[Open-bio-l] Fwd: [Utilities-announce] NCBI Revised E-utility Usage Policy

[Peter]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Chris Fields <cjfields at illinois.edu> wrote:
> Andy, Ewan,
>
> Yes, that's what I meant; I do not think a set of defaults is a good idea.

Why? I agree that putting a default project email address in is a bad
idea, but having a default tool seems fine. Perhaps I have misunderstood
you.

If any Biopython/BioPerl user has written a dozen scripts using
Entrez should they really be expected to give them all a (unique) tool
name in the Entrez requests? Having it default to Biopython/BioPerl
seems reasonable to me (in combination with the script writer's email
address).

The whole hassle about registering a tool+email is only if you need your
IP address unblocked, typically if you or someone at your institute or
ISP has previously abused the servers.

Again we come back to the fact the new NCBI guidelines are still
unclear.

> The other advantage to registering them is the list would get immediate
> updates from NCBI when changes occur (instead of finding out about
> them second-hand from other subscribers).  The list is very low traffic.

Well that is an advantage, but in practice having a few people from
each project on the NCBI mailing list isn't a big hassle.

Peter