Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Separate Chemistry Notes collection

The Volatile Chemist - 4-6-2014 at 07:49

Would there be interest in a separate site (from this) for solely posting notes on reactions? It would provide a place for write-ups of experiments not detailed enough to publish, or too simple, but would allow commenting and revision, and be more formal than just starting a post to discuss a reaction.
Would this have use? It would be more of a community resource (I can host it) than a forum.
Thanks for your consideration,
Nathan

{EDIT} The site is http://ptp.x10.mx/cpnf/ It may come down if there is no interest.

[Edited on 6-4-2014 by The Volatile Chemist]

Brain&Force - 4-6-2014 at 11:45

I would DEFINITELY use the site. My terbium work would be much neater in such a site rather than in the thread. However, I would like the option of making some notes private for only a select few people to access it.

The Volatile Chemist - 4-6-2014 at 12:16

Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force  
I would DEFINITELY use the site. My terbium work would be much neater in such a site rather than in the thread. However, I would like the option of making some notes private for only a select few people to access it.

Glad you like the idea! Unfortunately, I was planning on using XMB Forum engine, the same as this site uses. I don't think specific posts can have selective viewing, but forums can be. I'll make an "elite" forum, where only members allowed access by others in the "elite" can gain access, if you think that'd be fine. I know how to program, but when it comes to online stuff, all I would be able to do is hack it together with Perl.
If you want to post some of your work already, the forum's up at:

http://ptp.x10.mx/cpnf/

Anyone who wants to help build user base and post some works of theirs, go ahead. This'd be kind of like the "reaction review" site someone else has talked about making in the past.

Lambda-Eyde - 4-6-2014 at 13:32

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist  

Glad you like the idea! Unfortunately, I was planning on using XMB Forum engine, the same as this site uses. I don't think specific posts can have selective viewing, but forums can be.

Why on Earth would you use a discussion board software for something like that? There's bound to be some kind of free database software that's much better suited out there.

Brain&Force - 4-6-2014 at 14:27

Quote: Originally posted by Lambda-Eyde  
Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist  

Glad you like the idea! Unfortunately, I was planning on using XMB Forum engine, the same as this site uses. I don't think specific posts can have selective viewing, but forums can be.

Why on Earth would you use a discussion board software for something like that? There's bound to be some kind of free database software that's much better suited out there.


I was thinking that a blog format may be better than a discussion board. If you use XMB, you'll just have a Sciencemadness clone.

Anyone else with suggestions?

arkoma - 4-6-2014 at 15:28

be happy to use it, I think. But seeing as I can be lazy/tired, would probably post pics of my handwritten lab notebook. And volatile, de donde eres? I see the .mx...... mi madre vive en Guadalajara.

Lambda-Eyde - 5-6-2014 at 09:06

Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force  

I was thinking that a blog format may be better than a discussion board. If you use XMB, you'll just have a Sciencemadness clone.

Anyone else with suggestions?

That sounds even less fitting. A chronological organization of content makes even less sense.

The way I see it, for this project to be of any interest to the ones other than the ones posting the notes, the content must be easily searchable and easily categorized. The option to search/filter by metadata would be extremely useful. Examples of types of metadata would be date, type of reaction, type of chemistry (organic, inorganic, analytical etc), experimental result (success, partial success, failure), name of the poster etc. I'm sure many other types of useful data could be added and made searchable.

Programming-wise, this is a very simple concept and should be easy to modify (adding metadata fields and corresponding search bars), even for a novice. I have no experience setting up something like this, so I have no particular software to recommend. But as I said in my previous post, there's bound to be something out there. Perhaps some other members have some specific suggestions.

The Volatile Chemist - 5-6-2014 at 14:32

Quote: Originally posted by Lambda-Eyde  
Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force  

I was thinking that a blog format may be better than a discussion board. If you use XMB, you'll just have a Sciencemadness clone.

Anyone else with suggestions?

That sounds even less fitting. A chronological organization of content makes even less sense.

The way I see it, for this project to be of any interest to the ones other than the ones posting the notes, the content must be easily searchable and easily categorized. The option to search/filter by metadata would be extremely useful. Examples of types of metadata would be date, type of reaction, type of chemistry (organic, inorganic, analytical etc), experimental result (success, partial success, failure), name of the poster etc. I'm sure many other types of useful data could be added and made searchable.

Programming-wise, this is a very simple concept and should be easy to modify (adding metadata fields and corresponding search bars), even for a novice. I have no experience setting up something like this, so I have no particular software to recommend. But as I said in my previous post, there's bound to be something out there. Perhaps some other members have some specific suggestions.

Great Ideas here, but I have NO experience in any scripting languages except Perl, and that's just for Data retrieval. I wouldn't be the one to do the programming for this. Since my initial Idea doesn't seem good enough, I'll delete the forum, but let's keep brainstorming the best way to do this. Maybe something like skidpaste.org (hacker skid/dox posting site... No, I'm not affiliated, just know of it).
Quote: Originally posted by arkoma  
be happy to use it, I think. But seeing as I can be lazy/tired, would probably post pics of my handwritten lab notebook. And volatile, de donde eres? I see the .mx...... mi madre vive en Guadalajara.

LOL. I'm not Spanish (taking Spanish in school, though). I just host from a free site, x10hosting.com, so my site's suffix is .x10.mx, the x10 host I use being based in Mexico. Funny you asked though :)

arkoma - 5-6-2014 at 14:40

joined and typed in my raw anthocyanin notes, with link to the photobucket album of pictures.

The Volatile Chemist - 5-6-2014 at 18:52

^ I saw that. Thanks for the support! I am going to delete it soon if not very many people like the way it's set up at the moment.

macckone - 6-6-2014 at 15:22

Something like a wiki format with indexing might work better.
Wiki really isn't the exactly right format but is probably closer.

Etaoin Shrdlu - 6-6-2014 at 16:17

Wiki format would be much better. That's actually a great idea. If nothing else, it allows for experiments to be easily categorized by reactants, products, status, chemist, etcetera.

[Edited on 6-7-2014 by Etaoin Shrdlu]

Brain&Force - 6-6-2014 at 16:27

I second that!

We could use the wiki for making notes about compounds that do not have extensive articles in Wikipedia. (Seriously, you call this an article?) Userspaces could be used for experimenter notes.

[Edited on 7.6.2014 by Brain&Force]

alexleyenda - 6-6-2014 at 16:31

Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force  
I second that!

We could use the wiki for making notes about compounds that do not have extensive articles in Wikipedia. Seriously, you call this an article?

Dang I thought it was some kind of rainbow candy able to summon unicorns brought to earth by aliens. I'm lucky there was THAT article. Now I know it is drug, so i'll eat it. (yeah, that was sarcastic^^)


[Edited on 7-6-2014 by alexleyenda]

The Volatile Chemist - 6-6-2014 at 20:48

So, would people put time and effort into this? If only there were some way to port wikipedia's articles over so we could have a startingplace. u2u me if you want to help.

Davin - 6-6-2014 at 22:08

I am working on something very similar:
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=30...

With a much greater focus on synthesis. The entire database is searchable by author, citation (via DOI), chem name, formula or molecular structure. It roughly follows a blog format with reaction details (whether literature or unique to the author), allows rating and commenting of the procedure, and all search results are indexed by how well the prep has been judged to be functioning by users.

The site is up and running, and I think all bugs have been fixed. I am currently adding content with a few others to fill out the synthesis database a bit more before public launch.

If you are posting a unique synthesis to the site, it is a location for the open-sourced publication of synthesis, citable on your CV. Peer reviews are crowd sourced.

Anyone interested in contributing content let me know and I will send details via U2U. Very close to public launch of the site.

[Edited on 7-6-2014 by Davin]

The Volatile Chemist - 7-6-2014 at 04:46

Well, we may not need this if ^ Exists. What do y'all think?

Davin - 27-6-2014 at 15:26

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist  
Well, we may not need this if ^ Exists. What do y'all think?



It is live now: www.synvaluate.com :D

Brain&Force - 27-6-2014 at 17:13

We've got the wiki, too, so there's no need for this, IMO.

The Volatile Chemist - 1-7-2014 at 06:19

This forum can be closed, there is no page as I listed above anymore, I took it down. But synvaluate looks awesome!