The Minimum Information About a Proteomics Experiment (MIAPE) guidelines were developed following the style of the Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) guidelines for microarray experiments. The MIAPE guidelines were developed in a modular structure, such that each aspect of a proteomics experiment would correspond to a module, and the modules that pertain to a specific experiment could be used. Modules for the column chromatography (MIAPE-CC), the mass spectrometry (MIAPE-MS), the subsequent informatics analysis (MIAPE-MSI), and finally the quantitative components (MIAPE-Quant) of an experiment were developed. These MIAPE components were implemented in some systems such as the ProteoRed database and used as a guide in other software and during the development of formats. However, it seems that while most researchers would like others to provide rich metadata about their datasets, most researchers balk when asked to provide all that information about their own datasets and avoid systems which require that they do so.