I'm puzzled by "more useful" since I assume readers use an encyclopedia to get a sense of the topic. Anyone looking to use orbital data on obscure and uncertain moons of Jupiter would, I hope, consult a reliable source.) [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 15:53, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
::::::The bottom two.
::::::(Sure, I would hope that as well, but WP as a tertiary source is a useful compendium of data from the primary sources it cites. My take is that this way, readers who want a simple overview have all the data with pointers on where it comes from and how reliable some of it is; and those who want to use it seriously have the original references listed so that they know where to begin. A complete list seems more useful to both kinds of readers; the ones who want a simple overview can sort one table while knowing which data is more reliable, and the ones who want it in detail presumably would appreciate the primary-source recent rows being there because it means that the primary source they actually want is in the reflist.) [[User:Double sharp|Double sharp]] ([[User talk:Double sharp|talk]]) 16:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
:::::::The idea seems ok, but the italics are very difficult for me to notice. On my browser, 145.6 is almost indistinguishable from ''145.6'' in a long row of various numbers. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 16:13, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
:I'd like to clarify what I meant here. NUBASE2020 gives a half-life for most isotopes with a symmetric uncertainty. It sometimes lists, in a footnote, what asymmetric uncertainty was used to create this symmetric one. Wikipedia's "Isotopes of element" articles are inconsistent (at least for the superheavy elements) on which of these to use. I noticed that, for example, darmstadtium always listed both, roentgenium prefers the symmetric ones, moscovium-290 uses the asymmetric one, tennessine mostly had asymmetric, and flerovium was extremely inconsistent. (For <sup>286</sup>Cn the difference is quite large, with the asymmetric {{val|8.4|40.5|3.9|u=s}} and symmetric {{val|30|(30)|u=s}} making a huge difference depending on which is used in the infobox)
:I can think of good arguments for both. While the asymmetric uncertainties are probably more accurate when the uncertainties are large, giving the symmetrized uncertainties makes all the NUBASE data more consistent. [[User:Copernicium291|Copernicium291]] ([[User talk:Copernicium291|talk]]) 12:33, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
::After reading Johnjbarton's response, I do think I agree that we should use only the symmetric values, since those are the ones that NUBASE recommends. It's just a bit weird that we had this confusion in the first place. Additionally, the lighter elements' isotopes (like <sup>6</sup>He and <sup>22</sup>C) affected by this seem to all use only the symmetrized uncertainty. I don't exactly know why the superheavy elements were like this, but I will probably soon remove the asymmetric uncertainties I put on the isotope tables for elements 109-118. [[User:Copernicium291|Copernicium291]] ([[User talk:Copernicium291|talk]]) 14:21, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

== Good article reassessment for [[Copper]] ==
[[Copper]] has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the [[Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Copper/1|reassessment page]]. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. [[User:Z1720|Z1720]] ([[User talk:Z1720|talk]]) 16:19, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

== Isobaric analog states in NUBASE2020 ==

NUBASE2020 lists isobaric analog states, such as <sup>8i</sup>Be and <sup>73i</sup>Rb. Some [[isotopes of beryllium|lists of isotopes]] list them as valid nuclear isomers, while [[isotopes of rubidium|others]] don't list them. Not sure how should we deal with these states. [[User:Nucleus hydro elemon|Nucleus hydro elemon]] ([[User talk:Nucleus hydro elemon|talk]]) 09:30, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

== See-also entries for whole "isotopes of" daughter elements ==

Recently [[User:Tfdavisatsnetnet]] has been adding entries to the See also of the "Isotopes of [element]" pages pointing to the other "Isotopes of [element]" page for every element that is a daughter of any of the page's decay entries. See for example [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Isotopes_of_lithium&diff=prev&oldid=1294320434]. Is this a desired set of entries? Given that the "List of isotopes" table in the article already does (at least in many cases) link to the individual isotopes of the daughters (and presumably could/should in all cases?), I think these links to the superset of them is not useful...less specific and no obvious relevance of that higher-level topic. But I am not well-versed in the WP:Elements/isotopes article area to have a good feel. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 18:51, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

:In my opinion this is not good. The edit creates a See Also subheading
:'''Daughter products other than lithium'''
:which is to say it is a "See Also" solely for the Decay products subsection of the article and on the other hand does not provide any context for the links. The article [[Isotopes of Helium]] is not a topic related to Lithium except through the decay channels. This link belongs in the Decay products subsection inline in the text or possibly via the tag {{tl|SeeAlso}}. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 00:35, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
:My intention in doing this was to, in effect, summarize the decay channel information found in the tables for readers who are of limited background, e.g. 8th to 10th grade students. I must confess that this is not an optimal solution to following decay channels, I would much prefer to have each unstable isotope in the articles' tables have its own wlink to the daughter isotope(s), but I don't think Wikipedia can support that. @[[User:DMacks|DMacks]] @[[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] [[User:Tfdavisatsnetnet|Tfdavisatsnetnet]] ([[User talk:Tfdavisatsnetnet|talk]]) 10:39, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
::I think what you are preferring is easily doable, and is what I am proposing in the next section. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 10:45, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
:::OK, tell me how to do it and I'll spend a month of my free time on it! [[User:Tfdavisatsnetnet|Tfdavisatsnetnet]] ([[User talk:Tfdavisatsnetnet|talk]]) 17:18, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

== Daughter-isotope links ==
Inspired/forked from the preceding discussion at {{slink|<!--Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements/Archive 63 -->| See-also entries for whole "isotopes of" daughter elements}}
<!--remove comment delimiters above and verify correct archive when that discussion gets archived. {{slink}} and comment added by YBG at about 01:01, 2025-06-15 (UTC) -->

Given one of the Project goals (/Elements task-force) is to have a page for every isotope, should each daughter isotope in the "List of isotopes" table on each "Isotopes of [element]" be linked to them? Currently some/many are, but possibly only the ones that have actual articles rather than redirects to the Isotopes-of articles. that means whenever a new isotope page is created, someone needs to set those links in all up-stream decay paths. And it means until then there's no link to the parent page where there might already be a section about it. The {{tl|Simple nuclide}} template has a {{para|link|yes}} mode that can handle it automatically (compared to the manual piping that is currently done). [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 04:03, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
:Using [[Isotopes of lithium]] as a test-bed, I'm proposing [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Isotopes_of_lithium&diff=prev&oldid=1295537745 this]. [[User:DMacks|DMacks]] ([[User talk:DMacks|talk]]) 10:50, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
::Looks like a win to me. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 16:16, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
::Actually, this isn't what I had in mind. Give me an hour and I will post an example. [[User:Tfdavisatsnetnet|Tfdavisatsnetnet]] ([[User talk:Tfdavisatsnetnet|talk]]) 17:23, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
:::OK, this is what I really wanted to do: have the wlink point right to the List of isotopes in the daughter elements. I really really wanted to point to the daughter row in the table, but that looks to not be supported. Please look at the code for this simplified example:

:::{{SimpleNuclide|Carbon|8}}  ->  {{SimpleNuclide|Beryllium|6|link=Isotopes of Beryllium#List of isotopes#id=Beryllium-6}} 

:::Thanks [[User:Tfdavisatsnetnet|Tfdavisatsnetnet]] ([[User talk:Tfdavisatsnetnet|talk]]) 18:00, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
::::Perhaps you can explain why you think that is a good choice?
::::When I see a link I expect the target to be "the thing". So {{SimpleNuclide|Beryllium|8|link=Beryllium-8}} ends up on [[Beryllium-8]] which is what I expect. I would '''not''' want to end up on [[Isotopes of beryllium]] for this link.
::::As it turns our {{SimpleNuclide|Beryllium|6|link=Beryllium-6}} redirects to Isotopes of beryllium#Beryllium-6 which ends up on the table because it as id=Beryllium-6. Not what I expected but we don't have more to say about Beryllium-6. I think trying to land on the line in the table is too complicated and not a desirable outcome. [[User:Johnjbarton|Johnjbarton]] ([[User talk:Johnjbarton|talk]]) 22:56, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
:::::We could end up on a specific line in the table by including an invisible anchor at that point. However, landing on a new page with the line at the top of your screen would necessarily mean you couldn’t see the preceding data rows in the table, which would be a bad thing. If there were a section in the article devoted to the isotope, that would be an appropriate target. But not a table row in my opinion. [[User:YBG|YBG]] ([[User talk:YBG|talk]]) 00:38, 15 June 2025 (UTC)
:::::Well, maybe it is not a good choice. "Given one of the Project goals (/Elements task-force) is to have a page for every isotope..." would, with proper wlinks, accomplish what I was trying to do. [[User:Tfdavisatsnetnet|Tfdavisatsnetnet]] ([[User talk:Tfdavisatsnetnet|talk]]) 01:35, 15 June 2025 (UTC)