bbgm - the discussion - Latest Comments in Thinking about biological resources

Re: Thinking about biological resources

that's what weneed: GUIdance — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:34:41 -0000

Hi Deepak
Barend Mons here (Wikiproteins). I know the name used in the Genome Biology paper may be a little confusing. During the review process we already moved to wikiprofessional and what you present as a wish is at least what we are trying to make a reality (long way to go). One comment says that scientists will initially look down their noses. Yes, sure, but we already see quite some registrants and at least the discussion is starting.... Well I believe that separating (but interconnecting) curated and community data (the authoritative source principle) and making annotation immediately useful for the annotators themselves is one way forward. We need a strong discussion forum to improve from what we have an to make this happen, a group of enthusiasts should lock arms I think. There is a lot of talk about wikiproteins and the paper is well viewed, but what we really need is constructive criticism like you give, not the (rare I am happy to say) dismissive blurbs that do not get us anywhere. So, please keep the definition going and give us some directions how to improve GUI and content. We think obviously that the Knowlet approach can capture and present most of the really useful information from all databases (presently working on expression data) and the ability to drill down to the original source is there. We will be very open as a consortium to listen to people like you and make changes. That is what a good Wiki-approach is all about, not just technology, but it should be really community-owned.

Re: Thinking about biological resources

mndoci — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:08:52 -0000

I am with you. I could care less about the actual storage but, and its a big but, there is something to be said for trust. Even I am likely to trust resource A more than resource B, all else being equal.

Regardless of where you choose to store your data, or parts of it, you need to be able to make your resources and your data talk to each other, and that's probably going to be a big deal as these services get mature and they better make sure they make stuff interoperable.

Re: Thinking about biological resources

Jake Good — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:33:09 -0000

So I was talking to my girlfriend a while back about medical records... which is having a similar problem right now. Where you are stuck in a vendor situation... and people are trying to centralize the data (Microsoft / Google)...

The things that *should* be centralized are data formats and messages... so for example, no matter what medical record or genome database you talk to, you can send particular messages and expect that the data sent in and returned is well known...

Who actually stores the data? I could care less... I just want things to be portable (both message passing and the data)...