request for advice

[Marc LeBrun]

Up to now, I've always advocated a very permissive policy, arguing 
that the effort of submitting even a dull sequence showed that it was 
*interesting* at least to the submitter (recall that "all interesting 
sequences" is the published criteria for the OEIS).

But obviously something needs to be done now about abusive 
submissions, so here's my 2 cents:

* To give a policy rationale (though none is really needed) I think a 
reasonable position to take is that a sequence whose *only* 
motivation is simply to be submitted does *not* even pass the minimal 
"interesting test" described above--because it's the act of 
submission, and *not* the boring sequence itself, which is of 
interest to the submitter (whether from knavishness, naivete or 
whatever reason).  Thus it fails for lack of any demonstrated 
interest, and can so be excluded.

* I believe the understandable impulse to "depersonalize" everything 
via legislating detailed criteria, while well-intentioned, is 
ultimately ineffective.  A society can make all the laws it wants, 
but if it never locks up any specific criminals for violating them 
it's a pretty futile exercise.  Worse, proliferating rules just 
provides an opportunity for an abusive submitter to waste even more 
valuable time arguing the fine points of interpretation and coming up 
with ever-more clever forms of transgression.

Therefore I think NJAS as editor should adopt some mechanism to 
classify submitters based on whether they are average good citizens, 
have committed unfortunate misdemeanors or are hardened felons:

   Normal--submissions processed normally, given benefit of the doubt

   Restricted--submitter has been informed that volume/quality of 
submissions needs to improve (perhaps restricted to one-a-day etc)

   Blocked--submissions are ignored, based on previously proven bad 
cost/benefit of wasting time with them

Of course NJAS could also decide any time he wants that a submitter 
has been sufficiently rehabilitated and reduce the restrictions.

Many people who make missteps will quickly try to correct things; 
some well-meaning but misguided submitters simply won't ever "get it" 
and need to remain restricted; and a few will be just outright 
hostile or crazy and have to be blocked.  Such is life.

* Not everybody contributes to the OEIS in the same way, and we need 
some slack to accommodate variance.  For example I often go for long 
stretches without submitting, then wander into some fruitful orchard 
and wind up submitting a half-dozen or more strongly-related 
sequences.  Indeed, it's vital that I do all the submissions at once 
in a burst of focused effort; if I had to spread it out for a week or 
more the hassle would be insurmountable.

* Not everybody uses the OEIS in the same way, and we need to avoid 
projecting our own preferences too much.  For example I only rarely 
use it plain seeker-style, asking "What the heck is this particular 
sequence?" and look it up directly.  It's nice when I can, but what's 
much more valuable to me is superseeker-style, where the query is 
"I'm interested in this sequence, what can you tell me about any 
relations it might have to other known sequences?".

I mention this once again because this talk of "let's try to reduce 
and canonicalize the sequences as much as possible" always makes me 
nervous.  Such reductions will also *reduce* the probability that 
important connections will be found by the machinery.  For example, 
the starting offset in seeker-style isn't that big a deal, it just 
means you might get slightly different terms right at the 
beginning.  But it can make a huge difference in superseeker-style, 
for things like the Mobius transforms, which are exquisitely 
sensitive to how the a(n) sequence elements are "registered" with respect to n.

I'm not arguing for a lot of fluff, just asking that this effect be 
considered carefully when removal or consolidation of *interesting* 
sequences is proposed.  We ought to strive to keep the OEIS 
machine-friendly, as well as user-friendly.

* I agree with the comments that some serious thought should be given 
to the OEIS as an ongoing institution of human culture, and what 
technology would further that.  But this is a much larger discussion 
for another time.

* I've been sending sequences to NJAS for a while now--since the time 
the "HIS" was only in hardcopy--and have always considered it a huge 
honor for any of my contributions to be incorporated.  Consequently, 
I spend as much effort as I possibly can to make these offerings as 
perfect as possible before submitting them.

It seems that, if we're lately getting more people who view it 
instead as a kind of newsgroup--where they can win cheap points by 
sending the most spam--then perhaps there's something we can do to 
better communicate its real nature and significance.  People don't 
splash graffiti on the things they truly respect and value.

Suggstions?  Should we post more testimonials from users like 
ourselves, for example?