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Merge lists proposal

Merge List of elements by name, List of elements by symbol, List of elements by atomic number, List of elements by atomic mass, List of elements by melting point, List of elements by density, List of elements by melting point, List of elements by boiling point to List of elements.

There are lots of tables duplicating the same information, but sorted on different fields. Since all the tables are sortable anyway, this is redundant duplication. The combined table would have between 10 and 13 columns, which does not qualify as too much information.

• I can't think of any generic reason to avoid merging overlapping sortable tables like these. I raised this on Wikipedia talk:When to use tables#Duplicate sortable tables and attracted no comments.
• Not sure whether to include columns Moh's hardness, Color, and Notes columns from List of elements by density; the info is scrappy
• Exclude symbol etymology from List of elements by symbol. This belongs on the separate List of chemical element name etymologies, not currently on this template. I suspect it was put in to get the list up to Featured Status.
• The extra sections at List of elements by symbol for non-element symbols deserve their own article, so I guess technically the redundant main table deleted and that page could be renamed rather than redirected or deleted.
• List of elements by melting point#Temperature with most liquid elements could be a section on the merged page.
• Not sure we need multiple temperature scales for melting and boiling - Kelvin should do.

jnestorius^(talk) 14:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Weak oppose: I notice that the sort feature doesn't work properly, it thinks 118 should come before 12 (try sorting by atomic mass). Until that is resolved we can't reliably use it. Still, that's a very nice feature, I wasn't familiar with it! I think we need to be careful about this, though, because it is not obvious (many ordinary WP users I talk to didn't even know you could edit a page, never mind sort a table on the fly!). FYI, here are the no. of hits on each page for a 20 day period last month, from this site:

• List of elements by name, 2937
• List of elements by symbol, 8843
• List of elements by atomic number, 2973
• List of elements by atomic mass, 2252
• List of elements by melting point, 3283
• List of elements by boiling point, 2600
• List of elements by density, 3880

Since each one of these pages are probably getting over 50,000 pages views per year, and collectively perhaps half a million, I'd say that they are all "notable" enough to stay in existence as they are. Could you write a new List of elements article with a fully sortable table, and if these existing pages lose their traffic we could merge them then? We don't want to upset those half million users. Walkerma (talk) 16:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback.

• Incorrect numeric sorting: this is because the default is alphabetic. This can be overridden, though it's a bit clunky (Help:Sorting and Category:Sorting templates); it might be a few days before I have time to do so myself. Silly me, assuming a featured list would have this implemented properly :)
• User unfamiliarity: perhaps a message would suffice? A boilerplate something like "The rows in this table can be sorted by clicking on the arrows at the top of any column" in a new {{sort-msg}}. Ideally it would be a built-in feature of class="wikitable sortable". That's really the kind of issue that needs to be discussed at Wikipedia talk:When to use tables or even meta:Help talk:Sorting.
• I think the hitcounts are a spurious argument. For example, suppose there were separate identical pages "List of elements" and "List of Elements". Even if each got a million hits a day, that would not be a reason to keep them separate: a redirect from one to the other would accommodate all readers.

jnestorius^(talk) 16:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

They were featured before lists were sortable. This is a good idea; my main concern is that there will be too much information going across for low resolutions (not everyone is at 1024x768 yet), and furthermore, some have supplementary information—for example, "List of elements by name" has lots of historical element names included in it below the main table. This could be moved to a separate article (like List of historical element names), potentially. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 17:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh, well, it used to anyway. Forget everything after "furthermore". --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 05:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support Excellent idea for the long run, if there are minor problems with sorting they can be dealt with. --RucasHost (talk) 23:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Slight support I think it is a good idea, but before actually implementing it, I would prefer to have a longer debate and a testing period. Furthermore, once the merged page is ready, do not delete the old pages (yet) but instead keep them as subpages of the main page (at least for a while). Nergaal (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Slight support: I agree with Nergaal's testing period idea. I also think the idea is basically a good one, but the individual pages as they stand now contain different information relating to their different foci. Moh's hardness, for example in List of elements by density, and symbol etymology in List of elements by symbol. I think that if they were all merged into one entry then the topics specific to each original entry should at least be included as subtopics of the merged entry. It also seems to me that specifically with List of elements by symbol it makes more sense to merge List of chemical element name etymologies into it rather than the other way around considering that List of elements by symbol is a featured list and List of chemical element name etymologies isn't.Thibbs (talk) 22:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Conditional Support and agree with Nergaal about testing period. We have to make sure that the numbers sort correctly and I'd like to see this in action and suggest improvements before this is combined list replaces the individual ones. We also need to make sure we don't combine too many lists. --mav (talk) 04:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Stong Support Excellent idea. Since they can all be sorted, they can be kept to one page. --Russoc4 (talk) 00:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Strong Support I believe this is a great idea. It will be very useful for reference and schoolwork, and also to satisfy curiosity. This will be much easier than having to go from page to page, trying to find description about an element in a list that is organized by boiling points or melting points instead of atomic number or alphabetically.Wyatt915 (talk) 15:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Support Random walker think that mediawiki is as mature as to allow merging fat tables while keeping good overview. Mergem! Said: Rursus ☻ 12:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC) Strong Support That sounds like a great idea, I have been studying the elements a little bit and the new list would accommodate me much better. Tavix (talk) 00:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I am currently studying Chemistry, and I find this series of pages the way it is easier to work with than one page. Most of the current pages link to each other, and it is nice having different pages that have the elements sorted different ways. We could simply improve the current system by making all of them link to each other and maybe by making a List of elements (disambiguation) page.some page -- TurtleBoy0 (click here to tell me something) 00:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

But combining them as sortable tables would mean you could switch between sorting styles ina second, instead of going between pages.Yobmod (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Strong support for all those that can be reasonable merged without losing data. Maybe leave entymology and density if the info doesn't fit well.Yobmod (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)