This is a call for an open discussion on ideas for updating the ‘About’ page found through the ‘Help’ menubar to include helpful links and tips for players. This came up during the discussion of what can we improve about Eterna during Eternacon. To get the conversation started a few ideas have been presented by one of the developers and I would like to get your thoughts on these.
What was presented is that we could have the ‘About’ page contain the following entries: Mission, Products (would link to papers, nova, etc.), Tips/Info (this would have links to things we players think we need), and Contact (ways to get in touch with developers). There was also the idea of changing the ‘About’ title to something else such as ‘Info’.
Let me know what you think about these ideas and what you think should be in each one. Your ideas could be implemented if the ‘About’ page gets updated. The more input the better. Have a great day Eterna!
I have a great suggestion in my opinion. when I look at a lab design for example the microRNA lab I want to be able to press the back button to see how they started the painting of the nt’s. This way players will be able to better understand the thinking behind the solution or if you like designs. Thanks!
I had never seen this page before, but it does look like it could contain lots of useful links to the many Youtube videos about RNA and EteRNA; as well as links to the best eterna scripts with a description of what they do. Calling it ‘info’ is probably better than ‘about’. About suggest something short, but info could be limitless.
Those are some great suggestions so far. What if we changed the 'Tips/info" to “Tips/Links” and put links to some of the things averice and Malcom suggested?
What if ‘Tips/Links’ is ‘Links’ or ‘Links’ and we made ‘About’ become ‘Info’ for the main menubar. (I was feeling like having ‘Links’ twice in the menus is redundant let me know if you think I’m wrong)
It really depends on what we want out of the Eterna about page. Currently, the page acts as an introduction to the biochemistry behind RNA, the various functions of RNA as a molecule, a basic introduction to the role players have within the game and the vision for the future of Eterna and RNA research.
Some of the goals that we set out to accomplish have already been achieved (eternabot) and some we are just starting on (RNA biocomputers), along with the development of initiatives like Eterna Cell and projects related to that. In parallel to this is the expansion of the potential role players will have in the future of Eterna.
Ultimately, the About page should highlight what we have accomplished, what we are doing, and what the future of Eterna and RNA research may be. Converting it to a list of links about RNA does not say much about Eterna, the science, the development team or the players who participate in it.
Events or aspects we should highlight:
Eternabot
PNAS paper
Eternacon
Role of the Player
Future Developments
Past accomplishments
Potential things to highlight or mention:
Selected Press Coverage
Das Lab
Community
The biochemistry behind Eterna
We can put a lot of that stuff under ‘Mission’ and ‘Products’. I was thinking that the links could be more along the lines of here are link to a bunch of important stuff with some descriptions.
I like it, brourd. I think I had proposed ‘mission’ and ‘products’ as subitems to Jen, but not wedded to it.
Others: keep it coming on what needs to be in the page and menubar, and proposals for how to organize.
P.S. I suggested the wording ‘products’ as a menubar item to Jen, but I think ‘creations’ might be a better name. We’re not a for-profit company after all, but we are creators.
Something that hasn’t come up yet – a subset of the audience of eterna are academic scientists themselves, some of whom are actually using eterna on-line tools or experimental pipelines for their RNA design work. You may have encountered them on chat or seen their submissions…
Is there some place they could easily find on the cite that tells them how to cite our work in their scientific publications? For people using our data, they could cite our PNAS (and other upcoming) papers. For people using our experimental pipeline, it would actually be great if they cite the Keck and NIH grants that have supported their development.
I can’t think of the best place to put this.
Perhaps under the ‘About’ menu, there could be a ‘For Scientists’ link? In that case, perhaps the menu should be called ‘Info’ , instead of ‘About’?
Then there could also be a ‘For Players’ (which could have the tips/guides) and a ‘For Teachers’ (links to Nova)? And a ‘For Everyone’ with eterna-medicine stuff and ‘Creations’?
It sounds like there is a consensus that updating the ‘About’ page is a good idea. There have been a lot of good ideas and I wanted to summarize them for everyone.
There has been a consensus to change the ‘About’ page to ‘Info’ as ‘Info’ puts less limits on the scope of the menu. A concern was made that having ‘Tips’ in the menu implies something along the lines of player guides which are already available. There was an idea presented that we could put ‘Links’ in place of ‘Tips’. Someone else also suggested that we put link to helpfull YouTube videos and stuff about Eterna and Eterna scripts. This goes along with a suggestion to have a sub menu for studying RNA which could be a part of a ‘Links’ or ‘For Players’ section.
The importance of being able to present a picture of who we are and where we are going was also brought up and was agreed upon by a few people. It was suggested that we highlight our accomplishments such as (to quote Brourd).
Eternabot
PNAS paper
Eternacon
Role of the Player
Future Developments
Past accomplishments
We were also reminded that there is a quite community among us of scientists, teachers and researchers who do work using Eterna. We need to include a place for them to find out how they can reference Eterna in their work and give them a path to get things to help them out. We could have a ‘For Teachers’ section and maybe a ‘For Education’ section.
How does everyone feel about these ideas? I think this is a good place to start from. As Rhiju said please continue to discuss and if you have any ideas including ones for a different direction please bring them up and we can discuss them. We will also be discussing a summary of the comments so far at next weeks devchat so if you want you ideas to be included in the devchat please post your ideas before next Friday. We will still take ideas after that date of course but will be summarizing the current comments at that time.
