Last month, BioGPS held a plugin registration blitz in order to increase the number of external resources users would be able to add to their layouts. We think the ability to customize BioGPS to suit your needs irrespective of your specialty is a valuable feature; however, this feature is only useful if the right plugins are available.

That said, with over 390 plugins already available, only a handful of new plugins were registered during the blitz (ie- we have plenty of BioGPS mascots still waiting to be adopted.) In order to help users find plugins which may be useful to them, we are running the Plugin Review Blitz from now until May 15th.

We have 15 mascots available for the top 15 participants in the blitz. To be eligible, all you have to do is post a “useful” comment on a plugin. To be considered “useful”, the comment must be visible to the public and should meet at least one of the following criteria:

1. Explain WHY or HOW this plugin is useful for a specific domain of research
2. Expand on the description of the plugin (only if the description is lacking)
3. Suggest some appropriate tags which might help users find this plugin (especially if a plugin has no tags)
4. Notify users if this resource is no longer being updated and suggest an alternative plugin

They’re cute, in need of new homes, and their clothes are made for cleaning screens

Only one comment per plugin will count for each user. Eg- If you post three comments on the same plugin, it will count as one point. In contrast, if you post a specific, useful comment to each of three different plugins, it will count as three points. The number of points will be used to determine the top contributors and be used to re-home the mascots.

In the event that we have many participants with the same number of points at the end of the blitz, the prizes will be awarded to the users who first submitted their eligible comments.