On Sunday, 23 February 2014 09:16:41 PM Andreas Förster wrote: > On 22/02/2014 10:15, Mark van Raaij wrote:
> > But I would really want to make a general comment - not ALL structures > > can be better than the average! > Except structures from the Lake Wobegon Center for Structural Biology, > of course. Ah, but it _is_ be possible for each new structure deposition to be better than the average quality of all previously deposited structures. And in fact the continual improvement of detectors, programs, and refinement protocols pushes things in exactly this direction. I have noted only half in jest that this phenomenon is important to the wide acceptance of validation tools like Molprobity. By reporting quality relative to all previous structures in the PDB, the program authors have cleverly arranged for the program to report to most users "Green light! Your new model is better than most structures in the PDB!". Everyone likes to be patted on the back and told they have done a good job, so they like the program and continue to use it. This makes a "red light" score, when it does happen, stand out more and therefore makes it more likely that users will take it seriously.
