Talk:MTCA

Chemical compound MTCA

I hereby propose that the title "MTCA" should be attached to an article about the chemical compound of that name, also known as 2-methylthiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid, which is the condensation product of cysteine and acetaldehyde. — Jaydiem (talk) 14:27, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

References

Hello there. I can make it, but I'm not able to attach the name to a different article. @Asilvering is my mentor, I'm pinging him to see if he can do it so I can make the article. Unless you planned on making it, but still, I'll see if my mentor can make change the article title. DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 15:30, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jaydiem, to change the redirect target for MTCA, I suggest opening a discussion at WP:RFD. If you need help setting that up, let me know and I can do it for you. -- asilvering (talk) 22:20, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Well, ideally, IMO, MTCA would not be a redirect, but rather the canonical title of an article about the compound, with a mention at the top along the lines of «For the airport in Haiti with the code "MTCA", see Antoine-Simon Airport.» The problem is that such an article doesn't exist yet! I'm trying to create a stub in my userspace, but my skills are woefully atrophied since I was last an active editor about ten years ago. I have made public appeals for someone else to create the article, one here and one here. -- Jaydiem (talk) 16:31, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Most chemical articles are named by the systematic chemical name rather than an acronym (WP:CHEMNAME). Wikipedia:Disambiguation has several approaches to handing when several articles exist about different things that each have a same name. Having each at its own other name is described as a good solution there. So we'd have two articles, neither actually titled "MTCA", both about something that can also be called by that name. Then MTCA itself could be simply a list of them with a pointer to each. DMacks (talk) 18:59, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

@DMacks I do like this idea, and it makes the most sense for it to still be Wikipedia like DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 19:02, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I moved the page to Draft:2-Methylthiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid as the usual namespace for article development and added full citation details for one of the refs. That ref looks like a good one, and demonstrates WP:GNG notability of this chemical. Happy to help further with format/content or refs if you like, but it seems like Jaydiem has gotten it off to a good start and from from other articles DonovanIsAPerson worked on you all can get it going well. DMacks (talk) 12:09, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

I think an argument could be made that "MTCA" is the trivial name of the compound, as described in WP:CHEMNAME, and using that name would be my preference, but I would be OK with using the systematic name instead as the canonical article title. — Jaydiem (talk) 14:24, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Linguistic acronyms of systematic names are not what trivial names are. The refs I'm seeing use the full systematic chemical name in their title and a mix of systematic and acronym in their body, so I don't think the acronym meets WP:COMMONNAME and it also would go against NATDAB. DMacks (talk) 01:08, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@DMacks I personally like the idea of having a disambiguation linking to the airport and the chemical, and them both being called their full names in their titles. DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 01:12, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Next step is to get that draft-article ready to move to mainspace. DMacks (talk) 01:13, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@DMacks I can start working on it on Monday around 1200 UTC, make a big edit by around 1600 UTC assuming I don't get too busy with other school stuff. DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 01:17, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

My offer stands for any assistance. Always interesting to see the amount of scientific WP content contribution ebb and flow as each semester progresses. DMacks (talk) 01:20, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@DMacks Okay. I'm probably gonna need assistance, so expect some pings later in the UTC afternoon/evening on Monday DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 01:23, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

OK, that's fine with me. Actually, I see now that "2-Methylthiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid" is probably the trivial name of the compound, whereas the full IUPAC name is "2-Methyl-1,3-thiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid" (from which there should be a redirect, once the article is moved to mainspace). — Jaydiem (talk) 14:54, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

For all those interested in editing the new/draft article, I would like to direct your attention to its talk page for discussion of its content. — Jaydiem (talk) 15:11, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Once the new article is moved to mainspace, would it be appropriate to create a redirect from MTCA (chemical compound) in addition to the planned MTCA (disambiguation) page? That would probably be helpful to someone searching for "MTCA" with the compound in mind, skipping the extra click to the disambiguation page. — Jaydiem (talk) 15:18, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jaydiem You also have to think about the reverse though. What if they want the airport and end up at the chemical. So which one would be wanted more? DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 15:20, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Well, simple, there would be a redirect directly to the airport article from MTCA (airport) as well. — Jaydiem (talk) 15:24, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jaydiem Fair.

So, to restate and make sure I understand. MTCA will redirect to MTCA (chemical) with a disambiguation page, MTCA (disambiguation), linked at the top, which will link to both MTCA (chemical) and MTCA (airport). Is that all correct? DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 15:28, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Not quite. My first preference, as I expressed earlier in this discussion, would be to have MTCA be the canonical title of the article about the compound, with a link to the airport article at the top, and a redirect from 2-Methylthiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid to MTCA. My second preference would be the same, except that MTCA redirects to 2-Methylthiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid, again with a link to the airport at the top. (Intuitively, I feel that the compound is much more likely than the airport to be the intended target for the search term "MTCA", but I could be wrong.) My third preference would be to have MTCA redirect to a standard disambiguation page at MTCA (disambiguation), with the additional redirects of MTCA (airport) and MTCA (chemical compound) pointing directly to their respective articles. — Jaydiem (talk) 15:39, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jaydiem Hey @Asilvering, which one of these do you think would work best? DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 15:42, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

I have no preference, but @DMacks might. -- asilvering (talk) 17:50, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

I already stated what I think is MOS and how the meanings of the terms it uses are generally defined. But regardless, let's not WP:BIKESHED...this is all easily resolved by usual process once we have an actual article at some name. DMacks (talk) 04:03, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jaydiem Looking at the Wikidata entry for 2-methyl-1,3-thiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid, it's abbreviated to methylthioproline and MTPRO, not MTCA. DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 13:56, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm gonna hold on editing until we figure out what we're gonna do with this.

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q82300809

DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 13:59, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

The Reischl ref in the draft-article repeatedly uses "MTCA" in its body prose. Conversely, Wikidata is not a "reliable source" itself, and just because something isn't listed doesn't mean it's not true. Wikidata, like all of the wiki-sphere, is collected and written by fellow editors rather than experts who know everything about a topic. So I added that acronym there. DMacks (talk) 14:07, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Okay. I'll continue to work on the page then referring to it as MTCA but state both names. DonovanIsAPerson (talk) 16:32, 18 May 2026 (UTC)