"interesting enough": the OEIS is a "Big Tent" (but not an insatiable idol)

[Marc LeBrun]

Lately there have been several messages expressing concerns about sequences 
being "interesting enough" to submit.  Let me cheerlead:

Just ask yourself, "Would I have felt this sequence was interesting if I 
had found it in the OEIS instead of computing it?".  If the answer's yes, 
I'd encourage you to go for submitting it, without worrying about 
"interesting enough".

In my experience, the OEIS has always quite consistently welcomed ALL 
reasonable sequence submissions.  Its stated goal is to include ALL 
interesting sequences, NOT only those that are "interesting enough" 
(whatever that means)!  If it is at least interesting to YOU then it's 
interesting, and you should definitely submit it.  In practice, if you've 
already got enough of a sequence to make a reasonable entry you should go 
ahead and submit it without worrying if it's interesting "enough"--it is by 
definition, since you were interested enough to generate it!

Conversely, if you're not interested, and you don't know if anyone else 
ever will be, then you shouldn't feel a strong compulsion to force yourself 
to construct a sequence just to submit it.

Of course almost always if you ask Neil he will be interested in obtaining 
a new sequence.  So, paradoxically, if it's close enough to bother asking 
about it's implicitly interesting (the interesting set contains its 
boundary, or something<;-).

The main reason to hesitate is if the submission will entail a bunch of 
additional work for someone or will otherwise detract from the value of the 
OEIS.  This obviously applies to making sloppy or erroneous submissions 
that will create an editorial burden, or produce lots of false hits with 
superseeker.  But it also applies to YOU making yourself do a bunch of 
extra work that you feel would have uncertain payoff.

So the decision to grind out more terms or associated sequences which you 
judge to be of uncertain interest ultimately just has to be weighed, in 
your best judgement, against moving on and doing something new and exciting 
that's more likely to result in submissions that will clearly be of 
definite interest.