[Biopython-dev] Biopython on Twitter

[Brad Chapman]

Hi Peter;
Thanks for the feedback. I was definitely not being critical of your
postings, or fishing for extra jobs for myself. On the contrary, I
was inspired by the news items and brainstorming some ways to get
additional people involved.

People who express an interest in Biopython and don't get involved
often list the following reasons:

- Not feeling like they are technically able to contribute. Perhaps
  they are just learning Python, or don't feel comfortable with the
  Biopython library itself.

- Traditional academics doesn't offer recognition for contributing to
  open source projects. While we can't change academics, we can try
  and come up with ways to improve the visibility of contributors and
  make sure they are recognized in the larger bioinformatics
  community.

My thought was that a "news coordinator" would give one or more
interested people a chance to help the community, learn more about
Biopython by being involved, and also increase name recognition for
everyone coding, bug fixing and discussing.

In terms of how it is done, those were only my random suggestions.
Certainly if someone took it up they could be as creative as they
want about how to go about it.

Brad


> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 2:06 AM, Brad Chapman <chapmanb at 50mail.com> wrote:
> > Hi all;
> > It is great we are exploring getting news out about Biopython in
> > additional ways. One thing this can really help with is recognizing
> > contributions to Biopython. Another is pointing out interesting
> > discussion threads on the mailing lists and getting others involved.
> 
> Do you think the recent release notes and NEWS file entries have been
> a bit too impersonal?  We can certainly be a bit more explicit if people
> that is a good thing. For example, should we mention Bartek by name
> in the paragraph on the new Bio.Motif module?
> 
> This is linked to from the wiki's news page BTW:
> http://biopython.open-bio.org/SRC/biopython/NEWS
> http://cvs.biopython.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/viewcvs.cgi/biopython/NEWS?cvsroot=biopython
> 
> > Do you think it would be worthwhile to "advertise" on the main list
> > for someone interested in coordinating news and communication?
> > ... Perhaps there are members who are interested in Biopython and
> > follow what is going on but aren't coders. This would be a way to
> > get involved, ...
> 
> Are you up for the job yourself Brad?  From your own blog we know
> you can and do write regularly anyway ;)   Would you like an account
> on the OBF news server? Email me off list and we can sort that out.
> 
> In terms of micro-blogging via twitter, you sound like you have a better
> feel for this than me - I don't even have a personal twitter account.
> 
> Monthly news posts (perhaps cc'd to the announcement email list)
> would be a nice idea - especially if we can encourage more lurkers
> to speak up.  For a while BioPerl had something like this going
> (digest emails or something), but it needs a pretty dedicated person
> or team.  In the meantime as you've noticed I've started making
> more use of our news facility myself...
> 
> Peter