WikiPathways Newsletter: Introduction

[Alex Pico]

= Introducing the WikiPathways Newsletter! =
The WikiPathways Newsletter will announce major changes and updates at
WikiPathways, including new features, new content and community
events. The newsletter will be sent out to the "wikipathways-announce"
mailing list no more than 3 or 4 times a year.

= Announcing the First Organized Community Curation Event at
WikiPathways =
We have new features in place that make it easier than ever to draw
intuitive pathways that are both human-readable and amenable to
computation! Using these new features we are planning to review the
current archive of pathways and perform a major upgrade. The primary
goal will be to connect all lines and arrows to properly represent
graphs in the annotated pathways.
If you are interested in participating in this event, make sure to
join the “wikipathways-discuss” mailing list as we will organize the
effort from there.

= New Features =
A lot of development has been done over the past many months and there
are a lot of new features at WikiPathways:
* Intuitive synonym database search when annotating new genes,
proteins or metabolites
* "Smart" connectors snap to anchors on genes, labels and even other
lines, making it easier to draw a connected pathway
* Assisted routing of lines and arrows using elbows and curves
* Additional batch download options, including numerous data and image
formats
* Active Wish List of suggested pathways needed by the community
* Pre-built User pages to make it easier to personalize your work

= Growing Community =
To help promote and support the growing community of pathway
contributors, curators and consumers, we have added Portal templates.
You can now represent and organize your group’s pathway curation
efforts via an easy-to-make Portal page. For examples of communities
using this feature see:
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Portal:BiGCaT
http://wikipathways.org/index.php/Portal:GenMAPP
Portals can be used to represent organizations, themes, or any
specialized pathway interest. Contact us if you have a community
interested in pathways that might find WikiPathways useful.

= Mailing Lists =
To fill the need for extra discussion around Wikipathways and
Pathvisio without overflowing everybody's inbox, we've split the old
user mailing list in two lists. We currently have three mailing lists.
Make sure you are signed up to the mailing lists that interest you:
-> wikipathways-announce = major announcements by developers of
wikipathways and pathvisio (very low traffic)
-> wikipathways-discuss = discussions among users and developers (new!
- we anticipate moderate traffic)
-> wikipathways-dev = active developers (high traffic)

Note: Your old registration to "wikipathways-user" has automatically
been moved to this announcement list. If you wish to only receive
newsletters like this one, you don't need to do anything. If you wish
to participate in discussions around wikipathways, you can sign up for
the discussion mailing list as well by following this link:
http://groups.google.com/group/wikipathways-discuss

= New Pathways =
We have several new pathways at WikiPathways. See the list below for a
selection of our latest pathways:
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Rattus_norvegicus:Renin_-_Angiotensin_System
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Homo_sapiens:cytochrome_P450
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Caenorhabditis_elegans:RNA_interference_and_miRNA
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Rattus_norvegicus:Catecholamine_synthesis
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Caenorhabditis_elegans:daf-2_or_insuling_signaling_pathway
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Homo_sapiens:Fatty_Acid_Beta-oxidation_BiGCaT
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Homo_sapiens:Osteoblasts
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Homo_sapiens:Osteoclasts