A seqfan forum...

Fri Jan 12 02:21:38 CET 2007

solve... the problem I'm trying to solve is how to service the highly- 
Phone: +61 8 9389 1537
Return-Path: <njas at research.att.com>
X-Ids: 166
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:06:41 -0500 (EST)
From: "N. J. A. Sloane" <njas at research.att.com>
Message-Id: <200701120206.VAA92345 at fry.research.att.com>
To: njas at research.att.com, "Max A." <maxale at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: A seqfan forum...
Cc: njas at research.att.com, "Gordon Royle" <gordon at csse.uwa.edu.au>,
   seqfan <seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr>
Reply-To: njas at research.att.com
References: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0701110832100.32236 at csf>
    <5542af940701110922j47272d58qe2d2f9b3e255047a at mail.gmail.com> <45A67614.67D9D02B at att.net>
    <200701120036.TAA66965 at fry.research.att.com>
X-Greylist: IP, sender and recipient auto-whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (shiva.jussieu.fr [134.157.0.166]); Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:06:44 +0100 (CET)
X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.5/2437/Fri Jan 12 00:59:09 2007 on shiva.jussieu.fr
X-Virus-Status: Clean
X-j-chkmail-Score: MSGID : 45A6ED34.000 on shiva.jussieu.fr : j-chkmail score : X : 0/50 0 0.608 -> 1
X-Miltered: at shiva.jussieu.fr with ID 45A6ED34.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)!
Return-Path: <bbarbour at unitec.ac.nz>
X-Ids: 166
Message-Id: <45A7AFF70200009500001381 at gwia1.unitec.ac.nz>
X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 7.0.1 
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:57:43 +1300
From: "Bob Barbour" <bbarbour at unitec.ac.nz>
To: "<seqfan" <seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr>
Subject: Re: A seqfan forum...
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
X-Greylist: IP, sender and recipient auto-whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (shiva.jussieu.fr [134.157.0.166]); Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:58:00 +0100 (CET)
X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.5/2437/Fri Jan 12 00:59:09 2007 on shiva.jussieu.fr
X-Virus-Status: Clean
X-Miltered: at shiva.jussieu.fr with ID 45A6F936.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)!

To: seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:02:30 -0500
Subject: Re: A seqfan forum...
Message-ID: <20070111.230231.284.1.pauldhanna at juno.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=--__JNP_000_5782.23fb.7a24
From: "Paul D. Hanna" <pauldhanna at juno.com>

This message is in MIME format.  Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

----__JNP_000_5782.23fb.7a24
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

SeqFans, 
     I agree with Bob (well said). 
The many times I have greatly profited from the mailing list 
outweigh any annoyance over quantity of e-mails. 

One of the best examples is Max Alekseyev's nice sequence: 
http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/A107354
[1, 1, 2, 7, 44, 516, 11622, 512022, 44588536, ...].
This sequence was presented by Max on the mailing list as a 
challenge for members to find a g.f. 
Finding a g.f. for the sequence led me to a beautiful general result 
involving triangular matrices and the subpartitions of a partition 
(defined by Frank Adams-Watters in A115728). 

In other words, the SeqFan mailing list is an effective way to 
bring together the various talents represented by its members
in solving problems and sharing insights. 

I would encourage other members to stay with us ... 
for the mutual benefit of all. 
     Paul 

----------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:57:43 +1300 "Bob Barbour" <bbarbour at unitec.ac.nz>
writes:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> Seqs, speaking platonically, exist independently
> of their creators/discoverers.
>  
> I prefer the email list.
> 
> For its rich variety delivered to my desktop.
> Delete works for 'noise', but what is 'noise'
> for me may not be for other people.
> 
> Unsubscribe works for the disaffected
> and the toxic.  The solution is in each person's
> hands, literally, within the current technology.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Bob
> 
----__JNP_000_5782.23fb.7a24
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3Dcontent-type content=3Dtext/html;charset=3DUS-ASCII>
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2600.0" name=3DGENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY bottomMargin=3D0 leftMargin=3D3 topMargin=3D0 rightMargin=3D3>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>SeqFans, </DIV>
<DIV>     I agree with Bob (well said). </DIV>
<DIV>The many times I have greatly profited from the mailing list=
=20
</DIV>
<DIV>outweigh any annoyance over quantity of e-mails. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>One of the best examples is Max Alekseyev's nice sequence: <=
/DIV>
<DIV><A=20
href=3D"http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/A107354">http://www.res=
earch.att.com/~njas/sequences/A107354</A></DIV>
<DIV>
<P=20
style=3D"MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 1em; TEXT-INDENT=
: -1em"><TT>[1,=20
1, 2, 7, 44, 516, 11622, 512022, 44588536, ...].</TT></P></DIV>
<DIV>This sequence was presented by Max on the mailing list as a </DIV>
<DIV>challenge for members to find a g.f. </DIV>
<DIV>Finding a g.f. for the sequence led me to a beautiful general result <=
/DIV>
<DIV>involving triangular matrices and the subpartitions of a=20
partition </DIV>
<DIV>(defined by <FONT face=3D"Courier New">Frank Adams-Watters in A11=
5728).=20
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In other words, the SeqFan mailing list is an effective way to </DIV>
<DIV>bring together the various talents represented by its members</DI=
V>
<DIV>in solving problems and sharing insights. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I would encourage other members to stay with us ... </DIV>
<DIV>for the mutual benefit of all. </DIV>
<DIV>     Paul </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>----------------------------------------------------------</DIV>
<DIV>On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:57:43 +1300 "Bob Barbour" <<A=20
href=3D"mailto:bbarbour at unitec.ac.nz">bbarbour at unitec.ac.nz</A>>=20
writes:<BR>> Hi Folks,<BR>> <BR>> Seqs, speaking platonically, exi=
st=20
independently<BR>> of their creators/discoverers.<BR>>  <BR>>=
 I=20
prefer the email list.<BR>> <BR>> For its rich variety delivered to m=
y=20
desktop.<BR>> Delete works for 'noise', but what is 'noise'<BR>> for =
me=20
may not be for other people.<BR>> <BR>> Unsubscribe works for the=20
disaffected<BR>> and the toxic.  The solution is in each=20
person's<BR>> hands, literally, within the current technology.<BR>>=
=20
<BR>> Best Regards,<BR>> Bob<BR>> </DIV></BODY></HTML>

----__JNP_000_5782.23fb.7a24--

I like this idea. I am voting for Google groups.

I've been subscribed to this list for many years. The amount of mail is overwhelming. My solution was to have a separate email account which I use only for this group. Still there is no way I can check all the messages :-(

In google groups you can forward all postings to your mail if you want. At the same time you can visit the website.

Tanya

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------

>
>I think there is a consensus solution that can behave like a forum as
>well as like a mail-list.
>I keep in mind services like Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/
>
>Each participating person can decide on his own if he wants to receive
>every mail going into the group via email. In this case, this will be
>nothing different from a regular mail-list.
>Alternatively, he can simply browse the messages via website, and
>optionally subscribe to particular topics for tracking new messages
>via email.
>Groups may have sub-groups dedicated to certain topics. Full archive
>of the group and its subgroups is always accessible for browsing via
>website.
>
>Personally, I would vote for moving SeqFan to Google Groups.
>
>Regards,
>Max
>

At 09:57 PM 1/11/2007, Bob Barbour wrote:
>
>I prefer the email list.

I do too.  A couple of reasons:
1. all of the forums I've seen have a minuscule font that can't be 
resized to a readable one
2. They usually use an eye-straining color such as dark blue on blue.

Dear Seqfans,

I am so grateful to this list. You are doing such a good job. I've met some new people through this list and received answers to some questions. It is true that you've lost some people, but you also gained some other people.

Please, don't be discouraged with your great work with OEIS. The quality of OEIS is rising. Just do not count the quality by the number or percentage of sequences with mistakes. All good and core sequences are clean. All new interesting sequences get cleaned, improved and commented very fast.

Whatever you decide, I would like to use this opportunity to say thank you to everyone.

Tanya

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------

>We lost JHC a while ago, now Antti and RKG.  I remember a few others who have unsubscribed. And I'm sure there are many, like myself, who page through their seqfan mail these days with barely a glance. We have lost those people too, quietly.
>
>But I think the worst part of it is, I have lost much of my enthusiasm for the OEIS. When I first started working on it, I used to get a great deal of pleasure out of tracking down and fixing errors and extending sequences and such, thinking that my work to some extent raised the overall quality of the OEIS. But now I feel like its a losing battle.
>

[MODERATOR: kill message if not acceptable]

* Tanya Khovanova <tanyakh at TanyaKhovanova.com> [Jan 12. 2007 15:15]:
> I like this idea. I am voting for Google groups.
> 
> I've been subscribed to this list for many years. The amount of mail
> is overwhelming. My solution was to have a separate email account
> which I use only for this group. Still there is no way I can check
> all the messages :-(
> 
> In google groups you can forward all postings to your mail if you
> want. At the same time you can visit the website.
> 
> Tanya
> 
> [...]

Any attempt to solve a non-technical problem by technical
means is doomed.  (for any:=99.8%)

The problem at hand is _people_ causing noise.
These folks are disregarding the given guidelines.
Strict(er) policy is most likely to solve the issue.

I marvel at the resistance of some people on the list against any
advice; the same time I marvel at Neil's always polite and IMHO
extremely lenient policy.

I am by now often tempted to write personal emails to some of the
notorious "contributers" with a message that boils down to "why not
just cut the cr*p?".  As you can see it is probably as wise decision
to completely refrain from personal emails for me.

I tried a few times to remind people on the list in a more indirect
way (e.g. asking for why a particular sequence might be of any
interest at all).  The result is nil.  Refusal to learn is hard to
cure.  Cane on the fingers has been reported to help.

I consider the repeated suggestions of moving to some web forum very
impolite.  Neil (and others) have given very valid reasons for not
doing so.  If every argument fails for you just remember that

Anyone is free to open, say, a forum "seqfan-junk", at some of those
nauseators move there.

[after editing this mail four times:]
Sorry folks, this is as diplomatic as it gets from my side.

May I suggest that we refocus the discussion in terms of solving the  
problem (or possibly deciding that it is a non-problem).

Increasing numbers of individuals are unsubscribing to the list  
because of their perceptions of the low signal-noise ratio. This  
includes highly respected mathematicians such as RKG with literally  
decades of contributions to mathematics, the EIS and the OEIS, and I  
feel that the group is weakened without
him.

I suggest that this is a problem that should be addressed by the  

Urging individual restraint has failed both in sequence submission  
and seqfan postings. However the problem is not really that the  
them have to READ them. And while there are probably no technological  
technological solutions to help people who don't want them from  
receiving them, at least individually.

Ideally this technological solution will involve AUGMENTING the  
existing email delivery with additional options to reduce the email  
load and provide greater individual filtering options for those who  
wish to use them. Anyone who *likes* receiving each and every email  
can continue to do so.

Preferring the email list is lovely for you, but it is not of direct  
relevance to those people who DON'T prefer the email list or to those  
people who have left or are thinking about leaving and it does not  
"against a forum" is also lovely for you, but again not something  
that is in any way helpful in terms of solving the actual problem.

Finally, I don't think that suggestions that identify a problem and  
make constructive suggestions for how to resolve it are in any way  
impolite, and and obviously all suggestions are made with the  
understanding that NJAS has the final arbitration.

Cheers

Gordon

--
Associate Professor Gordon Royle
Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering
University of Western Australia