Author, Edit Thyself? ;-)

[Jonathan Post]

Giving the benefit of the doubt, most people can learn.

When I started on OEIS, I also tried naming something after myself,
not knowing that this was frowned upon.

I have learned a great deal about decorum and collaboration through
OEIS and seqfans, whether you like my sequences or not.

I believe that the hidden power of OEIS is precisely as Collaborationware.

If "the usual suspects" collaborate via OEIS, this is not necessarily
a bad thing, as you suggest.

The premise of, say, Wikipedia, is that armies of ordinary people can
produce results as useful as those of experts.

At worst, it is obscure, base, dumb, less interesting.  But is it not
possible that there is a synergy, and the collaboration might produce
something of interest?

If Mathematical Truths are jewels, might not a consortium of ad hoc
prospectors find a jewel of great beauty?

Let us reserve judgment, and remain empirical.

I say, "let a thousand flowers bloom."



About two years ago I sent this similar suggestion to Neil:

> Here is a suggestion on a way to make it easier for people to contribute
> comments on OLD sequences A######. On each page put an additional link
> "Contribute Comment On This Sequence." Make the link go to a new page
> 
> CommentOnA######/Submit.html
> 
> which is AUTOMATICALLY formatted with all the required entries, i.e. the
> number A######, the sequence, and the offset are already filled in. Then the
> contributor can simply add his name, email, and comment.

He was enthusiastic about the idea, but said he didn't have time to
implement it.

Jonathan



On 6/13/07 2:57 PM Maximilian Hasler wrote:

> I already suggested things like that to Neil as soon as I started to
> contribute.
> If I interpret well his non-reaction, I fear that he might not be too
> hot about "encouraging comments" -- which I can understand better and
> better as time goes by and I see the number of messages he processes
> every day.
> I suppose this "barrier" is some kind of filter...
> But indeed, it should nevertheless be easier to comment on a sequence
> than to submit a new one, which is currently not the case....
> 
> Maximilian
> 
> On 6/13/07, Jeremy Gardiner <jeremy.gardiner at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I think Jon's proposal is a very good idea!
>> This would assist and encourage comments on sequences.
>> 
>> Jeremy
>> 
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> 
>> From: jonscho at hiwaay.net
>> Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:16:03 -0500 (CDT)
>> To: njas at research.att.com
>> Cc: seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr
>> Subject: Avoiding misidentified comments/extensions:  idea
>> 
>> Perhaps a "Comment on this sequence" link could be added [...]
>