Editorial Topic Pages: PLoS Computational Biology Meets

While there has been much debate about the coverage and quality of Wiki-pedia (starting with an article in 2005 [1]), there is no doubt about its value (and increasing role) as a reference source and starting point for in-depth research. For example, within the biomedical sciences, there have been recent articles about the accuracy and completeness of drug infor-mation in Wikipedia [2], Wikipedia as a source of information in nursing care [3] and mental disorders [4], and making biological databases available through Wikipedia [5]. Is this the case for computational biology as well? Probably yes; however, at present our profession seems to gain more than it gives. We suggest a principal reason for this limited breadth and depth of coverage of topics in computational biology is one that affects a number of disciplines: reward. Authors in the bio-medical sciences get academic reward for publishing papers in reputable journals that are indexed in PubMed and have associated digital object identifiers (DOIs). In contrast, contributions to Wikipedia can be anonymous and do not count for much in the current system of academic advancement. We hope to help to resolve this disparity in PLoS Computational Biology. This month, we have published our firs