I hope this can be a useful network for people who want to keep on top of the rapidly developing world of ‘biological wikies’ (BioWikies). In a word, BioWikies aim to leverage the tremendous power of community annotation (as evidenced by Wikipedia) for the annotation of biological data.

I got a nice list of ‘things you should do first’ from Li Kim Lee at Nature Network. I am posting that list here both as a reminder and as a focus for an initial community discussion.

List follows;

Thank you for creating the BioWiki group on Nature Network (http://network.nature.com/group/biowiki). We hope that through the group you will meet new researchers, learn from one other and form a community online. Each group has its own forum, where the group members can share ideas and have discussions. Like the host of a good party, the group admin plays an important role in the success of his/her group. Here are a few tips.

1) Invite your friends and colleagues to join your group. Click on the “send invites” button on the RHS of the group profile page. To protect against spam, we only allow up to 10 invitations at one time. If you would like to invite more than 10 people at one time, please contact the Nature Network editors (network@nature.com) and we may be able to do that on your behalf.

2) Fill out your group profile page and provide an eye-catching group icon. Describe the scope of the group, the types of people you would like joining it and the topics you would like discussed. Giving the group an attractive icon makes your group stand out. Tag your group with keywords so that people browsing Nature Network can easily find it.

3) Post to the group forum. Engage your group members—break the ice and get the conversation going. Give some ideas for the topics you want to talk about. Post links to related research papers and news and include comments of your own. Ask specific and provocative questions. Ask your friends and colleagues to post replies and new topics.

4) Post regularly. If group members know that new content is regularly being posted in the forum, they will keep coming back.

5) Post responses to comments in your group’s forum. This helps keep the conversation going and encourages participation.

6) Fill out your profile. People will be more likely to join your group if they know who the group admin is.

7) Post announcements on the notice board. You can post notices of conferences and other events, recent papers, jobs, funding opportunities and anything else that you think people in your group will want to know about. As the creator and admin of the group, only you can post to the notice board. Members of the group can post replies to each notice.

8) Spread the word. If there are any websites, newsletters or email listservs you use/read that are relevant to your group, include a link to your group page and a short description of your group on that website/newsletter/email list. Or ask the webmaster/editor to do that for you. The NN editors can do this for you as well. Just let us know the best places to publicize your group. This can help grow your group membership and participation.

9) Seek out good science bloggers who might be interested in the group. Invite them to join it and to participate. They might be your most active members!

10) Tell Nature Network about your group activity! If your group starts to become active, or if you start posting a lot to your group, let us know (network@nature.com). We can feature your group so that it is displayed more prominently on Nature Network and nature.com.

Let us know what you think about the groups and forums. Email us with any feedback or questions at network@nature.com. And have fun!

—The Nature Network team