In the editorial published in the current issue of Nature Genetics, we draw attention to the development and implementation of community standards for biomedical publications. We also note that we will be discussing our own standards—interactively with the community, we hope—on this blog.

The goal is two-fold. First, we’d like to better communicate to researchers what we’re looking for in specific sub-fields (eg: genomic associations, cancer studies, epigenetics, evolutionary genetics, data analysis, etc) to more clearly answer the question “what makes a Nature Genetics paper?” Second, we want you to help us update what a Nature Genetics paper should be. Are there criteria we should be applying that we’re not? Don’t be shy. Obviously, we love to hear what we’re doing right, but it’s much more helpful to learn what we’re doing wrong.

So, to start off, I’m asking you: What makes a Nature Genetics paper? What should make a Nature Genetics paper? Send me your questions about our editorial processes or your comments/suggestions either in the comments to this post, by email (brooke.laflamme [at] us.nature.com) or on Twitter (@Brooke_LaFlamme). We will post contributions without name attribution unless you specify that you want to be named. For reasons of editorial responsibility we will need to record your name and affiliation offline. Questions and comments will be answered by staff on our editorial team in future posts.