Why are there no really good biology forums?

[ByoWired]

I've used a number of science forums over the years and I've found
there are some excellent forums for physics and electronics and such,
which have very active communities where newbies can post questions
and get plenty of help and where experts can post polls, etc. and get
lots of responses from newbies, etc. But I don't see (or can't find)
the same sort of forum in the biology world. And I find that strange
because biology, to me, seems like a very hands-on sort of activity in
which even amateurs armed with hand lenses can get involved with pond
water, etc. Or, for example, if a researcher wanted samples of soil
from, say, all around some beach, newbies could jump in and help.

But instead of one good grand biology forum, there seem to be numerous
crappy ones that have little activity and no real intense
communities. Even this DIY bio group seems to be dominated by a
handful of individuals and doesn't seem very lively to me. I've asked
experts and dullards alike, and yet nobody has been able to direct me
to a good, lively forum serving a broad community.

Is it true no such forums exist? or is there some sort of secret
underground forum that only the Elect are permitted to enter?

[CoryG]

> And I find that strange
> because biology, to me, seems like a very hands-on sort of activity in
> which even amateurs armed with hand lenses can get involved with pond
> water, etc.

I think thats part of the problem - the field is new (in terms of
mapping it well enough for synthetic bio to be done at least) - but
the running joke for many years has been that biologists aren't really
scientists, and most aren't. It's hard for there to be a well defined
answer in a corpus of information that is constantly evolving and even
when just shooting for basic laws, there aren't many direct answers
I've seen for anyone to give

> But instead of one good grand biology forum, there seem to be numerous
> crappy ones that have little activity and no real intense
> communities.  Even this DIY bio group seems to be dominated by a
> handful of individuals and doesn't seem very lively to me.  I've asked
> experts and dullards alike, and yet nobody has been able to direct me
> to a good, lively forum serving a broad community.

This is the best physics forum I know of - and it does have a biology
sections, but as you can see the topics aren't nearly on par with the
ones that come up here:
http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=82

[John Griessen]

On 04/30/2011 11:42 PM, ByoWired wrote:
> is there some sort of secret
> underground forum that only the Elect are permitted to enter?

There are so many kinds of biologists... How could they all use one service?

JG

[Nathan McCorkle]

I don't see you post much around here, so seems to me you just might
not have any good questions to ask.

There are plenty of forums though regarding protocols and research of
all different kinds, ever been on ResearchGate? Its got a good spread
of topics, but I honestly find most of what I am looking for here,
with the limited time I have to think about things other than with
school.

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--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[ByoWired]

On May 1, 1:03 am, CoryG <c...@geesaman.com> wrote:
> >... It's hard for there to be a well defined

> answer in a corpus of information that is constantly evolving and even
> when just shooting for basic laws, there aren't many direct answers

> I've seen for anyone to give...

Which is exactly why a community would be of great benefit. After
all, if all you needed to do is go to a library or Google something to
get an answer, you wouldn't need to ask a group of people who are
actively involved in the field. But, speaking as an outsider to
biology, it seems to me that biology is, comparatively speaking, a
very messy enterprise, with all sorts of different recipes for media,
alternate ways of growing microbes, etc. etc. and getting answers from
lots of people would be the best way to keep on top of the constantly
evolving "corpus" you mentioned.

John Griessen <j...@industromatic.com> wrote:
> There are so many kinds of biologists... How could they all use one service?

Since the invention of internet forum software, there have been
methods developed that allow single websites to handle different
categories - and sub categories - and sub sub sub sub sub categories -
of discussion. CoryG mentioned one of the physics forums, which does
an excellent job of this. Consider visiting that website to see one
way that it can be done. Unless, of course, you're talking about "so
many kinds of biologists" from other galaxies. In which case, I have
no clue.

Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't see you post much around here, so seems to me you just might
> not have any good questions to ask.

I thought I just asked one. But apparently, based on your response,
people on this group must post mass quantities in order to have good
questions to ask.

Sorry I wasted your time.

[CoryG]

> I thought I just asked one.  But apparently, based on your response,
> people on this group must post mass quantities in order to have good
> questions to ask.

That wasn't really a biology question you asked.

[Cory Tobin]

protocol-online is very active, although it may not be classified as
"lively" discussion. I just go there to discuss protocols, no chit
chat. It's just as friendly to newbies as any internet forum - some
responders will be friendly and welcoming while other will be brash
and hostile.

http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/
and the archives:
http://www.protocol-online.org/biology-forums/

This one has a wider array of topics than just lab protocols but is less active.
http://www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/

-cory

[Freiburg-iGEM2011]

I agree to byowired. It is indeed strange that there is no proper
forum.
This mailing list does not really compensate such an institution. Very
good to get tech news,
inspiration from others and to have ideas commented.
However, it is has way too short attention spans, is a topic out of
sight nobody replies any more..and this happens quickly.
And, by the way, it feels that it is getting more and more populated
by electronics discussions.
Its nice that people from other fields involve, but I feel a lack of
actual biological topics.

[J. S. John]

This is what I'll point out. This question is very relevant. I think
what most of these forums are for asking HW questions. Is there
something like this mailing list where I can ask anything biology
related and even a general science question? Is the forum environment
conducive to asking questions freely? Are the people friendly and
supportive?

I took a look at http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/ and it seems
nice but I think it's too fractured. Do we really have to break
biology down that much? The problem with that is that while I may have
time to go through 2 or 3 sub-fora, I can't waste time reading through
the almost 50 fora I found there.

From my experience, I have used forums to basically learn about cars,
computers, and watches. I asked alot of noob questions and the people
really helped me learn more than I could by just reading. I now feel
comfortable working in these hobbies. In the sciences, I used the
physicsforum and chemicalforums but mostly to help with homework. I
found the response time at chemicalforums to be very slow and only a
few responses due to lack of overall activity.

I haven't found anything better than DIYbio listserv which is why I'm
still here.

[leaking pen]

Thats the beauty of a forum. subforums

[Reason]

Sounds to me like some of you should set up a StackExchange site. The
bioinformatics folk have:

http://biostar.stackexchange.com/

I believe there is another chem-bio StackExchange, but it doesn't seem
terribly well trafficked. If you're going to do this, it should go through
the Area 51 process:

http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq

and for preference support the existing general biology proposal:

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/12502/biology

The rest is up to you: organization, advocacy, etc. If there's demand, it'll
happen.

Reason

[leaking pen]

Thats.. A really clunky q and a interface, not a discussion forum.

[John Griessen]

On 05/01/2011 10:41 AM, leaking pen wrote:
> Thats the beauty of a forum. subforums

Forums seem to attract narrow specialists.

Diybio isn't very specialized, so subforums might not get enough participants.
I like mail lists over forums, since forums always demand a login and make money
off of your participation in some cheesy way like ads on the right, above, below,
wiggling inward from the right was THE most annoying ad I encountered ever.

JG

[Andrew Barney]

> Forums seem to attract narrow specialists.

I think John may be on to something. The hard part is probably
attracting knowledgeable people to the forum.

I think the mailing lists in general do a pretty good job, but there
are times when it seems like they are limited in some way. I don't
know if a forum would be able to solve this or not. Maybe someone
should try starting their own and seeing if it works. I don't know
much about setting up your own forum, but i assume if you host it
yourself you wont have to display ads. phpbb seems like it might be a
good one. I've seen a few forums that use that, and I've never seen
ads on their forums.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 12:19 PM, Andrew Barney wrote:

know if a forum would be able to solve this or not. Maybe someone
should try starting their own and seeing if it works. I don't know

add it to the never-ending list..

http://o-bio.org/forums/ (has a mailing-list-to-forum gateway)
http://pearlbiotech.com/diybio/ (spammed often)
http://pearlbiotech.com/discuss/
http://diybio.biz/forum/ (spam)

this one was started by nathan iirc?
http://diybioforum.org/ (defunct)

this one is also defunct:
http://diybio.org/forums/
http://diybio.org/blog/the-new-diybio-forums

then there's this:
http://biopunk.org/

and:
http://biohack.me/

Everyone and their mom's dog wants to convert mailing lists to forums or the other way around-- and it's funny, because Jake has been the only one to actually bother with a mail2forum gateway for diybio. Annnd then nobody used it.

http://o-bio.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4437

Anyway, there's your whirlwind tour of failed/struggling diybio forums.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Gavin Scott]

One of my favorite internet "forums" is the USENET group comp.arch.fpga (which is probably familiar to quite a few people here since it's about programming and engineering with Field Programmable Gate Array chips that provide "software defined hardware"). I mention it though not because of the subject, but because it shares certain similarities to DIYbio. It's a cross-discipline subject as it involves both software and hardware as well as software defining hardware, so you find hardware people doing programming for the first time, software people having to learn about hardware, etc.

Also, FPGA chips are very popular with hobbyists, inventors, etc., as well as professionals (since many people find the idea of making hardware simply by writing software very empowering in a way that will feel very familiar to any reader of DIYbio I suspect).

Because of the inter-disciplinary nature of that group, even the most serious/professional posters are often asking relatively noobish questions, since almost everyone has areas they aren't expert in, yet find themselves responsible for. It's also often a much more generalist discussion, even though the underlying topics involve very detailed specifics, something that's very important for new people trying to integrate themselves with the group. All these things result in a much higher than average tolerance for non-experts, and promote an environment into which the amateur/hobbyist/student can fit into comfortably. 

For these reasons and others, it is one of the highest signal-to-noise ratio groups that I've followed, and my hope would be that the DIY Bio community would be able to offer a very similar environment. I would (personally, but I'm nobody particularly interesting) love to see people have more general biology or science discussions here. 

The key to a vibrant community is, I think, mostly a shared interest or background between the participants, and not so much the actual topics of discussion. Common goals, interests, and ways of thinking are what keeps a group together and functional. And of course a group is nothing more than the sum of its participants and most importantly those frequent contributors who define and demonstrate the culture and the behavioral norms for the group. They are the medium in which that "culture" develops and hopefully thrives.

If you're reading this list via email, you might consider looking at the latest native Google Groups view occasionally:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/diybio

which is pretty much like a single-topic web forum and provides a relatively pleasant way to look at threads etc.

A significant problem with any forum (including mailing lists) is getting a critical mass of mind-share to bootstrap them. You can't just go create a web-forum and come say "Hey guys, I created this really cool place for us all to hang out" because people just won't go there (especially if there's already a "here" that they would have to leave. So even accurately identifying all the problems with all the existing fora may do little to help you solve those problems.

G.

[Gavin Scott]

On Sunday, May 1, 2011 10:08:49 AM UTC-7, John Griessen wrote:

Forums seem to attract narrow specialists.

Diybio isn't very specialized, so subforums might not get enough participants.

Too many sub-forums is, I think, one of the worst mistakes you can make in setting up discussion groups. People honestly don't want to have to look in multiple places for stuff that might be interesting to them. It's MUCH better (IMHO) to have to weed through stuff that's uninteresting in a single forum rather than have to read multiple forums (where you end up having to weed out just as much), having to remember which sub-forum a topic you're following is in etc.

There's something that happens to most startup companies: you begin in a dingy office space (or garage) where everyone works together in one big room and knows what everyone else is doing, can listen to (half of) phone conversations etc. As soon as you start being successful, you'll move into larger/real office space and what does everyone want? An office. Suddenly your company's effectiveness drops by 50% or more because you've broken the communication channels between your employees. What seems like an unproductive annoyance (having to listen to everything that's going on) turns out to be one of the most valuable things you can have.

Do not underestimate the power of the One Big Room(tm), even if it is suboptimal in lots of other ways.

G.

[CoryG]

Well as long as we're on the topic of trying to adjust the methods we
use for communication - just think how much more unproductive we could
all be with an undernet IRC channel that spammed hourly chat logs to
everyone and posted anything around a questionmark to an auto-
generated QA forum online? lol

[Bryan Bishop]

There's a few IRC channels worth mentioning..

irc.freenode.net ##hplusroadmap (~40 to 60/day participants)
irc.freenode.net #diybio (avg. 5 participants- but mostly because the other channel is more active)
irc.wutnet.net #biohack (for the biohack.me site)
and there's #biopunk somewhere but I don't remember..

##hplusroadmap logs:
http://gnusha.org/logs/

No spambot though :-(.

[John Griessen]

On 05/01/2011 02:08 PM, Gavin Scott wrote:
> if you're reading this list via email, you might consider looking at the latest

native Google Groups view occasionally:

Mozilla Thunderbird email reader, (And others I've heard), lets you choose to vies emails in threaded form
the same way. And you don't have to go to a site and log in.

JG

[Raj Venkat]

Why are you trying to mudddy the forums? If it is not your cup of tes please start anew forum.Don't stipulate rules as if u have mastered genetics?If you give innuendoes like secret forums etc we are not going to listen to that as you say the forum is crappy
Venkat

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[CoryG]

> Why are you trying to mudddy the forums?

I have to agree with Raj on this one - my last post on this thread was
pure sarcasm - though for what its worth I did think the freenode IRC
server sounded cool enough to check out - about 40 bots sitting in the
room with no response when I signed in.

[Jonathan Street]

Was this you?

22:44 -!- CoryG [~Co...@cpe-74-78-53-101.maine.res.rr.com] has joined ##hplusroadmap
22:44 < CoryG> wow, lots here
22:45 -!- CoryG [~Co...@cpe-74-78-53-101.maine.res.rr.com] has left ##hplusroadmap []

If so do you really think one minute was long enough to gauge the potential value of the channel?

It isn't a very high traffic channel but if you have an irc client open anyway I think it is worthwhile maintaining a presence as there is occasionally an interesting discussion. 

I can't even begin to guess why you think there are 40 bots in the channel.

--

[CoryG]

> I can't even begin to guess why you think there are 40 bots in the channel.

I haven't used IRC since the days when the nicks not talking were bots.

[Jonathan Street]

Interesting.  It would appear there is something of a generational gap here.

I expect most people in a channel to be idling whilst doing other things.  Even in a channel with a couple hundred people it isn't unusual for there to be a 5-10 minute gap between discussions.

On 2 May 2011 15:22, CoryG <co...@geesaman.com> wrote:

> I can't even begin to guess why you think there are 40 bots in the channel.

I haven't used IRC since the days when the nicks not talking were bots.

--

[CoryG]

> Interesting.  It would appear there is something of a generational gap here.

I'd hope to have just been on at a younger age...I'm only 26

[leaking pen]

I've used IRC since '90 through a local bbs, and bot has, in irc,
usenet, and any other conversational avenue, ALWAYS meant robot, and
were fake users that were either there to perform administrative
duties through scripting, or there to spam or harrass, again, through
scripting. It's NEVER been a term for nicks not talking. I think you
may have misunderstood something at some point.

Alexander

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 7:22 AM, CoryG <co...@geesaman.com> wrote:
>> I can't even begin to guess why you think there are 40 bots in the channel.
>
> I haven't used IRC since the days when the nicks not talking were bots.
>

[mad_casual]

I think it's an age/cultural thing. When I was a teenager or student
with nothing to do, I didn't sign in to IRC unless I was going to
talk. Now that I'm older (kids, house, job, etc.), I'll sign in, walk
away, come back, answer, walk away... Somewhere between a direct
conversation (direct text or phone call) and email. It annoys the hell
out of my younger brother (no kids, apartment).

[CoryG]

> It's NEVER been a term for nicks not talking. I think you
> may have misunderstood something at some point.

Maybe I am getting old - bots were originally made to keep hold of
channels - I stopped using it before spam bots - just as stuff like
modded versions of MircX made for attacks came out and it got reduced
to a bunch of 10 year olds lauching attacks at eachother.

[doctor.perkins]

Have you tried the Science Advisory Board at http://www.scienceboard.net
? I think it's worth exploring...
DP

[ByoWired]

On May 2, 8:53 pm, "doctor.perkins" <doctor.perk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you tried the Science Advisory Board athttp://www.scienceboard.net
> ?

Thanks, I'll have to check it out in more detail. At first glance -
at least they have a forum format.
Trying to discuss things on these Google Groups sometimes feels like
conversing through a keyhole.

[Inigo Howlett]

I tend to think of IRC as a forgotten technology that was adopted by a
lot
of people in the 90s, dropped off immensely as easier to use services
(AIM) came along, and is now the internet's
equivalent of shortwave radio. Yes, it works, it's kinda cool in a
retro way, but the only people on there have been on there
since 1997.

[David Bikard]

Having a stackexchange for biology would be great! I encourage you all
to support this proposal:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/12502/biology

And if you don't know about stackexchange yet, visit stackoverflow.com
to get an idea of how great such a platform is!

David

On May 2, 10:41 am, Jonathan Street <streetjonat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting.  It would appear there is something of a generational gap here.
>
> I expect most people in a channel to be idling whilst doing other things.
> Even in a channel with a couple hundred people it isn't unusual for there to
> be a 5-10 minute gap between discussions.
>

[JonathanCline]

On Apr 30, 9:42 pm, ByoWired <byowi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is it true no such forums exist? or is there some sort of secret
> underground forum that only the Elect are permitted to enter?

The USENET molecular biology group and related were active before
USENET became completely spammed, and while the human genome project
was ramping, now only sporatically active: sci.bio.*

Recall that many bio types seem to choose the bio path due to
disinterest/dislike of the math/computer domain, whereas it is
typically required by physics (especially high energy) and EE.

There are also Biotechniques' forums, which are regularly active:
http://molecularbiology.forums.biotechniques.com/



## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
########################

[ByoWired]

On May 9, 8:56 pm, JonathanCline <jncl...@gmail.com> wrote:


> Recall that many bio types seem to choose the bio path due to
> disinterest/dislike of the math/computer domain, whereas it is
> typically required by physics (especially high energy) and EE.

You bring up an interesting point. Some of the first people to get
involved with the internet were high energy physics people and, of
course, computer nerds. Consequently, these groups developed avenues
of communication that were established very early on and remained
strong throughout the decades that followed. Because biological
forums, etc. started much later, there were probably a lot more of
them when they finally got involved with the internet and therefore
they now suffer quite a bit from fragmentation, not to mention idiotic
comments like "seems to me you just might not have any good questions
to ask."

I'm not sure how you solve the problem of fragmentation once it has
happened. There needs to be strong incentive for experienced,
knowledgeable people to be on the forum from the beginning - people
who are willing to help others and who have an incentive to keep doing
so. It's probably easy to start up a forum and populate it with
dorks, but then, at its best, it's forever just a bunch of older dorks
leading newer dorks around in circles.

Thanks for the link to the Biotechniques' forums. :-)

[Bryan Bishop]

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 9:18 PM, ByoWired wrote:

I'm not sure how you solve the problem of fragmentation once it has
happened.  There needs to be strong incentive for experienced,
knowledgeable people to be on the forum from the beginning - people
who are willing to help others and who have an incentive to keep doing
so.  It's probably easy to start up a forum and populate it with
dorks, but then, at its best, it's forever just a bunch of older dorks
leading newer dorks around in circles.

If you want to go the routes of incentives, one of the biological supply companies should setup a mandatory online forum, or make it a discount deal. Everyone buys from the major suppliers, so they could get critical mass fairly fast. But as far as I know most of the supply companies are in an older part of their lifecycle and don't really need this.

I'm not really sure why Nature's online discussions aren't what you'd think they would be.

[ByoWired]

On May 9, 10:23 pm, Bryan Bishop <kanz...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I'm not really sure why Nature's online discussions aren't what you'd think
> they would be.

I'm sorry, Bryan, somehow I must have missed this. Did you post a
link to this? or could you provide it again?
I've poked around Nature's website and found this: http://network.nature.com/forums

Is that it?

[Bryan Bishop]

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 10:01 PM, ByoWired <byow...@gmail.com> wrote:

link to this?  or could you provide it again?
I've poked around Nature's website and found this: http://network.nature.com/forums

Is that it?

Um, that might be it. To my knowledge there have been a few different services run by Nature; sometimes it's in the comments sections inside of their blogs, other times it's in these private little areas, and I guess there's that /forums service too. Who knows.

[Phil]

I like BioForum:

http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/index.php