Re: [Gmod-ajax] Article: Using game design to build the next Digg or Flickr

[Mitch S. <mit...@be...>]

Ian Holmes wrote:
> How would this compare with existing systems e.g. Ensembl MART?
>

I've only spent a bit of time with it, but I don't see a way to view the 
results of a biomart query in the genome browser, which is what I was 
thinking.  In addition to creating new tracks by uploading, we could 
allow people to create tracks by defining queries.  It should be easy 
for us to track how popular these are, so there's a natural connection 
to the points and feedback/recognition items from the game/webapp article.

Also, while you can specify a list of IDs to biomart, that requires the 
user to manage their own collection.  We could certainly make collection 
management a lot easier (e.g., an "add this to my collection" button on 
feature popups).  Centralizing collections also makes them easier to 
share (like the "post your hotlist" thing, with individual features 
instead of tracks).

In addition to having a nice query building UI like biomart does, I 
think it makes sense to expose something lower level, like (say) raw 
SPARQL.  Most biologists won't use it, but if we make it easy for more 
advanced users to share their queries with other people then it's still 
pretty useful IMO.

But these are all just random ideas.  Mainly, I wanted to ask for help 
translating game ideas into stuff that relates more concretely to what 
we're doing.

Mitch