[marcowanger]

When I wrote "letter", I was referring to the one everyone is working on. If you were asking about something else, can you maybe rephrase your question?

OK robs, I understand what you mean.

Why not send the text to Science / Nature first?

In case they reject, we can transform it as the preliminary inquiry for PLoS Comput Editiorial

[robs]

When I wrote "letter", I was referring to the one everyone is working on. If you were asking about something else, can you maybe rephrase your question?

[marcowanger]

Robs, may you send us the letter draft telling us how it ia written first?

[robs]

I wrote the editor of PLoS Computational Biology and asked if he would support our letter. Let's see what his response is.

One more thing I was missing is a title. Any suggestions?

[marcowanger]

Ya, anyone know some editors?

Originally we planned for science/nature letter type. As you said, their response I'd fast, so why not write for it first? (as it is already almost a finished draft)

In parallel, may Robs you help contact PloS's editor?

Thanks.

If you are worried about the number of authors in a nature publication, you could try to submit it as an editorial instead (http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journa...micro2119.html).

In order to decide where to send it to, we need to figure out if someone has contacts to the editor of the respective journal. If you want to submit to Science or Nature, this might be fastest way to get it out or get feedback for interest in the article. If you consider PLoS, I should be able to help out with contacts.

Based on the selected journal, we should take a look at similar letters/editorial/etc. and modify the text based on that. Going forth and back between a short and long text will just waste time.

So, who knows some editors?

[marcowanger]

One more thing we should start thinking about are the publication charges. Will the SEQanswers site admin cover those from the advertisements, or will it be split between the authors, etc.

For the SEQwiki paper, the SEQanswers admin has promised to cover it. For this letter/paper, we may ask again. But don't worry about it for now and write it first. I think whiter it is funded by admin or not won't change our plan.

[robs]

One more thing we should start thinking about are the publication charges. Will the SEQanswers site admin cover those from the advertisements, or will it be split between the authors, etc.

[robs]

If you are worried about the number of authors in a nature publication, you could try to submit it as an editorial instead (http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journa...micro2119.html).

In order to decide where to send it to, we need to figure out if someone has contacts to the editor of the respective journal. If you want to submit to Science or Nature, this might be fastest way to get it out or get feedback for interest in the article. If you consider PLoS, I should be able to help out with contacts.

Based on the selected journal, we should take a look at similar letters/editorial/etc. and modify the text based on that. Going forth and back between a short and long text will just waste time.

So, who knows some editors?

[marcowanger]

This paper is written by Wikigenes member, it is ALSO edited collaboratively at wiki. Go for it!

Robs, perhaps we should consider submitting to PloS comput bio. is there perspective/review type of paper we can submit?

Guess what, let's see current issue of PloS comp bio, the editorial is "ten rules to seek help from online communities"

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1002202

Shall we respond? I think we should.

[marcowanger]

Robs, perhaps we should consider submitting to PloS comput bio. is there perspective/review type of paper we can submit?

Guess what, let's see current issue of PloS comp bio, the editorial is "ten rules to seek help from online communities"

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1002202

Shall we respond? I think we should.

I made a few more changes to shorten the text and remove some of the redundancy. Take a look and see if you are ok with the changes. Without the last sentence (the stats), it would be 289 words now.

Some more comments:

1) The reviewers might ask for the number of active users instead of registered users
2) If you want to make it more useful for students, then you could consider a slightly longer article with more content in an open-access journal such as PLoS Computational Biology (in case the science letter doesn't work out)
3) The last paragraph needs some editing to have a better flow between the first and second sentence
4) I would like to see some future directions at the end as well (maybe collindaven's suggestion, but replace "we" with "seqanswers")

[robs]

I made a few more changes to shorten the text and remove some of the redundancy. Take a look and see if you are ok with the changes. Without the last sentence (the stats), it would be 289 words now.

Some more comments:

1) The reviewers might ask for the number of active users instead of registered users
2) If you want to make it more useful for students, then you could consider a slightly longer article with more content in an open-access journal such as PLoS Computational Biology (in case the science letter doesn't work out)
3) The last paragraph needs some editing to have a better flow between the first and second sentence
4) I would like to see some future directions at the end as well (maybe collindaven's suggestion, but replace "we" with "seqanswers")

[marcowanger]

Hi Marco, robs comments seem good to me too. Instead of the last sentence some form of comment on future prospects might be appropriate.

Perhaps
"In future we aim to facilitate access of information to new users by providing summary pages with links and summaries of various important topics and continue to provide a platform for discourse among isolated groups of experts in many different countries."

"active, strong and sizeable" might be shortened to "active and influential" ?

Agree.

The "active, strong and sizable" term is quoted from reviewer #2's comment to the SEQwiki paper, maybe we can shorten it to "active and influential", but "influential" seems to bold to ourselves?

[colindaven]

Hi Marco, robs comments seem good to me too. Instead of the last sentence some form of comment on future prospects might be appropriate.

Perhaps
"In future we aim to facilitate access of information to new users by providing summary pages with links and summaries of various important topics and continue to provide a platform for discourse among isolated groups of experts in many different countries."

"active, strong and sizeable" might be shortened to "active and influential" ?

[marcowanger]

I just returned from my vacation and think that it is a great idea to write the letter (I have a manuscript in review mentioning seqanswers myself and a reference would be nice).

The term HTS might be ambiguous and should be introduced at its first use, even if it adds 2 additional words ( I changed that in the text along with other minor changes).

I am not sure about the restrictions for references, but you might want to restrict the list to the most important (highest impact factor?) ones.

"The most common search terms leading to SEQanswers include [...]"
I think, this would be in contrast with the broad range of topics covered by the forum.

"and the site is regularly accessed from X countries all over the world"
The mentioning of the more than 20,000 users and "targets a wide audience" should speak for itself and you might be able to cut some words here.

Second paragraph:
"with participation of many researchers" and "Many experts from well-established groups contribute extensively" seems to be a repetition.

Maybe you can specify who the "We" in "We also plan to seek" refers to (the site admins, the users, ... ?).

HTS term: I wrote it because somehow maybe the full term was deleted when we rearranged the sentences. Thanks for adding it back

References: Yes, I selected only Nature, Plos Comput, and NAR? with sentences EXPLICITLY thanks SEQanswers for help. All papers (even Nature) with merely links are not included. Manually checked.

The rest: I will take a deeper look at it after the ICHG ...... thanks, I think your suggestions make sense to me ... Need to modify the writings

[robs]

I just returned from my vacation and think that it is a great idea to write the letter (I have a manuscript in review mentioning seqanswers myself and a reference would be nice).

The term HTS might be ambiguous and should be introduced at its first use, even if it adds 2 additional words ( I changed that in the text along with other minor changes).

I am not sure about the restrictions for references, but you might want to restrict the list to the most important (highest impact factor?) ones.

"The most common search terms leading to SEQanswers include [...]"
I think, this would be in contrast with the broad range of topics covered by the forum.

"and the site is regularly accessed from X countries all over the world"
The mentioning of the more than 20,000 users and "targets a wide audience" should speak for itself and you might be able to cut some words here.

Second paragraph:
"with participation of many researchers" and "Many experts from well-established groups contribute extensively" seems to be a repetition.

Maybe you can specify who the "We" in "We also plan to seek" refers to (the site admins, the users, ... ?).