Talk:NAR 2007 Database Paper

From MetaBase

Jump to: navigation, search

MetaBase has been rejected from submission to the NAR 2007 Database Issue on the grounds of being unsuitable for consideration for submission (primarily because the project is so new, and because first impressions probably count for a lot ;-)


[edit] Initial request 


from		Dan Bolser <dan.bolser@gmail.com>
to		nardatabase@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
date		01-Jul-2007 11:52
subject		Suitability of proposed submission.

Hi,

I am writing to "check the suitability of [my] proposed submission by
July 1st at the latest." I hope!

I plan to submit a database description for my new 'database
database', called 'MetaBase'. MetaBase is a user contributed database
of biological databases and bio-resources. In the description I will
define the design goals of MetaBase, as well as the current
implementation details and plans for future directions. The focus will
be on the 'user contributed' aspect of this database.

You may notice some similarities between MetaBase and the NAR Database
issue itself. In fact I am using your "Database Description" and "Web
Server Description" databases to 'seed' my user contributed database.

I am not sure of the proper format for this proposal, so below is some
text that will be (broadly) included in the database description.
Please feel free to look at (or even contribute to) the current
database system, which is running here;

http://biodatabase.org


Thanks very much for your consideration, and sorry for the
'last-minute' arrival of this email!

Yours  sincerely,

Dan Bolser.





DESCRIPTION

At the most basic level, MetaBase is a user-contributed list of all
the biological databases available on the internet. For this reason,
the MetaBase can be considered a 'database database', hence the name.

In detail, MetaBase aims to fulfil the following list of requirements;
   * As a basic requirement, the MetaBase will contain a list of
databases, URLs and descriptions of the most commonly used biological
databases currently available on the internet.
   * The MetaBase should be flexible, allowing many users to
contribute, update and maintain the data. The data management software
should be flexible, allowing a continuous growth of the range and
scope of databases and database information.
   * The MetaBase should be 'classifiable'. That is to say that it
should not contain just one fixed database classification scheme, but
many. Potentially any user could create his or her own classification
of databases according to any criteria, and those classifications
should be available to everyone.
   * The MetaBase should be extensible, allowing, for example,
scientific papers to be linked to the databases through a variety of
relationships.
   * The MetaBase should provide an up-to-date source of biological
database information, as well as tools for gathering database usage
and quality information from the biological community.
   * The MetaBase should facilitate more communication between the
database developer and user communities.
   * Potentially the MetaBase could be used as a source of 'genuine'
meta-data for data integration projects.
   * The MetaBase should be published in a suitable open access journal.

This list of requirements should not be considered static. The
MetaBase aims to be a flexible, user-driven (user-created) resource
for the biological database community. The above aims can be
constantly revised to meet new requirements as they arise.



CURRENT STATUS

The above list of requirements was found to fit very well with the
feature set provided by MediaWiki. For this reason, the MetaBase has
been implemented using MediaWiki (version 1.10.0) and is currently
hosted on BiO.

The initial release of MetaBase was derived entirely from the content
of the Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) 2007 Database Issue. Specifically,
each MetaBase database page was 'seeded' with text from the 'Database
Summaries' provided by NAR. For more information see the NAR license.



FUTURE PLANS

Some loosely organized ideas about directions for MetaBase;
   * Build and deploy some decent database / web resource templates
like on WikiPedia.
   * Categorize (classify) the databases / web resources by
geographic location.
   * Define a standard way for each user to link to 'favourite
databases', so that we can use this information later.
   * Implement a 'user review' system for critically assessing
databases and web resources.
   * 'The "Documentation" project'. (Why not?)
   * ...


[edit] Rejection reply 


from		Alex Bateman <agb@sanger.ac.uk>
to		Dan Bolser <dan.bolser@gmail.com>
cc		nardatabase@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
date		12-Jul-2007 15:27
subject		Re: Suitability of proposed submission.

Dear Dan,

Thanks for your interest in the NAR database issue.  This sounds like an
interesting project, however I think that I would want to let it mature
for a year or so.  For this to be successful you will need to build
community input.  I would want some demonstration of that before I
considered a submission.  There are many community projects that sounded
great but noone ever contributed to them and now they lay covered in dust.

Also I was not able to access your given URL and got the following error:

<?php

/**
 * This is the main web entry point for MediaWiki.
 *
 * If you are reading this in your web browser, your server is probably
 * not configured correctly to run PHP applications!
 *
 * See the README, INSTALL, and UPGRADE files for basic setup instructions
 * and pointers to the online documentation.
 *
 * http://www.mediawiki.org/
 *
 * ----------

etc, etc.

So I would recommend that you contact me next year with a demonstration
that MetaBase was being actively curated and used.

Yours sincerely
Alex Bateman
Retrieved from "http://Biodatabase.org/index.php/Talk:NAR_2007_Database_Paper"
Personal tools
See also: