[OWW-Discuss] Hello list! (I'm new)

[Tom Knight]

The front page could display the users currently in chat, which would  
make going there more enticing (or not, depending  ;-) ...).

On Feb 8, 2008, at 11:30 PM, Jason Kelly wrote:

> One thing that might improve the chat would be to just have the
> "lounge", and not have individual chat pages for different wiki pages.
>  That way anyone who clicks the chat button ends up in the same place.
>
> If chat volume ever got so high it was confusing we could go back to
> the many chat room option, but just having one chat room would
> increase the likelihood of people bumping into each other.
>
> What do people think?  Would anyone care if the page-specific chat
> rooms disappeared?
>
> thanks,
> jason
>
> On Feb 8, 2008 11:20 PM, John Cumbers <johncumbers at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Dan, Bryan, All,
>> You may be interested in the first 'OWW action hour' next week,  
>> Thu 14th
>> Feb, noon-1pm EST.  Where a bunch of people from the Steering  
>> committee will
>> be on-line and either completing their actions or chatting with  
>> others about
>> stuff.  It's the first one, but I presume we'll meet in the chat  
>> room on the
>> main page.
>>  cheers,
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 8, 2008 6:44 PM, Julius Lucks <julius at younglucks.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Dan,
>>>
>>> In addition to what Reshma said:
>>>
>>> Many thanks for your generous feedback!  We would like to  
>>> encourage as
>> much feedback as possible from OWW users to help guide the steering
>> committee.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I also like the chatting feature, but I have yet to meet up with
>>>> anyone online at the same time as me. Is this client an  
>>>> interface to
>>>> an IRC backend? i.e. do you have an IRC server that I can  
>>>> connect to
>>>> with a different client? There are a group of us who hang out in
>>>> irc://irc.freenode.net/#bioinformatics and I imagine some who would
>>>> love to join the conversation.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This is a great point and something we will look into.  If you  
>>> can think
>> of any ways that we might advertise the chatting feature more so  
>> more users
>> use it, that would be great.  One of my main interests is to  
>> figure out how
>> OWW can bring people together more, and I think the chatting  
>> feature is one
>> place that we can do that.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> The main question about the system that I have is this, I was
>>>> wondering why the registration of OpenWetWare is so restrictive  
>>>> - How
>>>> come you don't allow freer editing of pages and content? Perhaps  
>>>> you
>>>> benefit from having more control over your users and more  
>>>> 'restricted'
>>>> content, however, the success of Wikipedia suggests that 'the  
>>>> more the
>>>> better'. I know registration is only a few clicks, along with a  
>>>> slight
>>>> delay, but that will put a lot of people off. Perhaps you think  
>>>> it is
>>>> better to exclude such 'casual' users, but I don't think it is good
>>>> policy. I would like to see more 'open' access to all the  
>>>> features of
>>>> the site.
>>>
>>>
>>> Interesting thoughts.  Basically it boils down to the target  
>>> audience of
>> OWW which is more along the lines of professional scientists and  
>> students of
>> science rather than people casually interested in science.  Of  
>> course anyone
>> is welcome to read and re-use the content of OWW, but we require
>> registration so that we have a solid provenance link between  
>> content and who
>> wrote it.  This is because the information on OWW is primarily  
>> scientific in
>> nature - protocols, experimental plans, experimental data, etc.   
>> We take
>> this very seriously because we want the integrity of the data and  
>> associated
>> discussion on OWW to be as high as possible.  We are even  
>> considering trying
>> to promote OWW contributions as cite-able material in which the  
>> current
>> scientific value system mandates a name to be associated with the  
>> content.
>>>
>>> We also have a slightly different article model than wikipedia -  
>>> rather
>> than having one page per topic, we really have one page per person  
>> per
>> topic.  That is, multiple researchers working on the same topic  
>> will have
>> different views on the topic that should all be equally  
>> represented.  It
>> makes things different enough that we have to consider that when  
>> we talk
>> about how OWW is structured.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I am still exploring the content of the site - there is a lot to  
>>>> look
>>>> at, and for a newbie like me, a lot to take in! It is really  
>>>> great to
>>>> find such a mature project like this, and I am very much enjoying
>>>> moving around the site and finding new content.
>>>
>>>
>>> How are you finding stuff on the site? Internal search engine?  
>>> Google?
>> Following Links? Recent Changes? - We would really appreciate  
>> feedback in
>> this area so that we can improve.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks again,
>>>
>>> Julius
>>> OWW Outreach Chair
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Julius_B._Lucks
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> discuss at openwetware.org
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> John Cumbers,  Graduate Student
>> Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry
>> Biology and Medicine
>> Brown University, Box G-W
>> Providence, Rhode Island, 02912, USA
>>  Tel USA: +1 401 523 8190,  Fax: +1 401 863-2166
>> UK to USA: 0207 617 7824
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>>
>>
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