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Irc Channel Or Popular Real-Time Bio Hangouts

Hi everyone,

So biostar is obviously a great place to discuss answers to typical questions we all have. Usually I read the questions and answers just to see if there are ways of doing things or using tools I haven't thought/heard of. That being said, does anyone know of any IRC channels to share where people discuss bioinformatic-type questions?

Thanks

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updated by Biostar Biostar • written by Sequencegeek • Sequencegeek

It's too bad biostar can't go stackexchange 2.0, they have chat built into the interface.

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written by Gww Gww

Maybe we should make a #biostar IRC? I've never made one before but It shouldn't be too hard....right?

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written by Sequencegeek • Sequencegeek

Main problem I see with IRC: who has time to hang out there, these days?

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written by Neilfws Neilfws

@neilfws: Personally, I've always used Trillian as my instant messaging software. It has a built-in module for IRC, so I get connected to it along with MSN/Yahoo/AIM, etc. I use it to kill time when something is compiling/an analysis is running, etc. The #C++ and #perl channels I hanged out in were extremely useful throughout my career. I'd be very happy if somethign similar existed for bioinformatics.

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written by Eric Fournier Eric Fournier

2 answers

Use twitter and #hashtags and you'll be more likely to succeed ;). IRC is so nineties...

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written by Alf Alf

Google+ also seems to be well suited for discussing meaningful topics

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written by Istvan Albert Istvan Albert

Hey, why change a winning formula? IRC is still as functional as ever.

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written by Martijn Van Iersel • Martijn Van Iersel

No reason to discard something just because it isn't new and shiny. IRC is as functional as it ever was.

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written by Martijn Van Iersel • Martijn Van Iersel

No reason to discard something just because it isn't new and shiny. IRC works just fine, as it always did.

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written by Martijn Van Iersel • Martijn Van Iersel

haha, so nineties? Twitter is so for my little sister ;) (it has it's uses, though)

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written by Sequencegeek • Sequencegeek

Sure, choose a IRC serve (freenode. run now a IRC channel. Then, tell it to the public. Teach most of the potential users how to use IRC (many of them would not know). And finally, try to convince them to use it... And even it they know how to use it, and like it, also you have the problem of the number of people who are going to use it. IRC was created in 1988 and I particularly enjoyed it too much. But now there are (better) alternatives to get in contact with "random" people in a certain topic (channel) and gather opinons. I suggest using the #bioinformatics tag in twitter.

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written by Alf Alf

Yeah but it's not as involved and not real-time. The cool part about IRC is you start to have a sense of community by chatting with people that are in your same field and you can have an involved discussion with them - even if it's the same 3 people. If they are doing bioinformatics then they likely know IRC anyways. Some problems can't be solved in 140 characters.

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written by Sequencegeek • Sequencegeek

I'm currently in #wikipathways on freenode. This channel is not for every type of bioinformatics question, so perhaps it's not what you're looking for. But WikiPatways touches a lot of topics, ranging from data integration to knowledge representation to pathway visualization and analysis, so it might still be interesting to you.

Anyway, you're welcome to hang out :)

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written by Martijn Van Iersel • Martijn Van Iersel

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