Talk:miserite

RFC discussion: February 2016
Definition:
 * 1)  A triclinic-pinacoidal mineral containing aluminum, calcium, fluorine, hydrogen, iron, la,ce,pr,nd,sm,, magnesium, manganese, oxygen, potassium, silicon, sodium, titanium, and yttrium.

This is a good example of what can go wrong when you mechanically build a definition from a database entry somewhere: "la,ce,pr,nd,sm" are simply the first five elements in the lanthanide series in the periodic table, and the alphabetical list of elements is pretty much useless clutter in a dictionary entry, anyway.

I don't know much about minerals, so I'd appreciate it if someone who does would rework the definition into something that makes sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * The chemical formula in the mineralogy database link includes (m:), which covers the lanthanides and yttrium.— Pingkudimmi 04:27, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I made a couple changes, but I'm not sure there's much more to be done. These entries are going to be rather encyclopaedic by their very nature, and I don't know whether it's better to list elements in them (as we currently do, scraped from a database) or give the ideal chemical formula and some helpful identification tips (like colour, streak, and hardness). In the end, what the entry currently looks like is probably about as good as we should expect to get. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:11, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Re: listing elements: our definition for human doesn't include "containing aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barium, beryllium, bismuth, boron, bromine, cadmium, caesium, calcium, carbon, cerium, chlorine, chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, gallium, germanium, gold, hydrogen, indium, iodine, iron, lanthanum, lead, lithium, magnesium, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, radium, rubidium, samarium, scandium, selenium, silicon, silver, sodium, strontium, sulfur, tantalum, tellurium, thallium, thorium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, yttrium, zinc, zirconium"- but it could. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:03, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This composition definition should be replaced with one about usefulness ("used to clean teeth among the Wiktionarians"), where found ("found in bathtubs"), or something interesting about its origins ("believed to have been produced in the guts of dinosaurs"), or unexpected ("spontaneously combusts on Mondays in the presence of DNA").
 * Not only shouldn't we feel compelled to keep such a definition, we should review other similar entries for other similar blunders. The majority of our taxonomic definitions also suffer from a lack of substance, except for their placement on the tree of life. I try to provide something substantive from the external links. DCDuring TALK 12:24, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently, the structure of the mineral includes a vacant site in which rare-earths and other less-common elements can be absorbed and from which they can be extracted. Some sources mention it as a "rare-earth silicate", containing upto 7.5% rare earths. DCDuring TALK 12:45, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * There's really not much interesting about this, and it may not be easy to find out where it is from. I am sure it has no use, like most minerals, and nobody is looking up names of rare minerals to find such things. Calling it a "rare earth silicate" is simply a way of phrasing what we already have on the page, but in a moderately less informative way. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:43, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * "Not much interesting": Some might find it visually interesting, as the recently added picture might suggest. It is one of the last two minerals to be named after a person and no more such names are to be given under the mineral-naming rules.
 * "I am sure it has no use": It is an actual or potential source of rare-earth elements. It also has possible use in cleaning up radioactive and certain other noxious wastes and in medical ceramics.
 * "Not easy to find out where it is from": It has been found in remarkably few places: one in Arkansas, one in Russia, and apparently in China.
 * There is a small difference between "rare-earth" and a list of rare-earth elements, especially abbreviated: intelligibility to a broad audience.
 * I don't expect folks to use Wiktionary to find rare-earths in the real world. We are only trying help people a bit with words: our definitions should provide sufficient information so folks could learn whether they care about learning more, our translations help them find material in other languages, our external links give them ways to pursue matters in greater depth, a picture might replace the need for definitions or explain why the name is appropriate. We won't usually attract folks to look up terms here until we have sufficient breadth and quality of coverage in a given area of interest. How we achieve such breadth and quality should be a matter of concern to us IMO, but doesn't seem to be. DCDuring TALK 16:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)