Talk:Metalloid/A1

I'll post my opinion in a few days--R8R Gtrs (talk) 12:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'll be short: The article, in whole, reads like a research book rather than an encyclopedia. Maybe that's just me, though.

Major reorganization needed. The only (but a huge!) thing I really dislike it talks too about grouping and what elements can be included rather than describing (before you start to make conclusions, consider a page entitled like Possible metalloids or whatever rather than deleting all this useful info). The properties section can be converted into text. Worse for graphical readability but better for "encyclopedishness." In my opinion, a major reorganization is needed before you can consider A-class, but then you can. Other opinions?--R8R Gtrs (talk) 15:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks very much for the feedback.

The reader experience for a GA article is: "Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia."; A class is "Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting." and FA class is "Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information."

As there isn't any universally agreed definition of a metalloid I've tried to summarise what the literature says about what is a metalloid, their properties, which elements have been classified as metalloids, where they're located on the periodic table, and what they're good for. My aim has been to provide a complete, thorough and definitive encyclopedia entry.

I don't understand your suggestion about a "Possible metalloids" page. There is already a page called List of metalloids lists. I'm not sure what would be gained be creating another page?

I don't understand what would be gained by turning the Properties section into text. Many encyclopedias use tables. Turning the properties section into prose would make it harder, in my view, to see how the properties of metals, metalloids and nonmetals compare. Sandbh (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Cool topic and I can tell that you love it. And have looked at a look of sources. But I agree with R8R. Needs work to make it more helpful to an encyclopedia reader. Heck, even as a specialized monograph or the like, would need work to get more paragraphing.

Add more prose in front of some of the honking tables. Condense some of the very short bullets into paragraphs. Make the lead summary style and without citations.

Get RexxS to work with you on the table layout (can we make it look better, transmit more info more cleanly, what is the rationale for order from top to bottom of properties, etc.)

Do not spend all the article on a discussion of what is/is not a metalloid. Sure, that is a tricky topic and part of the question. But how about the person who is not an inveterate cataloguer, not a taxonomy debater, but just wants to know more about the metaloids themselves!

TCO (Reviews needed) 07:42, 21 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the super-quick response.

It's a gnarly topic with many twists, turns and rabbit holes. Having said that, it's great to be able to put together a comprehensive literature-based summary.

Could you give me an idea of what prose you'd like to see in front of the properties tables, apart from the rationale for the top to bottom order?

The very short bullets were originally in paragraph form. I turned them into bullets in order to reduce sentence length and improve readibility. Could you please confirm if you expect to see the very short bullets turned back into paragraphs?

Your comment about the lead seems to be at odds with WP:LEAD, which suggests that complex or controversial subjects may require citations. The definition of a metalloid contained in the lead has been subject to some past (limited) controversy.

I'll ask RexxS about the table layout.

I'm not sure about your last comment re the casual reader. I have tried to write a complete, thorough and definitive encyclopedia entry—at least as definitive as it can be given the state of the literature. The casual reader can pick up a lot by just reading the first paragraph of the lead, and then the opening paragraphs to each section. Someone who just wants to know about metalloids themselves can click through to the article for each particular element. There are wikilinks in the table next to the lead and in the Applicable elements section. Sandbh (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Sorry I'm late in responding, but I wanted to give sufficient time to the review. I've appended this to TCO's review as I think his intention was to involve my comments on only very limited aspects of the article. I've spent some time looking at the five tables in the article and I would like to make some general and some specific suggestions mainly concerning accessibility, which you may want to look at if you intend to make the article fully MOS-compliant.

There's a general principle in web design that information should not be made available purely by the use of colour. Imagine you are a blind visitor using a screen reader to read the table in the Location and identification section and you hear:

• "Elements with grey shading appear commonly to rarely in the list of metalloid lists. Elements with light tan shading appear still less frequently. Elements with pale blue shading are outliers that show that the metalloid net is sometimes cast very widely."

What would you be able to gain from that? I understand that a table has more visual appeal to the sighted, and it allows the context within the periodic table to be shown, but without additional text for the visually impaired, we fail to convey some of the information to them. Would you consider expanding the text to read something like this:

• "The elements with grey shading (B, C, Al, Si, Ge, As, Se, Sb, Te, Po, At) appear commonly to rarely in the list of metalloid lists. Elements with light tan shading (H, Be, P, S, Ga, Sn, I, Pb, Bi, Uuq, Uup, Uuh, Uus) appear still less frequently. Elements with pale blue shading (N, Zn, Rn) are outliers that show that the metalloid net is sometimes cast very widely."

I hope you can see how we can use redundant text to compensate for some visitors' inability to see the information provided by colour. I'd recommend you look at the other tables and try to put yourself in the place of someone who can't see the tables, but can hear the text in them. Are they able to receive the same information that a sighted person can?

Have a think about the purpose of the images in the article. Hopefully, they are more than decorative, so they are likely to be conveying some information - probably what a particular metalloid looks like. What I was describing above applies in the same way to images. We can't give blind visitors a way to see those images, but can we supply some text that still conveys some of the information to them? That's what alt text should do. If you look at the File:Polycrystalline-germanium.jpg image as used in the Germanium article, it has this alt text: "Grayish lustrous block with uneven cleaved surface", which is better than hearing the filename (which is is what many screen readers would read out in the absence of alt text).

You may want to supply each image with a short piece of alt text that briefly describes what you see.

There's a section of WP:ACCESS that gives good guidance on how to construct data tables that are easy for screen readers to use at WP:DTAB. I'd recommend you have a look at that and consider whether you could improve the tables with captions and by identifying the scope of column and row headers. The headers are less useful for small tables, but as a table gets larger, headers help a visually impaired visitor to navigate around a table in different directions by speaking out the row and column headers for the current cell if desired.

I'd suggest that the physical and chemical properties tables would benefit particularly from defining the scope in the column and row headers.

I should say I found the article well-written and engaging (to me at least). I'm quite sure that most visitors will find a lot of information about the subject, meeting the A-class standards, but there is room to broaden the audience to include those who have a visual impairment. If you are interested and would like any specific guidance, I'm happy to assist. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 18:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

It's huge love for the topic, huge info, and lots of references. I just wonder how we can draw the readers in more. I think trying the organization listed below is worthwhile. I know it is work and I know there is no perfect cookie cutter structure (good to have different articles try different things). That said, wrestling with the structure and trying a rewrite would be worthwhile. Will be value added in the end.

On the tables, I really worry more for the sighted viewers! (I mean let's add the access, sure, no argument.) I know there is huge info in there, but I'm concerned people will be put off and skip it. Any ways to make it cleaner or transmit the info better? (I don't really know, just expressing a concern). Perhaps putting them deeper down in the topic would help? Perhaps more subdivision? (not just two). Can any of them be converted from text to graphical insights? (e.g. showing band gap for different semiconducting elements and having a dashed line zone. (.1ev to 1.5 eV or whatever!) Sorry, if I am not giving better direction. Maybe throwing this out helps others think on it.

TCO (Reviews needed) 20:01, 23 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

20:01, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

This might work and possibly address the concerns about the focus of the article. I won't know until I give it a go:

1 Properties

1.1 Physical

1.2 Chemical

1.3 Distinctive

2 Recognised metalloids [ie B, Si, Ge, As, Sb, Te]

2.1 Descriptive chemistry

2.1.1 Physical

2.1.2 Chemical

2.2 Occurrence

2.3 Production

2.4 Typical applications

2.4.1 Glass formation

2.4.2 Alloys

2.4.3 Semiconductors and electronics

3 Other metalloids

3.1 Selenium, polonium and astatine

3.2 Aluminium?

3.3 Near metalloids

3.4 Allotropes

4 Inclusion criteria

4.1 Variability

4.2 Semi-quantitative

5 Periodic table location and identification

6 Nomenclature origin and usage

7 Notes

8 Citations

9 References

10 Monographs

There may not be enough in common about the recognised metalloids to make 2.2 and 2.3 meaningful but I can have a look. Sandbh (talk) 11:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

I like it.TCO (Reviews needed) 20:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Am currently working on the mini-portrait of boron, summarising its physical and chemical properties. Once I get that done (tough element to start with) it'll hopefully serve as a template for the other five common metalloids. Sandbh (talk) 11:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Boron done. Tried to focus more on the 'in-between' characteristics rather than duplicating what is already in the boron article. Silicon will be interesting. Sandbh (talk) 07:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

R8R, TCO, RexxS, the feedback has been great. The restructure will take a little while. Sandbh (talk) 11:27, 24 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Initial edits posted just now. Went quite well I thought. Sandbh (talk) 07:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

It would be nice to have a gallery of the elements in the p-block, showing a trend in appearance from metals to nonmetals (passing through the metalloids). Double sharp (talk) 10:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Group #	13	14	15	16	17
Period
2	5 B	6 C	7 N	Oxygen 8 O	9 F
3	13 Al	14 Si	15 P	16 S	17 Cl
4	31 Ga	32 Ge	33 As	34 Se	35 Br
5	49 In	50 Sn	51 Sb	52 Te	53 I
6	81 Tl	82 Pb	83 Bi	84 Po	85 At

For the metalloids category, I have included the first two clusters only (the elements Wikipedia usually colours as metalloids, plus astatine). You might want to change the colours used to indicate the clusters of metalloids (if necessary). I did not use the "halogens" category. You could experiment with the size, among other things. Double sharp (talk) 11:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Of course, the alt text should be changed to make it more useful to visually impaired readers. Double sharp (talk) 11:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Not completely sure which way to go with this table. Trying to avoid duplication of content, and maintain focus on metalloids. Am currently thinking it would make a fine addition to the p-block article. Then to add some comments to the metalloid article about the reduction in metallicity going from L to R across the periodic system, and the increase in metallicity going down the s- and p-block groups, resulting in the diagonal twilight zone between the metals and nonmetals. Plus a wikilink from the metalloid article to the p-block article. Sandbh (talk) 07:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

There are many instances when the chemical symbols of an element not previously mentioned is not linked. Double sharp (talk) 10:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for adding the links Sandbh (talk) 07:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

What about the term "amphoteric line", sometimes used to mean "metalloid line"? Double sharp (talk) 13:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

To date I haven't been able to find a reference in the literature that actually uses this term. As far as I can tell the expression "amphoteric line" is a made up one, as first used in an earlier iteration of the metalloid article (without any citation). Sandbh (talk) 09:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

That makes sense. I've only ever seen the term used in unreliable sources. Double sharp (talk) 03:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

In light of the good feedback, and thinking about this some more, I currently intend to try the following:

0 Introduction

1 Elements commonly recognised as metalloids

1.1 Boron

1.2 Silicon

1.3 Germanium

1.4 Arsenic

1.5 Antimony

1.6 Tellurium

1.7 Typical applications

1.7.1 Glass formation

1.7.2 Alloys

1.7.3 Semiconductors and electronics

2 Elements less commonly recognised as metalloids

2.1 Selenium, polonium and astatine

2.2 Other metalloids

2.3 Aluminium

2.4 Near metalloids

2.5 Allotropes

3 Location and identification on some periodic tables

4 Comparison of properties with those of metals and nonmetals

4.1 Physical

4.2 Chemical

4.3 Distinctive

5 Semi-quantitative description

6 Origin and usage of the term metalloid

7 Notes

8 Citations

9 References

10 Monographs

Sections 1.3 to 1.6 are still to be done. I'll also expand section 4.3 as this currently only talks about the distinctive properties of metalloids. The rest will be moving stuff around and tidying the resulting new joins between sections 1 to 5. Sandbh (talk) 10:40, 11 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Would the fact that Wikipedia considers polonium to be a metalloid make it necessary to include a separate section about polonium? What about Se and At (and C and Al)? Double sharp (talk) 12:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

You hit the mark with your recent edits, whereby Po, Se, and At and Al, were separated out, and questioning if there needed to be a section for C. I personally don't mind, for now, if Wikipedia more generally treats polonium as a metalloid (even though, in my current view, such a classification is not well supported by the literature). Sandbh (talk) 03:25, 11 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

I have done some further restructuring in the "Elements less commonly recognised as metalloids" section. Double sharp (talk) 13:58, 7 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, your restructuring has turned out quite nicely. I particulary liked the comment about do we need a carbon (= graphite) section. Have been thinking about the metallic/non-metallic properties of graphite. Will compile a list of such and see what it looks like. Sandbh (talk) 09:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)Reply