All Questions
126
questions
5
votes
5
answers
118
views
Make tags [sam] and [bam] synonyms
SAM and BAM are effectively plain-text and binary representations of the same alignment format. I'd argue these terms should be synonyms.
UPDATE: It doesn't look like we've reached a consensus, but I ...
- 5,060
6
votes
1
answer
53
views
Make tags [mapping] and [read mapping] synonyms
The topic of read mapping is a sufficiently distinct subset of the more general class of sequence alignment topics to warrant a dedicated tag. However, we should collapse ...
- 5,060
3
votes
1
answer
117
views
Essential questions about our site [closed]
Looking for help I found this post about the beta sites essential questions that need to be answered. Now, that we will go to public beta soon, we could decide when to answer them:
Are questions ...
- 4,693
10
votes
3
answers
139
views
Serving as a "support forum" for specific tools
One of the nice features of biostars is that the site is open to people using it as a forum for supporting their own tools (i.e., as a replacement for a tool-specific email list). The tool authors ...
- 19.6k
22
votes
8
answers
664
views
Accepting Nominations — Who should moderate this site? [duplicate]
Ideally, Moderators♦ are elected by the community, but until the community is large enough to hold a proper election, we will be appointing three provisional Moderators to fill those roles.
We need ...
- 100
3
votes
3
answers
125
views
Why is not BIoinformatics.SE part of Biology.SE?
I found this post on Biology.SE meta and it rises a fair point. Why we have to separate in different SE site? Why bioinformatics is not a part of biology? Is there any actual advantage of being split? ...
- 5,517
7
votes
1
answer
99
views
Are stories useful for bioinformatics questions?
I've just had a look at the fastest FASTA/FASTQ question, and felt that it was a bit lacking in substance. It was an answerable, specific question, and all the answers seem to concentrate on a single ...
gringerMod
- 13.8k
15
votes
3
answers
249
views
Please refrain from closing proper but imperfect questions so quickly
I have been thinking about this for a while. This recently on-hold question really touches my nerve. The question is put on hold due to being too "broad". I will use it as an example to explain my ...
- 6,485
11
votes
2
answers
168
views
Computational biology but not gene sequences?
I see that this site is focused on sequencing and genomics. I'm wondering if other fields that combine computations and biology are on-topic. Such as:
molecular dynamics simulations,
analyzing 3d ...
- 1,261
26
votes
4
answers
881
views
Is there a large enough community to sustain this site?
Update:
This site has passed the final evaluation! Barring any technical delays, Bioinformatics SE should go public sometime this week.
Great work everyone!
(original post)
Spread the word. In less ...
- 100
7
votes
1
answer
134
views
Is it okay to ask questions regarding being a bioinformatician?
I was wondering if the Bioinformatics SE is a good place to post questions relating to the process of research in bioinformatics.
Example:
What is the proper way to format a PK/PD model for a ...
6
votes
0
answers
64
views
Standard language for comments asking for an improved question?
One of the first things I needed to learn when coming to SO for the first time was how to ask a good question. I suspect I'm not alone in this. I was fortunate to have responses to my first (poorly ...
- 298
14
votes
2
answers
193
views
Should we allow questions about biology?
How do we feel about questions about biological principles that can be confusing to a bioinformatician with no background in biology? While purely biological questions should, I think, be off topic ...
terdonMod
- 9,662
4
votes
3
answers
123
views
Should the first go an answer or comments?
I personally believe that community should offer the answer for the question before any other (even relevant) comment. I opening this thread, because one of the most upvoted answers is starting with ...
- 5,517
20
votes
1
answer
133
views
Can we have syntax highlighting?
It seems that language syntax highlighting is not working.
As I think we will have many answers involving small code fragments. Is it possible to enable this?
Few examples: 1, 2.
I used ...
- 2,725
7
votes
1
answer
77
views
How much this site is/ going to be on-topic to bio student lacking a proper IT and stat base?
I felt like if anyone have to learn bioinformatics in the 'proper' way, conceptually; then a base of statistics, data-modelling and computer-programing is a prerequisite. But biology students of most ...
- 183
2
votes
1
answer
50
views
How do we avoid (welcome?) link-only answers?
For example, below post has 2 answers that are almost link-only-answers ^1 .
Improve a reference genome with sequencing data ^2
Maybe it is OK? Or would questions asking for a tool should simply be ...
- 1,042
10
votes
2
answers
76
views
Q&A-Style Answering Own Question
Since the site is in beta, and the idea is to develop a core of high-quality questions: should we be posting what we think are good questions which we ourselves know the answers to?
For example, I ...
- 2,133
8
votes
3
answers
139
views
Migrating bioinformatics questions from other SE sites
There are a host of Bioinformatics questions on StackOverflow, CrossValidated, and probably other SE sites as well.
Many of these questions would now be better placed here than on the site they were ...
- 2,133
15
votes
1
answer
234
views
What to do with answers inspired by BioStars?
Out of curiosity I followed the first of Pierre's BioStars links from the comments on the FASTA lengths question, and noticed that our currently accepted answer bears a strong resemblance to this ...
- 772
9
votes
1
answer
118
views
Testing the boundaries of good questions?
In general, if you are unsure whether a question is the sort of thing we are going to want to see here, is it better to ask it on the main site and see if it gets closed, or enquire on meta first if ...
- 3,301
20
votes
2
answers
153
views
Can we have math layouting?
Several other communities (in particular Stats and Biology, which are closely related to Biofx.SE) have MathJax support.
This would be highly desirable here as well, since pseudocode and equations ...
- 4,845
18
votes
0
answers
107
views
Let’s standardise some tags
Let’s standardise some tags.
For instance, there are already two competing conventions at work:
rna-seq
scrnaseq
Either both should use a dash, or none should.
I propose the slightly more readable ...
- 4,845
7
votes
3
answers
190
views
Interacting with other Q&A communities
When the proposal of Bioinformatics started there was a discussion in Biostars about the this site (and SE in general compared to Biostars). Some of the points raised are:
Unfriendly community, ...
- 4,693
7
votes
1
answer
128
views
Where is the review button?
When I signed up for the site and look up in the part were the review button was suppose to be it wasn't there as indicated by this screen shot here.
This seems kind of weird considering the fact ...
21
votes
3
answers
231
views
What sort of questions are appropriate for Bioinformatics SE?
I have spent a lot of time on StackOverflow and am pretty familiar with the types of questions that are and are not allowed on the site. I am a little unsure as to how well the strict question rules ...
- 429