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Not sure if MathOverflow is still a place to discuss such things, but I'll give it a try. Tell me an alternative site, in case it is wrong here. I translated a representation-theory/combinatorial problem into pure combinatorics and solved small cases with the computer. The computer gave me very interesting results. I planned to make a paper out of it but unfortunately, I can't prove much (I feel like a paper should contain at least some interesting proofs and not only computer results). While I'm no combinatorist, I consider the problems to be very hard even for combinatorists. I feel like my part was to translate the problem and make some conjectures, but I'll need help for the proofs. The question is now what to do with that. I see at least 2 options:

  1. Ask several people via mail for help. Usually I don't have success with that when the problem appears to be hard and people have to spend a lot of time. Also I'm not sure who to ask since I don't know many algebraic combinatorists.

  2. Try to post it on a forum like MathOverflow, where many people can help (there are also many results to prove). But I'm not sure if that's a good way to make a paper out of it (I don't mind many people working on it, since this is more of a hobby outside my main research). On the other side, this would be a fun thing to do and one might also see quick results.

Are there other options and what to prefer? Can something bad happen at 2., which I didn't think of?

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    $\begingroup$ You could write a preprint with the results and your conjectures/questions, and post in the arXiv (assuming you have access). A well-motivated individual question with your partial results and conjectures might be appropriate here, but a long series of posts will probably not be welcome (nor would a single post with lots and lots of questions on it). Perhaps you can combine both approaches, and ask your most salient question here and direct people to your preprint for more. $\endgroup$
    – Arturo Magidin
    Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 16:41
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    $\begingroup$ At the very least, posting here might help you determine if the result is already known, which would make everything else moot. $\endgroup$
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 17:31
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    $\begingroup$ Ok, ill try to answer my question by experminent and posted one of my combinatorial findings: mathoverflow.net/questions/250422/… $\endgroup$
    – Mare
    Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 17:52
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    $\begingroup$ I think that posting here is a good solution, but let me mention that there is a journal devoted to experimental mathematics: tandfonline.com/loi/uexm20 If you have substantial computer results, then you might be able to publish them in this journal even if you can't prove very much. $\endgroup$
    – Timothy Chow
    Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 18:38
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    $\begingroup$ @Mare : As a tip, if you do submit something to Experimental Mathematics, you should probably be careful not to say anything that implies that experimental mathematics is not "real" mathematics. $\endgroup$
    – Timothy Chow
    Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 20:32

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