[seqfan] Re: OEIS Frontend Redesign

[Peter Luschny]

Bob: "As an OEIS submitter and editor, I’m much more inclined
to use the existing website."

Alonso: "The OEIS is damn near unusable on Android, iPhone."

This has long been known, and one wonders why it is so
stubbornly ignored.

The second goal of the OEIS Foundation is: "To maintain the
OEIS as a service that is freely accessible by the general public."

Well, it is freely accessible, but 'accessible' always needs
reinterpretation, just as the storage medium has changed over
time, "file cards to punched cards to magnetic tape to magnetic
disks..." so do the access tools.

However, the OEIS has stopped and fallen behind regarding
the front end.

I think there is a need for two frontends: one like the current
one, which works for the submitter and editor, and one for
the other users.

Most of the 630,000 * 30 = 18,900,000 monthly queries are
probably not from submitters and editors.

There are two groups of users: On the one hand, the submitters
and editors, many of them retired supporters who want to fill
their sleepless nights constructively, who sit in front of
wide screens, complain about the forgotten underline at the
sum sign and ask me how this could have been approved (I was
the culprit).

And then there is the host of others who don't give a damn
about such things, the 18-year-old student on his way to
university who wants to look up the Catalan numbers on his
mobile on the subway (try it with your mobile, here's the
link: https://oeis.org/A000108), and just thinks to himself,
what a weird club this OEIS is, before giving up.

Alexander & Tom's proposal is excellent (of course, it's just
the beginning, but that's clear to everyone). The Foundation
should send them 1000$ from their bulging coffers as recognition.
Or better yet, sponsor the project through GitHub, which
offers easy ways.

Peter