[BioRuby] BioRuby.org website

[Pjotr Prins]

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 03:29:14PM +0000, Peter Cock wrote:
> I can see why being able to ask questions "in private" might
> lower the barrier to entry, but you will need a dedicated (in the
> sense of committed) and patient team to handle those queries.

Yes. That is one of the intended tasks for the BioRuby panel. We
already are more present on IRC.

> Personally my preference is to encourage people to ask their
> questions on the mailing list in public (they can use a semi-
> anonymous email address if they like, assuming it doesn't
> get flagged as spam - I used to myself once). This means
> the entire development team and all the other users would
> see the question and might help, but also the fact that it is
> open means the question will be searchable by Google etc,
> and can spark useful discussions.
> 
> Sites like http://biostar.stackexchange.com/ work in a similar
> open way but are more question & answer focused. Based
> on the tag usage this isn't yet very popular with BioRuby folk:
> http://biostar.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bioruby
> 
> Do you feel that for many people the potential embarrassment
> of asking a 'silly question' puts people off asking 'in public'?

All these channels are very useful. And used by many. I simply want
new comers to come in, and ask 'Why is Ruby preferred over, say,
Perl?' - rather than have them dig around, so we can offer them an
opiniated reply ;). 

Question from my end: Why not try? I am very much in favour of
experiments. It is my nature.

Pj.