CyrusGrey - 12-4-2008 at 20:19
For those of you that don't regularly read the Legal and Societal Issues forum, I would just like to announce that we (All of those that have
contributed to the HCS thread in Legal and Societal Issues forum) have created an organization called the Home Chemistry Society with the purpose of
advocating and practicing chemistry as a hobby. Woelen has created for us a website based on the Wiki template for the purpose of introducing new
people to hobby chemistry and to support those who currently practice it:
www.homechemistry.org
(Be sure to check out the Map page too!)
I have been working on a Wiki version of the 'Readily Available Chemicals' website based off of reagents I have personally found OTC. Each of these
chemicals has or will have its own article with an intro describing its properties, a section on its uses, and a section on precautions and safety
with that particular chemical. In addition to this I would like to add one or more of the following sections: A section on the synthesis of the
chemical, a section on where it can be found OTC, and a section on any OTC products it can be extracted from (for example, from batteries). Thank you
to the other Sciencemadness members that have contributed to this effort!
I think that in addition to this, this portion of the website can be vastly improved by adding a large amount of content from the Sciencemadness
forums. The forums are not set up to handle compilations of information found in various threads. I would propose that we could do extensive data
mining of the Sciencemadness forums, collecting any relevant information for the preparation of a particular chemical, relevant information on
interesting reactions, etc. and form all of this into summaries to be placed on the page of the relevant chemical with links to the threads on the
Sciencemadness forums. This way we could have our in depth discussions at Sciencemadness, compilations on the HCS website allowing us to better access
the discussions (While not confusing new people to a great degree), and also still have sections devoted to introducing new people to chemistry as a
hobby.
As for the sections introducing new people to chemistry: There are three areas with almost no articles on the subject: Equipment, concepts and
experiments for beginning chemists. If you can add pages on these (For example, explaining how an acid neutralizes a base, etc.) please do so! To
create a page just type the exact name of the page into the search engine, if there is no page with that name it will give you an option to create it.
The three categories needing articles:
Category:Equipment
Category:Beginner Experiments
Category:Concepts
Gentlemen, I propose that we should have our cake and eat it too. What say ye? Will you help us create the greatest chemistry society with the
(second) greatest chemistry website ever?
[Edited on 13-4-2008 by CyrusGrey]
Polverone - 13-4-2008 at 09:03
I think the compilations section of the HCS will be very useful. I would say that a wiki is the perfect format for the detailed member writeups of
topics that currently go in Prepublication. A message board really doesn't offer the best presentation format for in-depth writeups like those. I
think the PDF-article presentations created from those topics look pretty good, but they are labor-intensive to produce so I haven't created a new one
for about a year. I know some members have also found the short forum edit time limit annoying when working on in-depth topics. A wiki serves the same
purpose as the edit time limit, and more elegantly, by allowing topics to be expanded without permitting anyone to permanently erase information that
has been previously shared.
If topics from our Prepublication section are turned into in-depth guides on the wiki, or if altogether new experimental writeups go there, I would be
happy to link to them in the existing Member Publications section on SM.
woelen - 13-4-2008 at 10:11
I like the idea of Polverone. It would be nice if some of the authors of the write-ups could assist in transforming them to the wiki format.
I also have some nice things from my own experience, such as the synthesis of KBrO3 and K3CrO8. Those are nice things for the homechemistry site as
well and I'll add those.
I also mentioned the HCS-website on a Dutch chemistry forum (for the Dutch and Belgian members: www.chemieforum.nl). Unfortunately, www.chemixtry.be still is off-line 
.
CyrusGrey - 13-4-2008 at 10:24
I put one of len1's articles up as an example... its not very difficult to transfer, mostly cut and paste.
http://www.homechemistry.org/index.php?title=In_Depth_Articl...
It would be nice if we could lock these pages but somehow only let the authors of the articles edit them. Some Wikis that do this call people that do
this custodians of such and such an article but I'm not sure how this is done exactly.
[Edited on 13-4-2008 by CyrusGrey]
woelen - 13-4-2008 at 12:01
I can lock the page, but then it is locked for everyone, except for the admin account. We could make a set of good pages and once we think it is
finished, then we can lock it.
Of course, at any time, a page can be unlocked again on request by known/established users (and CyrusGrey is one of them 
).
Btw, this article from len1 is a very good demonstration what one can achieve at home. It is rather advanced home chemistry though, most of us
(including me) will not reach that level.
I is good though, to have a mix of starting material and very advanced material (and inbetween material of course) on the website.
[Edited on 13-4-08 by woelen]
CyrusGrey - 14-4-2008 at 16:32
Our main page has reached 500 views! This is probably almost completely from Sciencemadness members.
Now, thanks to Woelen and his writeups on some beginner chemistry experiments, we have started work on all 5 of the primary categories: Concepts,
Equipment, Experiments, In Depth Articles, and Reagents.
Concepts and Equipment need more people working on them though, but I am really impressed at how the site is progressing! In only 6 days!
Klute - 18-4-2008 at 11:16
That's really a good idea! Such a project can become a very solid institution!
I'd be willing to make complete reports on some of my projects, once i get time to finish the reaction and make a detailed document, such the whole
TEMPO oxydations, ie preperation of the different catalyst, and their use with diferent oxydants etc...
It's true the forum isn't the best way of presenting reports, more a way of improving/filling them up, and comparing results between members.
Depending on the numbers of articles in the futur, wouldn't a organic/inorganic sections differentiation be easier to look through?
woelen - 18-4-2008 at 11:37
Klute, it would be great to have your write-up on S2Cl2 as an advanced chemistry experiment on HCS. That kind of advanced chemistry is quite rare and
it is a very good demonstration of what can be achieved at home.
[Edited on 18-4-08 by woelen]
MagicJigPipe - 18-4-2008 at 14:21
Just remember that the HCS is about more than just chenistry information. It's a society created to advance the cause of home chemistry!
Microcosmicus, where have you been? U2U me!