"List of data sources" question

Question

Data requests are off-topic on chem.SE.

Since two of them got asked today, I went back to look at that meta post. I'd like to revive two of the comments on the question:

One difficult task is sometimes to find where appropriate data can be found, which is not always obvious or well referenced. I agree it is pointless to copy the values from the "Handbook of Chemistry & Physics", but sometimes finding relevant values is really a difficult task and might require some expert help." – PLD May 23 '12 at 20:54

@PLD One solution to that might be a Community Wiki question/answer that list good places to find such values and MSDSes and so on. – Matthew Read Jul 10 '12 at 17:52

Can we please have one such question on "where to find data"? That way, we can close data requests as duplicates, exactly analogous to how book requests are closed as duplicates of the existing resource thread:

Requests for specific data are [off-topic on Chem.SE](https://chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/135). Please refer to the [linked duplicate](link to new question here) for a list of data sources which might help you find the information you need.

If there are no objections, I will assume that we have consensus and go ahead with the creation of such a post.

Answer 1

As with the other thread we should give it a lot of time to lay out the structure of such a list.

Objections are one thing, contributors another. The resources thread took more than a month to create and after we seemed to agree on how to do it and we proceeded to do it, there was a new discussion about how to organise it. The post itself is far from complete and has exactly those problems of big-lists, which make them a suboptimal fit for SE.

I am not completely against it, but it needs to be planned well ahead and then brought to a point where it is useful. And you'll need people for it. If it's incomplete you'll just open the door for questions saying

I've tried all of that, but there was nothing.

There was once another attempt at a big list, very much rushed and it gained many down and close vote within the first few hours. I'm mobile and I can't look it up right now, and it was a bit forgettable in the first place.

I just want all to know the potential drawbacks with such an endeavour.