Entering edit mode
8.3 years ago
kolyadenkoilya94
•
0
How to get lecense for desmond. And how long is it. I want to use Desmond software for studies thermostability of protein. Can do it with Desmond? I'm sorry, that not enough to describe the problem. So I want to ask, maybe someone -That of users of this forum has previously received a license to Desmond, if so, how long they have been waiting for request, because I'm waiting for a week. I have long found it all, in my opinion, that only can be, and have long been registered and downloaded the program, but my license request, I received no response and therefore appeal to you. Second, again for those who have already used this program: Is it possible to calculate the thermodynamics of protein and modify it. That's what I wanted to know.
https://www.deshawresearch.com/resources_desmond.html
I guess you can't do the search yourself.
I worry we may be reinforcing this behavior, which for some reason seems to be increasing in frequency, by doing web searches for people. Maybe we should ask for more information instead? I think that's a better approach because if the answer is to get the top hit on a web search then 1) there is probably something we are missing or 2) someone is being really lazy and the question is not appropriate. In this case, there does seem to be more to the question but it's definitely not clear what is being asked.
Many new biostars users do not appear to be doing even a minimal effort on their own before asking questions (the search engine embedded in biostars is bad (sorry Biostars devs) but doing an independent external search focused on biostars.org with google works much better, which I guess people do not realize/know about).
I am not sure what additional information we would ask for in these situations. There have been past discussions of making new users read through How To Ask Good Questions On Technical And Scientific Forums (and similar posts) but how enforceable that is remains a question.
This is a difficult issue because it depends on the question, but I think we should ask for clarification and encourage some effort. For example, we could say that superficially it appears the question could be answered with a web search, and if that is not the case, ask what the real question is. That would keep the quality of the posts to a level that requires some human input and would promote better discussions; in theory at least. It would likely be more efficient also, as opposed to working backwards with comments to figure out the question.
I don't know what the right solution is either. I feel like you often get no response to these comments asking for more information, and that could be how the comment was perceived or maybe the answer was embarrassingly easy to find. I think closing the post to get more information could work, but that seems to discourage responses (though that could be my perception). I guess the best approach is to ask for more information without sounding annoyed (very difficult sometimes given how little effort is put into the question) and hope for a response. The big problem here is that this requires way more effort than people want to (or should) put into it, so the comments may end up sounding snarky even though people are really trying to help.
The moderation process is very subjective and unclear to me still. I appreciate your response though, it's encouraging to at least discuss the issues.
Closing the post until the OP has provided an adequate/clear description of the problem/question may be the best solution in such cases. Other users may still provide an answer via a search but at least the thread would not get ridiculously long with a majority of the conversation going towards clarification of the original ambiguous question.
An option could be added under the moderation menu that closes the question requesting clarification so there is consistent response/text for that action. Other mods/site admins may want to chime in.
I think this is a very good idea. Having an option to put a question on hold (like on SO) with some boilerplate about needing information would greatly reduce the effort required by moderators, and I think that would be less discouraging for new users than getting the close mark.
I'm sorry, that not enough to describe the problem. So I want to ask, maybe someone -That of users of this forum has previously received a license to Desmond, if so, how long they have been waiting for request, because I'm waiting for a week. I have long found it all, in my opinion, that only can be, and have long been registered and downloaded the program, but my license request, I received no response and therefore appeal to you. Second, again for those who have already used this program: Is it possible to calculate the thermodynamics of protein and modify it. That's what I wanted to know.
Please edit your original question (use the edit option) and add this information there. The title could also use clarification with addition of "How long does it take to get a ..."
Yes, I agree our own search kind of sucks - in fact we only have it so that it can generate the "similar post" column on the right hand side. Which I personally really like.
I could probably replace the main search engine with Google - or just needs so TLC to figure out how to tune and optimize ElasticSearch (that is what we use) - which on its own feels like a separate job description.
I will add my vote for replacing the "Live/main search engine" with google (if that is easily feasible). The current engine seems to bring up things in some random order and it is hard to decide which of those suggested results one should look at first. I am not sure if opening a new page with those results would allow a more deeper examination of results and make that process easier.