Jennyn lab page activate

Dear [Lab],

Thanks for your interest and participation on OpenWetWare. We see that your lab hasn't used OpenWetWare much to post information on the lab and wanted to pass on two bits of information.

First, we are currently reorganizing the Front Page to solve the problem of having too many labs on the front page by highlighting only those labs that have very active laboratory sites. There will be a secondary link to other lab pages that are still in development. We are thinking of putting your lab in this second category and wanted to run that by you before we did. Nothing else would change, your labpage would just no longer be linked from the front page.

Second, if you have been wanting to construct a new lab site on OWW, but are having trouble, try our step-by-step Getting Started tutorial: http://www.openwetware.org/wiki/OpenWetWare:Getting_started.

There, you can find templates that you can simply copy-and-paste to your page, or you can create your own unique look.

Need some examples?

MIT's Lauffenburger Lab: http://www.openwetware.org/wiki/Lauffenburger_Lab or

Imperial College's Cristani Lab: http://www.openwetware.org/wiki/Crisanti:Crisanti_Lab

Anyways, we hope this won't be too much of an inconvenience. We will be reorganizing the front page in approximately 3 weeks. Please continue to use OWW as you find it useful. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me on my talk page: http://www.openwetware.org/wiki/Talk:Jenny_Nguyen.

Thanks!

Notes

We are not removing accounts or deleting any pages as far as I understand (Is this correct?). We should make it very clear that we are only removing the link to the lab's page from the front page and that all accounts will remain active etc. And should the lab set up real pages at any later time they are free to add themselves to the front page again. Jgritton 16:54, 13 July 2006 (EDT)

How are we defining inactivity--by number of pages with a prefix, edits by members, how recent edits are? Is this is mainly for labs that started a spot and haven't expanded on it? How about groups like the Church Lab that are closely tied with other members of OWW but have only a page with a link to their extensive home-hosted page? It doesn't seem to me like you buy that much savings in space unless this also means eliminating entire universities from the list. I think it's a bad move and that the problem, if it is one, isn't worth the solution of taking people off the list. This seems counter to the public, expanding, and open nature of OWW, and seems like community pruning instead of development. As a member of a new lab, it makes me reluctant to start out on the front page and put up pages as I make them. How about an e-mailed letter very similar to the above to encourage development without the threat of relegation? Down off the soapbox, Sean 17:38, 13 July 2006 (EDT)

Jgritton 19:26, 13 July 2006 (EDT):Unless things have changed since I was last involved in this discussion, the criteria for activity is quite low--basically anything more than a link. The problem is that a significant portion (>50%?) of the lab links on the main page point to dead pages with just a pointer to a homepage. It kind of gives OWW the look of a ghost town and probably doesn't help get others excited about getting their own lab going--a significant concern I think. But perhaps the "threat of relegation" may push some away and an encouraging letter, an offer to help, and some inspiring lab highliight videos is the better way to go. What do you think?