[ensembl-dev] Upgrade the mail-list

[Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri]

On Tue, May 08, 2012 at 02:17:42PM +0000, Duarte Molha wrote:
> Maybe this is not the best place to make this request... but it is
> now 2012 and there have been great advances in technologies that have
> superseded email mailing lists.
> Could we not transfer this wonderful mailing list to a more 21 century
> friendly format?
> 
> I am sure you probably get a lot of duplicated questions that take
> your time away from development just to answer some simple queries
> that have shown up time and time again.
> 
> A new medium (with better search and collaboration features) would be
> very welcome by us users and I am sure by you as developers.
> 

Hi Duarte,

In my not so humble opinion, email is by far the best way to direct
questions to developers.  From the developer's point of view, email is
better than having to go to a particular site or other web page, and
it's far better than having an instant messaging or #irc window pop up
while you're trying to think.

There are sites like biostar (http://www.biostars.org/) that accepts
questions about Ensembl, and some Ensembl people monitor it.  That might
be what you're looking for.

No matter how simple the question and how accessable the answer, it will
be asked again and again.  I recently asked a question to our local
helpdesk that is answered in the standard log-in message that I see
every single time I log into our systems.

> I think these are the main features we would all welcome:
> 
> 
> 1)      Search and tag capabilities

The mail archive is here:

  http://lists.ensembl.org/pipermail/dev/

It is searchable by google, just search for e.g.

  'VEP predictor' site:http://lists.ensembl.org/pipermail/dev/

in the google search interface at google.com

> 
> 2)      Realtime Q&A

Why?

> 
> 3)      Some sort of social integration (not facebook PLEASE)

Why?

> 
> 4)      Exportable (it need be) and backupable (if that is even a word :) )

We back up our data, no worries.


Cheers,
Andreas


> 
> I know that probably there are some licensing issues to be overcome but the increase in productivity would probably offset most of the initial pain.
> 
> I would love to know your opinion on this.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Duarte Molha
> 

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-- 
Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri
Ensembl Gene Annotation Team

:wq