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The current tag info of the is doesn't contain any additional information and I'd like to improve that. Currently it is almost exclusively used for integer sequences (many times from OEIS) and sometimes also for other sequences.

Problem: In all those challenges we repeatedly ask the OPs the same questions regarding the input/output format, if they didn't already define it and I think we should define some defaults for these points. To accomodate for the many different types of languages I usually tried to be as inclusive as possible in my challenges and therefore allow a few different types of inputs/outputs. The following points are based on these experiences.

I suggest adding following defaults rules to the tag info that automatically apply as long as OP doesn't specify anything else:

  • Indexing: Allowed are both \$0\$- and \$1\$-based indexing, and the following rules can be applied with both these types of indexing.
  • Format: The answers can use one of the following input/output methods:
    • Given some index \$n\$ it can return the \$n\$-th entry of the list.
    • Given some index \$n\$ it can return all entries up to the \$n\$th one in the sequence.
    • Without taking any index, it can return a (potentially infinite) lazy list or generator that represents the whole sequence.

Note that we do have a meta post about default input/output methods, but this post is about the format - which is why I suggest adding these rules to the tag info instead of to the aforementioned post.

I'd like to get some feedback to hear whether you agree with these defaults of whether we anything should be modified.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What about this or this or this? While I do really like your broad formats, given how much it matches up with my own language, your question seems to still be very closely tied to integer sequences, and a bit hard to fit with some questions that currently fall under the tag. \$\endgroup\$
    – Stephen
    Jun 11, 2019 at 21:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Stephen Thanks for asking! These are less frequent cases where the authors will have to provide a more precise specification anyway. But for the first and the second link I still think these defaults would work just as well. (Aside from that: In my opinion it is debatable whether the tag really fits for the second one.) \$\endgroup\$
    – flawr
    Jun 11, 2019 at 21:23

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UPDATE: The proposed changes have now been applied.

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