Wikidata:Property proposal/Valence
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valence
[edit]Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Natural science
Not done
| Description | measure of an element's combining capacity with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules |
|---|---|
| Data type | Quantity |
| Domain | chemical element (Q11344) |
| Allowed values | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] |
| Allowed units | 1 |
| Example 1 | oxygen (Q629) → 2 |
| Example 2 | lithium (Q568) → 1 |
| Example 3 | hydrogen (Q556) → 1 |
| Planned use | to retrieve the valence value for each of chemical elements |
| Expected completeness | eventually complete (Q21873974) |
| Robot and gadget jobs | this information can be collected and added automatically |
Motivation
[edit]Our team is currently investigating what people ask about the chemistry, and it seems that questions about valence of a chemical element are quite popular. In Wikidata there is a entity for valence valence (Q171407) but no property to store this information as far as I can see. There is a property with the same name valency (P5526), but this one is for another domain. I'd like to have a property for valence of a chemical element and then to fill it in for at least 118 existing chemical elements (so the requirement of the property to be used by at least 100 items will be satisfied. — Blokhin.nv (talk) 13:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Discussion
[edit]
Support. Thierry Caro (talk) 16:56, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Notified participants of WikiProject Chemistry Added a ping for the relevant wikiproject ArthurPSmith (talk) 20:10, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Oppose until it is stated why oxidation state (P1121) is not enough, as oxidation state is a more common and less ambiguous term. What's more valence is not a property for a chemical element, it is a property of an atom in a chemical compound (like in the example above for oxygen, it may be 1 or 2 depending on the chemical compound). Wostr (talk) 20:21, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Wostr: This can be more rigorously defined as the maximum bond order (Q842809) an atom of an element is known to participate in, which is not necessarily the same as the oxidation state. carbon monoxide (Q2025) has a bond order > 2 even though oxygen does not form oxidation states lower than -2.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:36, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Wostr: Actually, I am not an expect in the field, I am here more like just an ordinary person trying to find the information. If I understood you correctly, knowing the value of oxidation state (P1121) one can deduce somehow the value of valence, but I would prefer to have this information explicitly. And if I understood correctly what wikipedia says (sorry for the source but that's the best I have right now) valence cannot be negative while oxidation state can, so there is at least one difference between these terms. — Blokhin.nv (talk) 22:03, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose minimally relevant as it describes chemical bond reality imperfectly, even misleading. How does knowing that oxygen has valences 2 and 6 help with understanding carbon monoxide? --SCIdude (talk) 07:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
- @SCIdude: I am sorry I didn't get your point. What does this have to do with carbon monoxide? — Blokhin.nv (talk) 10:12, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
- The second point relates to the comment from User:Jasper Deng above. I should have put it there. --SCIdude (talk) 16:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
- @SCIdude: I am sorry I didn't get your point. What does this have to do with carbon monoxide? — Blokhin.nv (talk) 10:12, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
- Support I do not see a really need for this, but since there is a difference between oxidation state and valence it might be useful. --Ameisenigel (talk) 15:44, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
- Support Valence is not the same as oxidation state. It's widely used including those starting to study chemistry at school. Petermr (talk) 13:55, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Can anyone please tell me if the property is going to be added after all? I'm still willing to add the information, but if nobody really needs it there, it's ok. Blokhin.nv (talk) 17:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
- Sometimes contested votes take a long time to decide. It could be months more! Sorry. --99of9 (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
- Support —MasterRus21thCentury (talk) 20:06, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
Strong oppose This is not a coherent concept or well-motivated proposal. I just reviewed the English wikipedia pages for several of the elements and NONE of them used the word "valency" or "valence" or provided any numerical value for this, or even discussed it aside from the oxidation state details. The enwiki page for valence - en:Valence (chemistry) provides two conflicting definitions, one from IUPAC which matches Jasper Deng's comment above, but another that allows for multiple values. Which of those definitions are we supporting here? That page also contains a table of "maximum valences" that goes up to 9 (so the limit of 7 proposed here is wrong). That page also notes a difference between valence and oxidation state but only in the context of a particular molecule. So this might be a supportable property as a qualifier for the elements contained in a molecule. Or it would be supportable if we restrict the definition only to "maximum valence" or "IUPAC valence", and I'd recommend replacement or additional examples to make that clear (for example Chlorine with value 7, Xenon 8, etc.). But as it currently stands, this proposal is definitely not ready to be acted on. ArthurPSmith (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2022 (UTC)- Oppose as per users above, this is not a well defined concept and would need a much clearer definition to be useful. --Hannes Röst (talk) 14:32, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- @Bloknin.nv, Thierry Caro, ArthurPSmith, Wostr, Jasper Deng, SCIdude:, @Ameisenigel, Petermr, 99of9, Hannes Röst:
Not done: A clear consensus against the creation of the property per year of discussion. —MasterRus21thCentury (talk) 05:55, 7 May 2022 (UTC)