[gmx-users] GROMACS Wiki

[Dallas B. Warren]

> It's a good idea, but I don't think it will help a great 
> deal. The main 
> problem with frequently-occurring questions is that the 
> askers haven't 
> read the manual, the man pages, the web page, the FAQ or searched the 
> mailing list archives. In context, a Wiki would just be one 
> more thing 
> for them not to read :-) I remember back in December 2005 I 

Yes, for sure.  And you see that in pretty much any community like this,
whether is is "professional", "academic" or "hobby".  They all struggle
with similar issues.

Suggestion is to provide somewhere that information can be collected
together by pretty much anyone, distributing the load off the developers
who have much more important things to be doing.  Like making the code
faster :-)

> That said, there are frequently occurring questions whose 
> answers are in 
> the above documentation sources, but not easy (or apparently easy) to 
> find. It would be nice to be able to say when someone couples ions to 
> temperature baths independently "see 
> http://www.gromacs.org/wiki/should_i_couple_a_few_ions_to_a_he
> at_bath". 
> Also being able to put one's mailing list answer up there straight
away 
> would be useful.

Yes, that is what I was thinking it would help out with.  Common
question is asked on the emailing list, one of the people who respond,
writes up a response which can then be added to the wiki, arranged in an
easy to find location.  Material is easily updated in the future, more
details added, links to things etc.

No idea if it would help, but it is a good option out there available.
There are then all the issues with abuse of the wiki and all those admin
related things.  But there are ways to fix things like that.

>It does require someone to take some charge of the organisation of the
data on it, however.

Certainly does.  Notice the hand up offering to give back to the GROMACS
community right here :-)

Catch ya,

Dr. Dallas Warren
Lecturer
Department of Pharmaceutical Biology and Pharmacology
Victorian College of Pharmacy, Monash University
381 Royal Parade, Parkville VIC 3010
dallas.warren at vcp.monash.edu.au
+61 3 9903 9524
---------------------------------
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble
a nail.