EMBNet is a special interest network that serves the European molecular biology and biotechnology research community. It consists of nodes operated by biologically oriented centers in different European countries. The following features characterise most large special interest networks. They also provide guidelines for setting one up. Participation Anyone may contribute items to the information base.
Major SINs announce new entries via special newsgroups or mailing lists.
Contributors carry out all editing of their entries, including formatting, correcting and updating them. Access Anyone may access, copy or use the information at any time. Normally access is via a computing network using a standard protocol. These standards must be well defined and should be publicised as widely as possible. However, there are many advantages in marking up documents using structural tags, rather than HTML's predominantly formatting tags.