Mailing Lists

The Ensembl mailing lists are ideal for programmers, code and installation discussions.

Ensembl Mailing Lists

Ensembl is an open collaborative project. We are informal and coordinate much of our work by open e-mail lists. There are two mailing lists on Ensembl:

announce

A low volume mailing list used to announce major updates and major releases. [Archive]

dev

A high volume mailing list for Ensembl development, open to all. [Archive]

This mailing list includes the Ensembl developers and others who are following the project. We encourage people users to take questions and suggestions of small collaborations to ensembl-dev which will then be discussed internally amongst all relevant team members.

Please see below for detailed posting guidelines that we expect all users of the list to adhere to.

To subscribe to either of these lists, you can

1. Visit lists.ensembl.org and follow the online instructions
2. Or, send a blank email to
   • dev-join@ensembl.org or
   • announce-join@ensembl.org
   as appropriate (any content in the email will be ignored)

Ensembl dev posting guidelines

The Ensembl dev mailing list is a forum for users of the Ensembl API, website and data including users maintaining Ensembl mirrors or developing applications based on the Ensembl code. All API/web installation questions, issues, possible bugs or other Ensembl code related queries are appropriate for this forum.

Please keep in mind that many of the users posting here are volunteering their expertise. While help is happily provided, there is an expectation that users will spend the necessary time learning the system from the available documentation.

General information

• Before posting users are encouraged to search the dev list archives. Additional information including specific help for the API and a project FAQ are available online.
• Choose a meaningful subject for your message.
• Ensembl also provides user support via our helpdesk. Questions sent to this address are not sent to the general dev list, but may be used as the basis of FAQ entries, blog posts or other documentation. Please do not send the same issue to both dev and helpdesk.

How to format specific question types

• If you are posting a question about the Ensembl API, please provide the API version that you are using, which is found via Bio::EnsEMBL::ApiVersion

    use Bio::EnsEMBL::ApiVersion;
    printf( "The API version used is %s\n", software_version() );
  

• A short code snippet illustrating a problem is normally very useful.
• Questions about installation of an Ensembl web site should include information about the OS used and any applicable error messages.
• Questions about Ensembl data should include the release number. Database version can be found in the database name or via the schema_version entry in the meta table.

Administrative guidelines

• Please keep messages on the list so that others can benefit from the discussion. All Ensembl team members will reply with the dev list in copy and dev messages should not be sent directly to members of the Ensembl team.
• By posting to the list you are accepting the terms of our code of conduct. Normal standards of professional behaviour are expected in all messages. Those messages that contravene the code of conduct are not acceptable.
• Uninvited off-list contact for commercial or other purposes is not acceptable.
• Messages sent to dev@ensembl.org will be archived. These are indexed and searchable via sources such as Google.
• Job postings for Ensembl project positions at the EMBL-EBI and Sanger may be occasionally be sent to the list. Other jobs postings are not appropriate for the list.