[seqfan] Re: Links and references in the OEIS, my policy

[David Seal]

Something I would question is why the Links and References sections are separated at all? If there were just a single Links & References section, there would never need to be separate entries in two sections for the same document, and a broken link could be removed while leaving the descriptive text that would enable the document to be found in a suitable library. Furthermore, things like "Bloggs conjectures that..." or "... (see Bloggs) ..." in the Comments section would present the reader with just one place to look for the document being referred to, rather than two at present.

I would support marking the best references and links with asterisks, but would suggest prefixing the asterisk to make it easier to scan for the asterisked entries - the reader just has to look down the left hand side of the section rather than for appended asterisks that could appear anywhere.

There might also need to be some sort of 'quality' requirement for an entry to be asterisked, though I haven't yet managed to work out what it should say...
 
David


> On 08 December 2019 at 19:49 Neil Sloane <njasloane at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> If there are a very large number of references and links, why not append a
> star (like this (*)) to the best ones?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Dec 8, 2019 at 2:37 PM M. F. Hasler <seqfan at hasler.fr> wrote:
> 
> > Indeed the problem is that the reference section does not allow links. So
> > if one wants to add a link to a reference, one has to move it to the links
> > section.
> >
> > But nobody would ever delete a serious reference in the links section if
> > ever the link would break (which only happens when the link was badly
> > chosen).
> >
> > I was speaking about the "bad" links people add, usually for self
> > promotion. Links that are never visited and remain broken for 20 years
> > without ever somebody nothing it because nobody would ever look at that web
> > page.
> >
> > In popular sequences like primes, triangular numbers etc, there are too
> > many such links which finally make the "links" section useless, or a pain
> > to use (the interested reader has to search himself for useful links to
> > serious references in an ocean of useless links). It's easy to find 200 web
> > pages dealing with primes or triangular numbers or Pythagorean triples etc,
> > by just typing this keyword into Google.
> >  If OEIS wants to provide something useful, it must not try to compete with
> > Google in providing a maximum number of links to web pages which deal with
> > a given subject. Google is better at this.
> > The added value OEIS *could* provide would consist of carefully choosing
> > the best among these. If we don't operate a strict selection, the links
> > section is worth less than a single link to google.con/search?q=keyword
> >
> > I proved this by taking at random a typical sequence in which 80% of the
> > *non-serious* links were broken for decades and nobody ever noticed it.
> > (I never talked about links to serious references. These are not a problem
> > in any way! and actually they almost never break, and in the rare cases
> > this happens, a better link to these references is readily found. If ever
> > this weren't the case, the reference could be moved back to the references
> > section. Nobody ever deletes a serious reference because of a broken link.)
> >
> > --
> > Maximilian
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 13:32 jean-paul allouche <
> > jean-paul.allouche at imj-prg.fr>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Why not? in particular if the reference is a paper, a book, etc.
> > > and the link... a link. In any case, better a duplicated entry than
> > > an --ultimately dead-- link.
> > > best
> > > jp
> > >
> > >
> > > Le 08/12/2019 à 18:21, michel.marcus at free.fr a écrit :
> > > > But then we will have duplicated entries in refs and links ?
> > > >
> > > > ----- Mail original -----
> > > >
> > > > De: "Chris Thompson" <cet1 at cam.ac.uk>
> > > > À: "Sequence Fanatics Discussion list" <seqfan at list.seqfan.eu>
> > > > Envoyé: Dimanche 8 Décembre 2019 16:09:07
> > > > Objet: [seqfan] Re: Links and references in the OEIS, my policy
> > > >
> > > > On Nov 30 2019, Neil Sloane wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Dear Sequence Fans, There have been discussions among the editors
> > that I
> > > >> don't agree with, andI would like to make some comments:
> > > > [ ..snip.. ]
> > > >> 3. Replacing a reference by a link is not always a good thing. When
> > the
> > > >> link breaks, as it will sooner or later, the citation gets [broken
> > link]
> > > >> added. Whereas the original reference could still be useful if you
> > have
> > > >> access to the right library.
> > > >>
> > > >> 3.1 That is why we keep references and links separate.
> > > > I do very much agree with this, and consider it a mistake that entries
> > > > began to be moved from "References" to "Links" just because an online
> > > > version became available. Of course, it is useful to provide such a
> > link
> > > > if one exists. If the link subsequently breaks and cannot be mended,
> > drop
> > > > the link but keep the reference - which would be the natural action if
> > > > it had remained in the "References" section.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Seqfan Mailing list - http://list.seqfan.eu/
> > >
> >
> > --
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> >
> 
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