The role of the OEIS

[Gordon Royle]

The EIS, and subsequently OEIS was a valuable academic resource for  
many years.

In my opinion, the utility of this resource has been declining in the  
last couple of years, mainly due to the large number of  
mathematically uninteresting sequences that have started to swamp the  
database. Although it is true that computers are fast and disk space  
is cheap, I have found my own use  of the OEIS hampered by the fact  
that searches, particularly ones where I only know a few terms,  
return vast numbers of matching sequences that are totally artificial  
and have no real prospect of leading to surprising and interesting  
connections.

So the real question is whether Neil wants the OEIS to remain a  
serious academic resource or to become something else. Or maybe it  
can be more than one thing simultaneously, due to the wonders of  
technology.

In order to be a useful academic resource to me, I would like to be  
able to search through sequences that have been submitted for the  
sole reason that they have arisen naturally in the course of serious  
mathematical study of some topic.  Now I want to be clear that I do  
NOT mean that submitters should be restricted to academics or  
professional mathematicians, because mathematics has a long and proud  
history of significant contributions by amateur and/or hobbyist  
mathematicians. Nor do I mean that recreational mathematics should be  
excluded - it is perfectly reasonable to make a serious study of  
recreational mathematics.

But what I WOULD like to exclude are "sequences for sequences sake" -  
those sequences that have not arisen from some mathematical study or  
genuine mathematical hobby, but are simply inventions by someone  
whose primary motivation is INVENTING SEQUENCE DEFINITIONS with no  
particular context. In particular, sequences that people invent  
PURELY for the purpose of incorporating into the OEIS.

Again, I don't care if people enjoy inventing sequences, but I AM  
concerned that incorporating them into the OEIS without restriction  
will result in the original utility of the OEIS being effectively  
destroyed.... or more precisely I don't even really care if they are  
IN the OEIS as long as I can easily exclude them from MY searches...

There are lots of possible mechanisms for accomplishing this, ranging  
from simple options like using distinguishing keywords right through  
to hard-core options like carving off a refereed/moderated OEIS2  
completely separate from an open-slather general OEIS.

So my advice to Neil (responding to his request for advice) is to  
make a decision about how you see the role of the OEIS in general  
over the next 5 or so years, and then to use this decision to guide  
the specific actions to be taken with respect to rogue submitters  
etc. (Overall though I think that personally reviewing each and every  
submission will become increasingly untenable and frustrating, so you  
may out of necessity need to think of a way of reducing this load.)

Cheers

Gordon