Hello Everyone,
We are reaching an important milestone and we need input from the community at large.
A brief history first.
This site has been started in 2009 via purchasing hosting service from the StackExchange company. In the meantime the company has changed its focus and started offering the service (the software that runs the site) for free but in return it retains important rights: for example how the site works, what features it offers (and also possibly many other rights that I am not aware of).
In the past we have had discussions on this subject and alternatives were proposed:
1 and 2 are similar in that it would require a dedicated team to run the site. I myself have worked on developing a clone of biostar (codebase is here) - these approaches could work but would also require ongoing efforts toward development, system administration and hosting.
I have been recently contacted by a member of the StackEchange team offering to migrate the entire BioStar site directly into the StackExchange Network retaining all the content and user history. If we go this route then the rules governing BioStar would be identical to the rules of the StackExchange sites - importantly this includes an open source licensing of all content. We agreed that I would post this issue here to collect feedback and opinions.
I am looking for feedback and opinions. What do you think?
•
written
by
Istvan Albert
+1 for the migration to the StackExchange Network, which already is without any doubt the standard for Q&A sites such as Biostar.
•
written
by
Pablo Pareja
I agree. I think the StackExchange network has benefits such a meta-discussion subdomains and clearer explanations of the additional actions allowed by increased user reputation.
Often better than standard is achievable.
As some of you may know, I have expressed strong opinions about this in the past. Watching the Stack Exchange network develop has mellowed my viewpoint somewhat with regards to this issue. I am now confident that BioStar would survive and thrive on the Stack Exchange network, which would bring significant benefits (mostly to do with cutting edge updates and community cross-pollination).
My main remaining concern was that the Area51 Bioinformatics proposal would go live, and steal mindshare from BioStar, but if BioStar can be migrated wholesale to the new platform, then that issue goes away (as I assume this proposal will be closed down).
So, if the community can be migrated 'as is', then I wholly support this move.
Good to hear you are on board with this Simon.
the Area51 proposal isn't exactly making progress now, and if the BioStar community uncommits, the chances of it making it through are even lower. So it will close down either formally or practically, I think.
I think that proposal will/should be merged into Biostar
First of all, I would like to thank you Albert for all the work in setting up Biostar, and in developing the alternative clone.
Personally, I believe that we can obtain great advantages from joining the whole StackExchange Network. There are a lot of expert people in that community; and even if few of them join Biostar, it will be good for us. In any case, the scope of Biostar is to promote communication among people, and joining a bigger community will go in that direction.
Personally, I like the idea of writing a clone, but I cannot commit to work on it. I have to manage the limited free time that I can afford to dedicate to extra-work activities, and, if I have to choose, I prefer to spend it on asking/answering questions, rather than writing the code for a clone of the interface.
Here's a partial list of pros and cons from previous discussions on biostar-central:
Pros:
Cons:
I'm rather indifferent to the details, as long as the site continues to exist and thrive as it has been. If people are gung-ho about continuing to build a homebrew SE site, then I won't tell them no, but otherwise I'm happy to let SE handle the mundane stuff.
•
written
by
Chris Miller
Re "loss of control": We don't have much control now either, no? Many parts of how the site works cannot be changed. Would Istvan et al. lose their admin status (mod appointment etc.)?
"loss of control" should be a non-issue, if there is nothing special that needs controlling.
@GTK by control I think Chris means the ability to ad different type of functionality etc. rather than controlling access/usage etc.
Yes - the ability to add extra features, links to the sidebars, hell, even change the color scheme if we want. These little things can be minor annoyances individually, but can add up to a headache. I don't forsee any problems, but it's something to consider.
In my opinion it is valid to move to different platform if continuation is not secured. But if the SE network allows full migration without lost of previous content, it only makes sense to stay part of the SE infrastructure.
The initial platform was developed by the SE team, so a bit of giving credit by sticking with the SE framework, is only fair.
The SE platform has served BioStar well thus far, and thus evidence suggests it should prove to in the future. As long as we can dump content and escape to an Open Source solution in the future if needed, I see no problem in moving to SE2 for the near-term.
@Istvan, would you still be able to export the raw data and user accounts?
I believe so somewhere around here http://data.stackexchange.com/ not sure how it all works yet
Also data from all StackExchange servers are released on a regular basis: http://data.stackexchange.com/about
Yes to the migration. I assume that we'll be able to connect our biostar account with our other Stack Exchange accounts.
well we need to work out how this will work - the current account will be migrated but it will need to be merged manually with an existing StackExchange account
+1 for the switching!
here is again the dichotomy whether to reinvent the wheel or not to. I definitely would go for not to, since I won't be able to contribute on the development of any collateral effort. unless the cons are too numerous or unaffordable, which I'm not really able to properly evaluate, I only see pros when talking about the offered migration.
and once again, thanks Istvan et al. for creating and maintaining this great community.
I vote +1 for SE2: no administration & no development needed.
My only preoccupations are:
Pierre
•
written
by
Pierre Lindenbaum
I think the URL will stay the same, probably they won't close a site once opened; gist: that is probably would be a feature that would have to be added for all StackExchange sites
Yes, we should move!
What happened?
Let's move!
This is what happened: http://groups.google.com/group/biostar-central/browse_thread/thread/d13616001c7abb9e See also the previous relevant discussions on the BioStar Central list.
•
written
by
Michael Kuhn
Yes, to migration to StackExchange. The Ads are not very troublesome.
I've been browsing stackexchange sites for a long time and no ads have ever bothered me. aaaaad block, is on my side... yes it is...
yes, no doubt! I agree with all previous comments, so have nothing to say
•
written
by
Flow
If you have nothing to say, then you should probably just use the up-arrows :-)
... Error ... ... ... ... ... ...
•
written
by
Raony Guimaraes •
Log in to answer this question.
Will the exposure of the site change? One annoyance is zero commitment users asking zero quality questions, is this likely to increase if moved to the StackExchange Network?
not sure about quality. It may be easier to redirect users and users from other stackexchange communities can post/contribute while retaining their account identity
Throughout the Area51 process of a Bioninformatics SE 2 site, people were calling for SE to contact you with an offer for migration. It's great that they finally did, and I'm in favor of moving to SE2. Thanks to the open license, the community can always walk away from SE2, and it will be a better platform than the current SE1.
@seidel - The exposure may go up a little, but we're still fairly niche, so I wouldn't expect a gigantic influx. I'd also like to think that the moderators do a pretty good job of weeding out or curating the chaff.
PS: Mods, can you please make all of this discussion community wiki?
Has a decision been taken?
Has a decision been taken? I am looking forward that in SE2 i could access from my mobile/desktop widgets via the already available SE programms
The switch will take a while - some details need to be ironed out - I would guess a few weeks at least
how well will the integration be handled... I dont have an incredible number of votes .. say like Pierre .. however I'd love to have my 65 points of "street cred" when we migrate =]
all user activity will be ported over. There is ongoing rewrite of the software see: https://github.com/ialbert/biostar-central and there is a test site for the new codebase http://test.biostars.org/ I expect the switch to take place in a month or two.
I closed this question, because BioStar's move to a self-hosted platform has put an end to the discussion.