Welcome message from Xiang-Jun Lu

[admin]

Over the past few years, I have been answering hundreds of 3DNA-related questions via email. While this method is effective and convenient, the Q&As are scattered in different email accounts and mixed with other messages, making it difficult to trace the previous thread(s) of a relevant topic. This forum was created to address this issue by making these Q&As open to the community, archived and searchable. To start with, we would like to ensure that this forum is focused on 3DNA related issues. As a general rule, please post your questions here instead of sending me emails: this will benefit the whole community! Only under very special circumstances will I answer your questions directly by email.

This forum is open to the public for viewing without preregistration. You are invited and strongly encouraged to register in order to get more actively involved (by asking questions, following-up other ones, reporting bugs, or making comments/suggestions). Because of spam concerns (yes, I would like to keep the noise level in this discussion forum to a minimum), registrations must be activated by the administrator. Following your registration, please send a message to 3dna.lu AT gmail DOT com from your registered email address and with your user ID in the subject line, following the format of Re: 3DNA forum registration -- 'user-id'. You might also want to share with us some background info about yourself and how you came to know about 3DNA and this website. After receiving your email request,  I will activate your account and send you a confirmation email. -- no longer relevant [note added by Xiang-Jun Lu on Feb 24, 2012]

When asking questions, please be as specific as possible. I have learned through experience that having a minimal reproducible example is the most effective way for me to solve a problem. For general guidelines, please refer to "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way?" To make the 3DNA forum a more pleasant place, please be considerate and practice good netiquette. Most importantly, give, don't just take: summarize the solution to your problems from a user's prospective by providing details for the benefit of other users; answer other users' questions; share your use-cases or anything relevant to 3DNA. More enthusiastic members are essential in making the 3DNA forum more active and informative to serve as a helpful virtual community for each of us to exchange views, to learn and to help.

Bear in mind that I am supporting this 3DNA forum strictly in my spare time: do not ask for or expect to get an immediate reply from me to your question. [-- now supporting 3DNA is my job! note added by Xiang-Jun Lu on Feb 24, 2012] Over the years, however, I have always striven to be responsive and concrete by getting back to users' questions as quickly as possible, often in a step-by-step recipe fashion, with follow-ups until the issue is finally resolved. Hopefully, browsing the forum will convince you that I am well up to this claim  .

So, welcome to the 3DNA discussion forum! Your feedback helps us kaizen (improve; 改善) 3DNA to make it serve the nucleic acid structure community better.

Xiang-Jun Lu (律祥俊）  (so glad to be of help!)