Early on in BioGPS’s development, we were heavily focused on getting as many plugins registered in as short a time period as possible. And because our plugin interface is so trivially simple, we were able to add plugins for a whole lot of popular sites (e.g., Entrez Gene, Ensembl, UniProt) and a whole lot of not-so-popular sites (e.g., GENSAT, GONUTS, and HuGE Navigator) all by ourselves without any input from the site owners.
Since those early days, over sixty users have gone on to register at least one plugin in BioGPS, almost all with no training or involvement from us. While this broad adoption underscores the simplicity of our plugin system, there is still one unfortunate historical artifact. Specifically, almost 150 plugins remain registered under my personal user profile.
Now, we’re actively encouraging site owners/developers to take ownership of their corresponding BioGPS plugin. Why would you want to claim your site’s plugin? Let us count the ways…
- add better keywords or description to make your resource more findable
- complete control over linking syntax, including addition of a click tracker
- receive automated bug alerts by email when a BioGPS user submits an outage report
- drive more traffic to your plugin through the BioGPS social networking features
- drive more traffic to your site by increasing its popularity in the marketplace of BioGPS plugins
- … and with our newest feature, be listed as the plugin’s certified owner
We are also planning many more features that allow plugin owners to better connect with their community of users.
How does one claim the plugin for a site that you own? Just email us at bio…@gnf.org and we’ll transfer ownership in no time flat. It’s easy — so just go ahead and do it.
