[seqfan] Re: Broadening involvement

[Olivier Gerard]

On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 1:17 AM, Charles Greathouse <
charles.greathouse at case.edu> wrote:

> Sequence fans, I've been pondering ways to increase the representation of
> fields in the OEIS.
>
> Combinatorics, number theory, recreational math, and computer science are
> well-represented, as are a few others. But other fields of math have much
> less, and outside of math (biology, chemistry, economics, physics, ...)
> there is very little. Perhaps well-defined integer sequences are simply
> hard to find outside of these few fields. But the thesis is dubious -- I've
> seen at least two papers devoted exclusively to an integer sequence
> published in anthropology journals, and I recall an ornithology paper about
> combinatorial syntax of songbirds.  More likely, I think, is that people in
> other fields are unaware (or less-aware) of the OEIS.
>
>
First thing is to enter these sequences in the OEIS by ourselves: anyone
looking up these sequences may find them along with the original article.



> Probably this is self-reinforcing: if there were more such sequences others
> would find the OEIS more useful and be more likely to read it -- and
> contribute to it -- in the future.  So how can we get from here to there?
>
>
The second thing seems to contact the author of these articles on behalf
of the OEIS, and invite them (and propose your help) to submit other
sequences
they might have, especially if they are planning new articles on related
subjects.
I have found out that several authors of articles I contacted did know
and use the OEIS to check whether their sequence was known but did not
bother to enter them if it wasn't, or stumbled on a small user interface
difficulty
when doing so, did not make any reference to the encyclopedia or did not
insist it was
kept when a journal editor suggested otherwise.
Of course, if they didn't know about the OEIS, they might be grateful or
indifferent.

Another (more difficult or more specific) strategy would be to publish
something in the same
journals and insist that sequences in your article be referenced by the
OEIS. If you
are knowledgeable in an under-represented subject in the OEIS, any fresh
publication
(article, blog, ...) from you mentioning the OEIS with links and
description can help.

Olivier