what to do when you only know a few terms

[Gordon Royle]

On 13/03/2006, at 10:00 PM, N. J. A. Sloane wrote:
>
> Me:  The solution is to download the section of the database
> which includes the sequences which begin with your terms
> (you can do this from the Welcome page), and then you can search  
> around
> for words (graph, tree, etc.) that match what you are looking for.

While I appreciate the advice, I'd just like to indicate (at the risk  
of sounding like a broken record) that this is an example of what I  
mean by the declining utility of the OEIS....  the academic user  
increasingly needs to take additional steps or perform post- 
processing or whatever in order to extract the genuine sequences from  
the "write-only" sequences of the serial submitters. It may not be  
much work, and it may not occur too often, but it seems to be  
happening more and more, which gradually makes me use it less  
frequently as an exploratory or speculative tool.

This is why I feel that the role of the OEIS needs to be clarified -  
if it is essentially an academic/serious hobbyist resource, then the  
utility to these users should be the first priority, with other uses  
being  designed to have minimal impact on this. If you feel that it  
now has broader appeal as a sort of general recreational site, then  
that would entail different design decisions.

Of course, it's pretty obvious what I would prefer, but I may well be  
in the minority.

Cheers

Gordon