Spring Cleaning

Gaurang Tandon

02:27

can anyone confirm this accepted answer is wrong? chemistry.stackexchange.com/a/37115/5026 The OP asked balancing in acidic medium, but the accepted answer has given the reaction in basic medium

Gaurang Tandon

04:25

@AvatarShiny While you're editing questions, do also have a look at their answers and give them some love too. For example here, I accepted your edit on the question, but the answer could've also used some formatting of \ce and links (as I've done now)

also do vote/flag the posts if possible; in short, make sure to completely read throughout page ^_^

Avatar Shiny

04:48

Alrighty

Martin - マーチン

@GaurangTandon I don't like to use MathJax for style elements, only for mathematics. In this case, as Brian (hBy2Py) said, it should be italicised. The reason for <i>Z</i> is, that *Z* did not render properly. (That's a bug, I believe, and that hasn't been addressed yet.)

Gaurang Tandon

ok

Gaurang Tandon

I tried Beer's law... Didn't work. Tried other websites where my traffic is appreciated.. — Matthew Namie 2 mins ago

"my traffic is appreciated" what does that mean :-O

Avatar Shiny

Traffic as in internet traffic. Matthew feels his traffic isn't appreciated here

Martin - マーチン

05:11

@GaurangTandon I have no words, but I guess you see what I mean... It is one of the more common replies: Why do you need to know how I failed? Why can't you just help me? Why don't you just give me the solution?

Give a man a fish, and then he comes back for another fish; teach a man how to fish, and then he wants to know hoe to cook it. It simply never ends.

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン that's an interesting variation on the popular quote :P

@Martin-マーチン "Why don't you just give me the solution?" exactly! this does seem to be getting clearer and clearer everyday

@AvatarShiny Dude this clearly is a troll chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/91110/5026 just flag for mod attention and hit the downvote

Martin - マーチン

People are used to places where helping them is the major focus, i.e. google groups, yahoo answers, tutor forums... We are catering to a library of interesting and generally useful information... something completely different. It also means that the individual user is of lesser importance. Of course, if we are doing it right, and all are working together, the one does not go without the other

2

Gaurang Tandon

05:27

@Martin-マーチン yes, indeed, there definitely is a line of distinction between such forums

though if you've ever frequented Math.SE you'll know just how easy it is to get an answer there; it's completely different from Chem.SE here

(and i think chem.se is much better in this case)

Martin - マーチン

yea, i know, we had a guy once, and he was using that site a lot, and tried to always compare our community to theirs...

it didn't go well here...

Gaurang Tandon

oh

Martin - マーチン

every community is different, we are here really aiming for completeness of a q&a, not just some helpful bits and pieces distributed in oh-so-many answers...

Avatar Shiny

@GaurangTandon Yeah . He's cussing also now.

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン true it is

@AvatarShiny leave it; we have more important work to do than argue with him

Martin - マーチン

05:58

@GaurangTandon (cc @avat) I put that on hold. Always flag rude comments as such

when you edit questions, give the comments a glance, too. decide if they are essential, and flag the ones that are not... Thanks!

Gaurang Tandon

yep, definitely

many comments do get obsolete

do I flag the "I formatted your post with latex" type comments too as "no longer needed"?

are AMIRITE questions still following this policy?

this latest Q is an AMIRITE question - chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/91113/5026

Avatar Shiny

06:15

Flagging comments is only possible through the desktop site right?

Gaurang Tandon

06:27

@AvatarShiny idk, I never used my mobile phone for anything except rare whatsapp...

Martin - マーチン

06:38

@GaurangTandon yes

@GaurangTandon i think yes, somehow, it never really made it into the hw policy...

@AvatarShiny in the android app, mark the comment, in the top right corner there is a 3-dot menu, it should have the option to flag the comment

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン that is a very vague comment . . .

Martin - マーチン

@GaurangTandon is it, or is it

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン i don't understand what you mean. . .

Martin - マーチン

that whole hw business was in the reworks, but then old habits die hard, and we basically just abandonned the redefinition... if you have a lot of time, you may want to read the discussions on meta... but in general there was never a real consensus

Avatar Shiny

@Martin-マーチン Found it . Thanks

Martin - マーチン

06:47

@AvatarShiny i think it is not possible on the mobile website

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン interesting; there needs to be consensus on AMIRITE questions though

i doubt if they'll ever go away

Martin - マーチン

we consense that they are meh

i just down-vote them...

Avatar Shiny

@Martin-マーチン Yes but , requesting for desktop site works on chrome .

Martin - マーチン

true

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/6097/28359 this can work in our case too, can't it?

I think "[AMIRITE question] is always only of use to people who did the exact same derivation, and this is definitely too localized."

is a strong point that makes such questions close worthy

we can also have a separate VTC reason for that under "closing->offtopic because"

Martin - マーチン

06:52

i think that is the summary of out post, too

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン it's obvious to you and me, but it wouldn't be very obvious to a new poster whom we redirect to that page to read up about our policy on AMIRITE questions

Martin - マーチン

ah, yeah...

well...

Gaurang Tandon

could be my next sunday homework to write up a CW post for that?

(basically copy-paste things from phy.se and put it right in our context)

Martin - マーチン

i would be careful with that... hw... is a sensitive subject.

Before writing meta posts about it, you should get a grasp on the different opinions about the whole thing...

it is not as easy as it seems...

Gaurang Tandon

07:08

@Martin-マーチン yeah that's true; I've only gone through the several meta discussions in part

not to forget the countless chats there might have been about this topic on the periodic table which I haven't read any of

it's a sensitive subject indeed

but you (aka mod team) might want to come up with a policy on amirite questions sooner or later and make it consensus-ed from super users here

though they aren't really a big problem

anyway totally your call ^_^

Martin - マーチン

My personal approach to these questions is to help the user in the comments, if {s..}he is essentially right, and then down-vote anyway. Down-vote, because the question is not useful in a long-term sense

Welcome to chemistry.se? Questions for proof-reading are not very well received in this community, it will probably be down-voted, maybe even closed. The reason for this is, that an answer to your question only helps you, while the site is aiming for long-term usefulness for everyone. Unfortunately I also cannot follow your calculation, for example I really don't know what g-mol is supposed to be. I don't even understand the question itself, if water is a 3 molar solution, what is the solvent? What are you even trying to find out? — Martin - マーチン ♦ 10 secs ago

Gaurang Tandon

indeed; that seems to be the best route to follow until there is no consensus on this

the OP deleted the post instantly

Martin - マーチン

07:30

That was a terrible question... I did not understand the exercise at all

Gaurang Tandon

yes it was

Gaurang Tandon

08:20

@Martin-マーチン Another proofreading question from the ages (2015) - chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/41673/5026 What do you do with it now?

Martin - マーチン

@GaurangTandon Down-vote, and post them here and ask for them to be deleted...

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン ok, delete this one for now

Martin - マーチン

:: chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/41673/4945 deleted

@GaurangTandon Post one line saying why you think they should be deleted, then post the link in a new message (it needs to one-box)

when a mod comes around to looking at them and agrees, he'll edit the message to remove the one-box

Gaurang Tandon

proof-reading delete

[question-link]

like so?

Martin - マーチン

08:43

sth like this... just look through the transcript of this room, you'll find plenty examples

Gaurang Tandon

ok

chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1626/5026 this seems to be a consensus related to AMIRITE

Martin - マーチン

08:54

@GaurangTandon tl;dr down-vote, move on

Gaurang Tandon

09:11

@Martin-マーチン okidoki

Gaurang Tandon

09:41

Mod-request: this post should be deleted because adds no value and heavily downvoted

-8

Q: Putting a Bounty

Hi can I ask that how can I put a bounty on any of my questions. I know I do not have enough reputation to put one but I am just asking for my knowledge. If this question does not fit there you might migrate the question to the page.

Gaurang Tandon

09:57

@Abcd

don't use mathjax in titles of posts

Gaurang Tandon

10:08

<pingssuperusers> how to deal with such questions?

1

Q: Successive Ionization Energies

I had a question related to successive ionization energies.I understand that increasing protons has a greater effect than increasing electrons. I have read that successive ionization energies (for the same principal quantum shell) get higher as the charge on the ion gets greater with each electro...

inorganic-chemistry ionization-energy

had been closed as exact duplicate of another question; no answers; no comments

acc here it won't be deleted by the system automatically

Gaurang Tandon

10:40

this could use some advanced mathjax help chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/35022/5026

Martin - マーチン

11:00

@GaurangTandon leave things like this for the bots

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン ah I forgot yes

Martin - マーチン

@GaurangTandon if it is a good referral, clean it up, if not down vote it

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン i can only downvote it

Martin - マーチン

why?

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン i don't have 3k rep to cast close votes :/

and it's already closed anyway

Martin - マーチン

11:04

well, you can clean it up...

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン the question is an exact duplicate...i don't see any point in cleaning it up as it deserves deletion instead

Martin - マーチン

@AvatarShiny please add that your removed $$, that was way confusing, i almost rejected that

@GaurangTandon no. we don't delete questions that are good duplicates

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン but that "good" duplicate has 0 answers/0comments/and a -1 net score...

Martin - マーチン

if the same question is asked in different words it's helpful for others, it redirects them to the correct question

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン alright...

Martin - マーチン

11:09

@GaurangTandon now it has... i didn't when you posted it

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン it at least had 0 answers and 0 comments ;)

Martin - マーチン

Treat every question on it's own merit. Is it a good question, up-vote it, is it bad, down-vote it...

@GaurangTandon the dupe link came in quickly, then closure within 12h...

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン right, though the OP didn't make any opposition regarding that

Martin - マーチン

yeah well... that's like 99% of all cases

Gaurang Tandon

indeed

Avatar Shiny

11:15

@Martin-マーチン $$ will write latex from future

How do you right that fancy Latex

?

All I can manage is $LATEX$

Martin - マーチン

no just write remove latex from title or something...

not fix title $$

that looks like you have inserted $$

Gaurang Tandon

@AvatarShiny "removed mathjax from title" is ideal

Avatar Shiny

@Martin-マーチン I thought you were referring to another edit

Martin - マーチン

sorry chemistry.stackexchange.com/suggested-edits/12807

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン The poster here does not edit his answer according to your comment

He did put a sentence "By convention, you consider the pH of a solution to be determined by the largest source of hydrogen ions, meaning that the pHpH of this solution should be exactly six." but it's buried in his wrong answer that says "The actual value can be found by calculating −log(1×10−7+1×10−6), which gives me a final pH of 5.96. "

for now, I have downvoted it. Though if you post another answer, we can upvote it above Benzene's answer

Martin - マーチン

11:33

meh.

i think his answer is fine

Gaurang Tandon

alright your call

Gaurang Tandon

12:39

can anyone draw those fancy arrows in this reaction? chemistry.stackexchange.com/a/54834/5026 I did as much as I could do make the image redundant and finally remove it, but I need to show those "->Oxidation" and "->Reduction"arrows also

it isn't present on the formatting help wiki page

also can anyone increase the spacing in this reaction I wrote chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/29431/5026 it looks very cramped right now, maybe increase the length of the arrow?

Avatar Shiny

mhchem.github.io/MathJax-mhchem

There's a high chance that you've seen this but just in case

Gaurang Tandon

@AvatarShiny thanks, no I hadn't seen the page before, but it does not contain the solution to my problem

Avatar Shiny

12:55

Vao the mhchem manual doesn't have the answer

You could always ask on Tex

Gaurang Tandon

actually it does solve my second query ("cramped" one)

but my first query is not related to mhchem rather tex instead

@AvatarShiny i'll just wait for power users here

Avatar Shiny

¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯

Martin - マーチン

13:24

@AvatarShiny MathJax is off-topic on tex.sx

Avatar Shiny

@Martin-マーチン Never knew that

Mathjax must be their homework policy

Martin - マーチン

@GaurangTandon that is not possible in MathJax easily, you can have a look at AMScd:

$$\require{AMScd}
\begin{CD}
A @>a>> B\\
@VVbV @VVcV\\
C @>d>> D
\end{CD}
$$

but honestly, I don't think it's at all necessary... and the answer is incomplete anyway

@AvatarShiny tex.sx is about the engine that powers the typesetting, MathJax uses Java or something to render latex syntax, ergo something entirely different

Gaurang Tandon

13:46

@Martin-マーチン alright, i'll write that separately in text

Avatar Shiny

@Martin-マーチン That makes more sense than my homework policy thing :)

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン really? the tag seems alive still tex.stackexchange.com/tags/mathjax/info

Martin - マーチン

> Questions about installing, running, and debugging MathJax are better asked on sites with more of the relevant HTML, Javascript, and Mathjax-technology specific expertise, which can be found, among other places at stackoverflow.com or webmasters.stackexchange.com.

tex.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Bmathjax%5D+closed%3A1

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン but look at the type of questions being asked, they're mostly not being closed as offtopic ("installing, running, and debugging MathJax" is not equal to "how do I draw this in mathjax")

@Martin-マーチン only 53 closed out of 114 asked...but yeah, a miserable tag it seems

Martin - マーチン

While mathjax uses LaTeX syntax, it uses Javascript and HTML's DOM model rather than TeX technology, making it mostly off topic for this site. You might try instead searching among the questions tagged with mathjax on StackOverflow, or in the official mathjax-users Google group. — Joseph Wright ♦ Aug 3 '13 at 7:13

Gaurang Tandon

13:55

@Martin-マーチン oh that makes more sense

Martin - マーチン

There are some applications, where the Latex engine is used to convert source code to html, including setting it into MathJax

MathJax is an implementation of Latex sytanx nothing more

they are compatible to a degree, but apart from that, have little in common

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン that means all the mathjax I'm learning today will not help me write my latex documents in future? :(

Martin - マーチン

it'll help in a more general sense of not being afraid of source code, but Latex is much more powerful than the sloppy implementation possible with javascript

Gaurang Tandon

@Martin-マーチン why aren't we using latex here then? or a subset of it related to math equations?

Martin - マーチン

because there is no proper implementation of it for websites

Gaurang Tandon

14:02

oh

Martin - マーチン

31

Q: How to incorporate TeX into a website?

How should I incorporate TeX in a website to render mathematical formulas? If there are multiple ways, what is the easiest way?

html online

Gaurang Tandon

so aren't the commands that we use in mathjax common with latex? i.e., isn't mathjax a proper subset of latex?

Martin - マーチン

some of the commands, but prime example \pu{} does not exist in latex, because there are better alternatives

other commands have different meanings according to the packages loaded...

Gaurang Tandon

oh, that is interesting

i thought \pu was mhchem's feature

Martin - マーチン

15:10

It's a more or less feature poor implementation of the siuntix package, which is so, so much better ... and because of that, it is completely missing from the latex distribution

Gaurang Tandon

15:29

oh

writing ortho OR o in italics is the standard notation, right?

that means it should be written as ortho cresol and not orthocresol, right?

Gaurang Tandon

16:39

any +3k user wanna cast a reopen vote here? this is clearly not a duplicate as far as I can tell. The linked question does not mention the SIP effect anywhere, so I am not sure how it's supposed to answer the OP's question.

in such ambiguous cases, I would really wish if any of the close voters quote specific sections of the linked question (which answer the OP's query) and makes it clear to future visitors on exactly which basis the question got closed as duplicate

Transcript for