Metadata quickstart tutorial

Ideas and Suggestions
1

The metadata tutorial is very detailed and comprehensive. It's also a little imposing for first time users.

I would love to see some sort of 'Metadata cheat sheet' that leads with a good example. Qiime 1 did a pretty good job with this, showing

#SampleID BarcodeSequence LinkerPrimerSequence Description

then moving on to

#SampleID BarcodeSequence LinkerPrimerSequence Treatment DOB Description
PC.354 AGCACGAGCCTA YATGCTGCCTCCCGTAGGAGT Control 20061218 Control_mouse__I.D._354
PC.355 AACTCGTCGATG YATGCTGCCTCCCGTAGGAGT Control 20061218 Control_mouse__I.D._355

I love how tidyverse does this. Their documentation leads with a simple example or two.

Maybe we tell new users to start by trying Keemei? I know metadata has always been hard for new users, and I'm wondering what's the best way to approach this.

EDIT: So the minimum metadata is mentioned here: Metadata preparation and rarefaction level - #3 by thermokarst

6

Thanks @colinbrislawn - this sounds like a great idea - would you be able to open up a new issue on the docs repository with this information? If not, no worries, one of us can handle it. Thanks! :t_rex: