Interested in the various bees feelings on this matter: how responsible is the OP of a tek/experiemental procedure, etc, if and when some dunce reads their experimental and says "oh  gorsh, I coulds do thait" and injures/maims/hurts himself and/or others....

Now one camp (one is sure) would say "darwinism! fuck 'em!" And the opposing side may say "this is science! you have a responsibility to those that follow you to be as precise in your retelling as possible and give adequate warning about potential risks!"

One's personal feelings fall somewhere in between these two camps. He wonders what other here think....

Is it better to "leave out" *NON-essential* details from a "tek" or experimental procedure, with the idea being that anyone actually capable of following the procedure through to its conclusion safely would immediately recognize their absence and research accordingly?

Is it better to just explain the "path" of the reactions, and let those who wish to call themselves chemists do their own grunt work (gasp)?  Not saying don't provide further explanation, but maybe less is more in some cases?  Perhaps we can find the fine line between a free sharing of all information (the goal) and enacting some form of control over the idjiots who read a "tek" once, try it out and blow up their kitchen and/or house. 

One is less worried about the end user in this case than the community as a whole, as he understands that home lab accidents and the like often bring clandestine procedures and processes to the attention of government authorities who would proceed to place bans on available reagents/precursors in an effort to protect us (the public) from ourselves...

Just a few idle thoughts; comments, criticisms, aimless ramblings, and courteous flaming are all welcome responses.

It just depends on the sensitivity of the information.  If its a dangerous reaction or the precursors availability might be threatened by the info then leave it vague.  But think about how many bees brightstars etc type writeups have inspired to do this work (including me).

IMHO if we abandon the idea of a "tek" in the first place we can not only keep away those who are unwilling to learn how to read scientific writing but place more of the burden of understanding on the reader. Just write like the journals and most issues disappear since people wont get past the abstract if they aren't up to the task of understanding.

Keep the content well structured, clear and safe and let the reader do the work

Very very well said. Really do not like the term "tek," just used it bc it is seen so often associated with these sorts of fora (not to lump the Vespiary in with lesser brethren).

Mostly was wondering about the balance between the need for safety and the need for the protection of methods/availability of precursors --> don't want to contribute to in any way to the furthering of the d-War anymore than one wants to contribute to a newbee harming himself.

To put forth a somewhat questionable point: how large of a part do ppl think the Hive played in the scheduling of safrole, and eventually sassafrass and other essential oils in the US?

Though I know no one here is involved in the actual makings of such products, do the chemists here feel the amount of "honey" produced in the late 90's/early 00's (that can be attributed to Hive bees), as well as the information disseminated, outweighed the scheduling of a precursor that made it almost as easy to make MDA/MDMA as "teh meffs"?

Probably giving the Hive too much credit, even as crazy/awesome as it schwas, but.....

whadya fink?

-po'feesh

I see the right amount of information as being a bit like a recipe - if you don't know how to cook then the instructions aren't going to make much sense.  (you have to know how to saute, boil, prepare a white sauce etc)  But I can't imagine being given a recipe for a cake and someone leaves out the baking powder.  And if someone attempts a flambe on their first attempt to cook then they get what they deserve!

Salat

I have to agree with embezzler.
It's neither

darwinism! fuck 'em!

nor

this is science! you have a responsibility to those that follow you to be as precise in your retelling as possible and give adequate warning about potential risks!

In particular the second option is almost impossible to achieve because sometimes you simply do not know all risks involved resp. they are taken as common (scientific) education. For example you will hardly find the possibility noted often in the experimental sections of contemporary journals that explosive epoxides peroxides are formed when working with diethylether. It's simply assumed that you know that when working with chemicals.

I won't deny some part of the responsibility being with the author of a protocol, too. Especially if something unexpected can happen or if an observed incident was acutely health/life-threatening you should always mention it. Ironically, this is lacking in many contemporary peer-reviewed protocols, too, not to speak of "teks"

I think that the ideal and standard of comparison should be Organic Syntheses. Organic Syntheses publishes only verified procedures that multiple people have reproduced, with no important information left out. At the same time, readers are expected to have laboratory experience and general knowledge; a procedure isn't going to explain in detail what it means to distill at 12 mm pressure and collect the fraction boiling between 107 and 109 degrees. Nor will it warn that acetone is flammable, ether forms peroxides, or that sodium azide is poisonous.

If someone is unable to offer Organic Syntheses-quality instruction in producing a product or intermediate of interest to bees and wasps, that is quite understandable. It takes considerable effort to refine procedures and prepare such high quality instructions. What I do not like is the idea of people deliberately leaving out information or steps in the procedure as a deterrent to lazy or ignorant chemists, because it also wastes the time of every other chemist as well. Those games leave every chemist wondering, after the first failure, if there's a problem with their own technique, or a problem with the procedure as written (and if so where).

I think that an Organic Syntheses level of instruction is still plenty discouraging to the laziest stratum of "cooks" who want to make drugs without effort or prior knowledge. If you're going to talk bench chemistry, don't play games: provide all relevant information that you know. If you don't want to talk bench chemistry, you can join plenty of like-minded theorists over at Blacklight who think that only Chinese chemists should stoop to actual synthesis.

Maybe it is unfair. It is based on a few things.

1) There is quite a lot of theory about pharmacology and structure activity relationship. Anyone looking at recently active topics will see it. This is actually very good; theory should guide synthetic targets. It is only combined with the following points that it leaves me cold.

2) Even though admins on the site say that the "kitchen tek" ban there is supposed to apply only to things like pill extractions (and I would agree with that), the actual culture seems to be much more severe against bench chemistry. There are few threads where syntheses are discussed or shared in enough detail that they seem like they could be easily reproduced by a trained but non-specialized chemist. I have seen basic syntheses of hydrazine sulfate and phenylacetic acid derided as "teks." It was actually suggested in one of those cases that Sciencemadness is a more appropriate place to find teks -- and if they consider SM a haven for teks then the term has been stretched beyond belief, until it means "any chemistry that you can do without modern instruments and a Sigma-Aldrich account."

3) The place is crawling with people who have a love/hate relationship with Chinese custom synthesis and research chemical vendors. They are really angry about how unscrupulous Chinese chemists and European importers/resellers are accelerating scheduling of compounds, and actually I share some of their anger. Yet in the private section where bioassays are shared it seems clear that members are using custom synthesis places to produce novel compounds for their own sampling. And there have been accusations (I can't remember if it was in a public site area or not) that members there have been actively monitoring BL and other drug forums with novel discussion in order to decide what should go on the RC market next. BL is part of the very cycle it decries where new active compounds are synthesized, sampled, commercially exploited, and then scheduled. It would seem more honest to me if they only did paper chemistry and theoretical pharmacology, or if they did the synthetic work too and documented it so compounds could survive underground after scheduling, but they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be able to source and enjoy novel compounds the easy way but not have others do the same.

EDIT: I should add that the BL admins are currently planning to change the site name and improve its image in hopes of luring respectable academic and industrial drug researchers to their forums. If that happens I expect that applied synthetic chemistry will become even rarer there.

I would go along with Darwinism to an extent. If you don't know enough to not try and shift crap while you are cooking, then that is your own fault, the results are predictable and inevitable. They have also been warned against time and again. If you cannot understand why something works, do not break out the flasks until you do, if you can't understand why, you won't understand what else is likely to happen during the disarmingly simple procedure as written up. Unexpected results can be quite dangerous to your health, wealth, freedom and general well-being.

I agree that leaving things out is irresponsible and not really someone we want on our site. If you decide you wish to post a process then do it. Don't play games just post the shit.

If I find ANYONE constantly posting fucked up synthesis im going to have no choice but to think they are LEO. Why else would someone want to spread misinformation.

Now if your worried about it becoming cook town then make it sound harder then it is.... Its really not that hard to sound smarter then you are when talking to a meth-head....

Our hobby is largely a result of necessity from certain authoritarian and moralizing forces who felt that, no matter how intelligent or responsible we might be, that certain substances were not to be trusted to any of us.

There's a decent argument on why it might be wise to not trust certain things to certain specific people.

Information is like the market in that what it has to offer tends to disseminate.

We might not be here if public policy were more enlightened and refused to strip choice and availability from all based on the shortcomings of a few.

Neutering information does to the community what the royal they have been doing to us. How is that for irony?

De minimis redaction, abbreviation, and jargon, on the other hand, can serve as a useful shibboleth, regardless of form. Getting straight to the point in a way the capable will understand will have the side effect of screening out the irresponsible or undesirable, in the normal course of keeping things concise.