[Biopython] suggestion: moving to the discussion list to Google groups

[Giovanni Marco Dall'Olio]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:26 PM, Peter <biopython at maubp.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Istvan Albert <iua1 at psu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> The alternative such as Google groups would be far superior in
>> attracting and building a community of developers and users as well.
>> Is this an idea that  the owners of the list would entertain?
>>
>
> As far as I can tell from the limited documentation I found on
> Google Groups (maybe I was looking in the wrong place?) there
> is no way to import our existing decade long mail archives.
> That would be a major downside.


It seems that you can use a google/group to archive the messages from
a remote mailing list, but you can't import the older messages to the
google group:
- http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46387

Maybe you can give it a try: just create a group on google and use it
as a mirror for the current mailing list. This way google users will
be able to use the google interface to search and read messages, but
they won't be able to post messages by mail. It won't arm anyone to
have a mirror of the messages in GG, except that it may be a bit
confusing for new users.

About other possibilities, it seems that there is not yet a way to
import a whole archive go GG:
- http://groups.google.com/group/Groups-Suggestions/browse_thread/thread/3eb3ed32dee6b97e

I have tried google/wave (I have invitations if anyone wants) but
please, avoid to switch to it yet because it is still very very buggy
and it will take them at least one year or so to make it useful.


> Also, using Google Groups would *require* all posters to have
> a Google Account - a potential sticking point for some.

I am still not sure about this: it seems that you can subscribe with
another address if you are invited, but you have to create a google
account (not necessarily a google mail) to subscribe to it manually.

It is a nice idea to switch to a fancier program for managing the
list, but maybe it would require too much time to switch to
google/groups.

>
> Peter
>
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>



-- 
Giovanni Dall'Olio, phd student
Department of Biologia Evolutiva at CEXS-UPF (Barcelona, Spain)

My blog on bioinformatics: http://bioinfoblog.it