Dear all,
While most questions on Biostar are requests for methods and advices, many of them are also related to usage and installation of software and databases.
In the last case, the first thing to do is, to my opinion, to ask the developers/maintainers of the software/database. Most of the time, the group is more than happy to answer the questions. I'm wondering in how many cases this has been done before to post a question on Biostar. I think this could be a "must do", and when no answer has been provided, it could be mentioned in the post. In addition, if an answer has been provided, Biostar users would sure be happy to know about it, so it may be posted together with the answer.
I believe such behavior may help: 1) ensure the right people (the developers of the application/database) are asked first, 2) help the Biostar community know about the best answer, 3) keep track of the follow up provided by the databases and developers (by the way it may also be good to know for referees).
Any opinion about it?