[seqfan] Re: uned sequences (& preventing duplicate sequences follow-up)

[Rick Shepherd]

Hello, all, (This is long -- sorry)

Part of Frank Ellermann's message below reminded me that I never
followed-up on my message (a month ago today! -- sorry!) and the
thoughtful replies from Jud McCranie, Leroy Quet, and Wooter
Meussen -- and a private e-mail.  Thanks to all for your comments,
with which I'm mostly in agreement.

In my original message, though, I should have made clear I was talking
about *"obvious"* duplicates.  While straightening out those 19 duplicates,
Bob Wilson found about 10 more, and I believe I found another one
just last night in a completely different area (need to double-check).
All 29 of these duplicate pairs were with respect to locations of  digit
strings in Pi, by the way -- not necessarily that important, but I suspect
will save several curious people some "work" hitting <return> lots of
times in a Pi-Search tool.

There's another tie-in to Frank Ellermann's message below, but first...
An irony is that the 40 sequences I added were earlier submitted by
someone else but rejected at the time.  (I have no problem with the
editorial policy changing but consider the work involved in adding
40 sequences *twice* -- different people -- and all inter-cross-
referenced (and eventually also by a MathWorld table).).  Anyway,
net was 40 new - 29 old = only 11 new space-takers.

...but perhaps that was an unusual case (because those sequences
are not that important?)

Please see my further comments below...


----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Ellermann" <Frank.Ellermann at t-online.de>
To: <seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr>
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: uned sequences A071339 - A071341


> Sure.  So if these minor differences are important, then there
> should be a %Y to the related sequence(s).  But if a simple
> pattern match excluding cross-referenced sequences finds about
> 652 A ~ B matches with more than 181 characters, i.e. where A
> and B are identical, or all terms of A in the same order are
> also terms of B, for at least 182 characters (signs, digits,
> and commata), without a reference from B to A or vice versa,
> then you might understand why I consider potential "dupes" as
> a problem.
>

I certainly agree with this.  Two points:  1) If the editing workload
becomes too heavy, a quota or throttling mechanism *could* be
put in place so that the submitter him/herself must decide which
is more worthy to go in (this day, week, month, year, etc).
Perhaps if n-sequences per day were a quota (which could be
carried-over like the "good" unused monthly long distance minutes!),
people could earn extra, offsetting quota by helping to
eliminate duplicates *that already exist*.  I wouldn't really
want to limit this receptacle for creativity (unless the editors
really deemed it necessary) though.  Anyway, I vote for "get
rid of all duplicates before rejecting anything for 'arbitrary'
reasons".  Oops, paragraph too long...

Second point:  When two sequences are known to be different
but the entries are identical as far as what fits in the OEIS...
If it's feasible, couldn't the offset and cross-references be used
such that one sequence entry has the early, common terms and
a second (and third) sequence (perhaps with very large offset(s))
begin at roughly the point of divergence of the two sequences --
and then they (all) cross-reference each other?  How big can
"Offset" legally be?  Something like this would be more beneficial
than seeing two "identical" entries that really aren't.



{me:  The following comment by Marc LeBrun just happened
to follow and is well worth keeping here -- giving me a lead-in...
I especially value it;  the OEIS is one of the few outlets I've found
(over a period of decades) to use what math I do know in a way
that seems useful for the long haul (and I haven't done anything
very significant yet -- often just "filling in holes").  Just because one
has had numerous computer software jobs doesn't mean that one
necessarily has ever really been able to use much math in a way
that was ever valued (or noticed) -- and it was usually in spite
of the business organizations -- but I digress...}

> > It is important to respect the submitters' level of interest
> > and motivation, even when we aren't as enthusiastic ourselves
>

(With apologies:  Former telecommunications software engineer becoming
desperate:  By the way, do *any* math jobs exist for people who only
have B.A.'s in Math (with High Honors; took twice as much as required)?
Helping proof textbooks, etc.?  If not, I'm on the verge of trying to create
some -- based on "micro-grants".  Any ideas via personal e-mail would
be appreciated.)

Thanks for reading this,
Rick (Shepherd)