tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27092031404612432562024-03-08T01:24:55.755-08:00Future of STOCLance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-37671361305382772962010-05-31T15:02:00.000-07:002010-06-23T10:21:42.835-07:00Future of STOC Proposal<div>
During the past year the SIGACT Executive committee has considered the issue that the STOC conference no longer attracts a large segment of the theoretical computer science community. Lance Fortnow wrote a proposal for restructuring the STOC conference to focus on bringing the theory community based on the model of large non-CS scientific conferences that accept all reasonable submissions, with many parallel sessions and plenary and invited talks. You can read the full proposal <a href="http://fortnow.com/weblog/media/futureofstoc.pdf">here</a>.</div>
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The proposal had some support and some opposition in the executive committee. We did decide to circulate the proposal to approximately thirty members of the theory community. You can read many of these responses below. </div>
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Based on the responses, the SIGACT Executive Committee decided to start with a mild change, increasing the number of allowed submissions from about 80 to 90. </div>
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The above was presented at the STOC 2010 business meeting to mixed reaction. Some at the meeting suggested I open up the discussion. We encourage you to add your comments to this post or the responses and keep the discussion going.Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-32739072297946467612010-05-29T19:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:47:35.070-07:00Paul Beame<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I am afraid that I don't understand the value in your specific model for STOC and in net am very negative about it. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">That doesn't mean that I am opposed to STOC changing modes, though I admit to having an affection for its current role. I would expect that your current proposal would not be popular at a business meeting. (Unfortunately I will not be able to attend STOC since it conflicts with my son's high school graduation.) The two-page "papers" would be worthless. As far as I am concerned this proposal would be tantamount to the removal of STOC as a serious venue for publication. This would be a loss to the community in speed of dissemination. Though it might be OK for math departments the whole notion would be at odds with the publication standards of the rest of Computer Science. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">If you are to pick a broader model I would choose something from successful large conferences in less math-oriented fields like ISIT or NIPS. NIPS has a different levels of acceptances as well as many subsidiary workshops. ISIT has regular though fairly lax reviewing and no limitation on multiple submissions. Both have real proceedings. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">* One important note, no matter what the proposal: If the selectivity of the conference is to change so significantly it ought to modify its name so as not to devalue the selectivity of earlier publications. After all, CS promotion committees, egged on by the CRA, have given special dispensation to conferences like STOC and it would be very negative for the evaluation of previous work if the standards dropped so precipitously.. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Some other considerations that you do not discuss but seem essential to making a larger broader conference work.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">* if the conference is to be so large then it will be beyond the ability of the current local organizers to run. You will need to have it run by the ACM or something similar rather than by volunteers. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">* I can hardly imagine such a conference running for only 3 days. This would require a shift to later dates when more of the community can make it to the conference without having to skip many classes. This would force the conference to be held between June 15 and Aug 25 or so. (Our classes go until June 13 for example and others start a week before Labor Day.)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In talking with Richard Ladner about trying to get a conference that would attract all of theory I realized that maybe trying to change STOC isn't required to do it. How about doing a Federated SIGACT Conference in the latter half of June 2013? You could try to get:</span></div>
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STOC<br />
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I would hope that this would be a chance to bring SoCG and PODC back in contact. The timing works out wrt Europe vs North America for CCC. I am not sure about the rest.<br />
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We could have plenary Theory speakers and we'd need ACM to run the arrangements but by being way smaller than FCRC we could have lots of choice of venues in smaller cities. We could run the whole thing in 5-6 days in the right location. You might have a more liberal "SIGACT" track (though with the other conferences it might not be necessary.)<br />
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We'd need a location that didn't require that we provide food all the time so that we could keep registration fees low.</div>
</span></div>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-51092817050147578882010-05-24T09:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T11:36:08.069-07:00Oded Goldreich<a href="http://weblog.fortnow.com/media/STOC/Oded.pdf">PDF</a>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-56316530242401361712010-05-22T11:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:51:32.023-07:00Russell Impagliazzo<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">My initial reaction is that this would be a huge mistake on the part of the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">community. STOC/FOCS is a well-respected ``brand'' among computer scientists,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">including chairs, deans, and funders. Diluting or making ambiguous the meaning of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">a FOCS/STOC paper will have a negative iimpact on the careers of all researchers in</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">TCS, not just junior researchers. If you want a conference along the lines you suggest in this proposal, why not create a new conference rather than changing the meaning of the name STOC dramatically? If the new confernce overshadows STOC, then we can</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">eliminate STOC later. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I would not submit papers to a conference as in the proposal, under any name, or encourage my students to submit to it. It seems to provide no additional benefit</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">over having the paper in ECCC, and giving talks on the paper at university seminars. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I might attend such a conference if it were conveniently timed and located, but would</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">not go out of my way to attend. I would not want to be on the program committee, if it requires one. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">If others reacted like myself, the main effect of the proposal within the theory community would be to merge FOCS/STOC into a single annual conference callled FOCS. This</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">conference would be fiercely competitive, having an acceptence rate below 15%, unless researchers decided that it wasn't worth the gamble/wait and submitted their papers to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">specialized conferences instead. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">As I mentioned above, the effect outside the theory community would be to make it harder to judge the quality of a theorist's publication record. It would take some time before</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the distinction between ``old STOC'' and ``new STOC'' percolated to be general knowledge, and even then, the question of when the switch over occurred would have to be answered.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">If the graphics community changed say, SIGGRAPHICS to a non-competitve forum, it would be a while before I caught on, and would permanently impair my ability to judge a CV from graphics candidates. I imagine the same thing would happen to non-theorists if we switched STOC to a non-competitive forum. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I do not see any positive consequences at all. Since I would not submit papers, or be</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">giving talks, going to such a conference would be a low priority for me, and I imagine</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">it would be likewise for colleagues that I am eager to talk to. Thus, I can't see that</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">attendance will soar rather than drop percipitiously.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">While there are always imperfections and small improvements and experiments are needed in any human institution, STOC/FOCS as a bi-annual conference has been a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">tremendous success so far. They are the type of prestigious conferences that other areas have emulated. People within and without theory know and respect puiblications in</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">these conferences. Perhaps some of this respect is unwarrented, in that conference referreeing is short of journal refereeing, and program committees are fallible. However,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I cannot see any benefit to moving towards the changes in the proposal, and see the possibility of significant harm. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-48973911145398639702010-05-21T09:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:14:08.477-07:00David Johnson<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I sympathize with the goal of establishing a large meeting</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">that attracts a large proportion of the theoretical computer</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">science field and its leaders, such as the AMS meetings do for</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">math and similar meeting do for physics and chemistry, etc.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Unfortunately, I do not think it can be done. Those meetings</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">in other fields have the advantage of being long-established</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and built into everyone's mindset. A new such conference does</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">not stand a chance, given the competition for travel money etc.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">by selective conferences that provide prestige and publication</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">credit. The current proposal appears to recognize this by</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">hiding the new conference under an old name (STOC), and essentially</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">killing the old conference (STOC) so that at least IT does not</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">provide competition for travel money.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">However, even with the old name, the conference is unlikely to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">thrive. CS has a long history of accept-everything conferences</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(Computer Science Conference, FJCC, etc.) dying out due to competition</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">from selective conferences. The fact is, such conferences do</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">not tend to be technically rewarding, as anyone who has attended</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the annual INFORMS fall conference will attest. (It was partly</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">because of this that the selective IPCO conference was established.)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Consequently, I have serious reservations about the up-side of the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">proposal. And the down-side is extreme. There are already widespread</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">complaints that many good papers do not get into STOC/FOCS/SODA.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This proposal would reduce the number of slots by 33% (50% if you</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">do not count SODA), thus greatly exacerbating what is already a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">major problem.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So you can expect me to argue strongly against this proposal if</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">it is raised at the STOC business meeting (although I may not have</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to as I do not think it will get much support).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">There are, however, other and less drastic approaches that we</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">could take to address the same concerns. One possibility would</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">be to add a half-day of poster sessions to STOC, with a much</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">less stringent threshold for acceptance. I'd actually prefer</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">poster sessions to a series of 10-minute talks, since I could use</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">my time more effectively in seeking out results of interest to me, and</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">could have a much more interactive experience with the authors.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Other areas of computer science value such poster sessions highly.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Another idea is to piggyback a general theory conference onto FCRC.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">FCRC was set up as our best approximation to a general CS conference,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">recognizing that a new, general and non-selective conference was</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">bound to fail. The fact that it does not occur every year is also</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">a plus. The one non-selective conference that I do find worthwhile</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">attending is the International Math Programming Symposium, which</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">is only held once every three years. Its relative infrequency</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">makes it less of a financial drain, and so it can attract a high</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">proportion of the leaders of the field. Also, people typically</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">talk about their best work of the last three years, which raises</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the level above that of an annual accept-everything event.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(Admittedly, it is also like the AMS meetings in that it has</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">long established itself as the event that everyone who is anyone</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">in the field needs to attend.)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Or, if we want to avoid all the competition for attention at FCRC,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">we could, on a once-every-3(or 4)-year schedule, colocate STOC (and</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">perhaps other theory conferences, as we are doing this year in Boston)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">with a new conference that combines a major collection of invited</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">talks (as a draw for the experts) with an accept-everything, multiple</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">parallel session, schema. Or perhaps the best thing might be to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">do a one-off, in celebration of some noteworthy historical event,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">fill it with big name invited speakers, etc., and see what happens.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">If it is a success, we could think about doing it again.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-81107350190903738682010-05-20T23:00:00.000-07:002010-06-21T13:45:26.411-07:00Jonathan KatzIn writing my piece about "the future of STOC" I am responding to the
specific recommendations of Lance's proposal but I also have the
luxury of taking some of the other responses into account. To some
extent, I have tried not to repeat points made extensively by others
already.
<p>
To begin, I think we (as a community) need to decide <em>what exactly
it is (if anything) that needs fixing?</em> In particular, I am not
convinced that the goal of changing STOC should be to maximize
attendance. (Oded Goldreich makes these points quite nicely.) While
there are aspects of STOC (and FOCS, for that matter) that, in my
opinion., <em>do</em> need fixing, I am also willing to concede that I
may not be the "target audience" of STOC and I surely do not have the
historical perspective that other responders have. In that sense, my
opinion does not matter unless the larger community shares my
concerns.
<p>
So what do I think needs to be fixed? There is the issue, raised also
by Oded, that STOC and FOCS have become too focused on the competitive
aspect of having a paper accepted than about the technical results
being presented. There is the associated problem, both internal and
external to the theory community, that someone may not be viewed as a
"real" theorist without regularly publishing in FOCS/STOC. Then there
is, perhaps, the most important question: what do attendees gain from
attending the conference, and what should they gain? Should the
conference be a social affair (in which case maybe maximizing
attendance should be the goal)? Or should the goal be to learn, and to
foster cross-pollinization of ideas across disciplines? I would prefer
it to be the latter, and for me the conference currently fails.
<p>
In trying to analyze why that is the case, I hit upon two possible reasons:<br>
(1) First, there appears to be an emphasis on technical "heavy
lifting" at the expense of general interest to the broader TCS
community. (As an aside, when I evaluate a paper for STOC/FOCS the
first thing I try to evaluate is its interest to the broader
community. I have been told explicitly by some people that I should
not do this.)<br>
(2) There is no time, nor is their motivation, for speakers and
authors to make their results accessible to a broader audience.
Both the above may go influenced by the competitiveness issue raised
earlier, though they are not completely correlated.
<p>
I think accepting all reasonable submissions (as recommended in
Lance's proposal) is exactly the wrong way to go, and would ultimately
not address either of the points above (in addition to not increasing
attendance). To me, one of the purposes of STOC (ideally) is to filter
results for the community, altering the community to results of
(potential) broad interest. Accepting all papers would also have the
effect (as many others have noted) of diluting the meaningfulness of
having a paper accepted. This means that people with "strong" papers
will (a) not submit to STOC and (b) might decide to wait a whole year
to publish at FOCS (which would lead to disastrous results, and only
increase competitiveness). For these same reasons, I completely
disagree with the claimed "Effect on Young Researchers" paragraph of
the proposal. If a STOC publication means nothing (which will be the
effect of accepting everything) then it won't help researchers at all
to have a publication there.
<p>
Instead, I proposed something radically different <a
href="http://jonkatz.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/what-stocfocs-should-could-be/">here</a>
that would seem to address everyone's concerns. My suggestion was to
accept <em>fewer</em> papers to the main track of STOC, with the
stated goal of highlighting papers of broad community interest. In
addition, however, there would be several associated "workshops"
(whether they share the name STOC or not does not matter much) on
specialized topics. Papers for these workshops could even be selected
from among those papers submitted to STOC but not accepted for the
main track. This would have the effects of (1) increasing the total
number of papers accepted overall, while drawing back people from
other disciplines who may have felt "marginalized" by STOC in the
past, while at the same time (2) accepting fewer papers to the main
track, thus helping to focus the community's attention on a smaller
"core" of important papers. At the same time, we might be able to give
longer speaking slots to papers accepted to the main track, and
encourage the authors to devote more time to make their talks
accessible to the audience. While I may be wrong, I think this
proposal would also reduce the competitiveness overall, since it
wouldn't be expected, say, that a graduating student would have
several main-track STOC publications by the time they graduate.
<p>
Other comments:<br>
- I very much like the idea of inviting plenary speakers to talk about
groundbreaking results and/or to give tutorials, and I think this fits
right in with my ideals for the conference and would also increase
attendance. Like Oded, however, I often find open-ended "invited
talks" less useful (although there are certainly exceptions...).
<br>
- It's not a bad idea to allow people to give short talks about their
research and/or papers published elsewhere, in an effort to increase
participation (especially among students) and attendance . But I don't
see the need to institutionalize this with a review process that
accepts everything. In other conferences, there is simply an informal
"rump session" that accomplishes the same thing and doesn't force
speakers to commit months in advance.Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-10805288157971476092010-05-17T15:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:40:57.965-07:00Noam Nisan<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">To start with, I like the basic structure of this proposal. While I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">do like the CS conference system, I have to admit that the pan-TCS</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">conferences are becoming less useful as the field widens, and,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">nostalgia aside, innovation is needed to maintain a general TCS</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">scientific community. The proposed new structure seems to me to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">indeed fit well with the rest of the TCS ecosystem</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(journals+FOCS+specialized confs+arxiv+...) I do think that a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">name-change may be in place, reflecting the new format though. (Maybe</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">something like CTOC, pronounced just like STOC but with the C standing</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">for conference/congress/</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><wbr></wbr></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">confederated?)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">My main problem with the new format is that, as detailed now, it does</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">not seem useful enough -- why would I come or send a student there?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Going to STOC/FOCS now has a double benefit: both for the speakers</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(they are indeed listened to and they get significant credit) and the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">listeners (the talks are good). These two advantages will be gone</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">with the new format. I am afraid that the weakly stated "few plenary</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">speakers" and "tutorials" are a step in the right direction but too</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">weak to be a real attraction. I think that significant new</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">attractions are required to make this "fly": Either a strong program</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">of invited talks (like in the Congresses of Math or of game theory --</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">but this may be expensive since these speakers may require funding)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">or, my preferred route, a "federated"-spirit having may specific</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">workshops and specialized conferences either as part of the new STOC</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">or as satellites (as is starting to happen around EC for example).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Finally, if a major change will happen, I wouldn't miss the change of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">putting in other innovations as well: from videotaping and</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">distributing the talks (at least invited ones), to encouraging</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">preprints-on-arXiv, etc.</span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-73796134637840651182010-05-15T23:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:20:50.648-07:00Mihai Patrascu<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I do regularly attend STOC and FOCS. In many cases, it is because I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">have papers there, but I have attended several times without papers.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The reason is that it allows me to meet a large sample of people from</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">about half of the theory community, with whom I would like to keep in</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">touch. Thus, I am sympathetic to the idea of a large meeting. I say</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">half of the theory community because another half (of "my" theory</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">community) is covered by SODA and SoCG and have no contact with</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">STOC/FOCS (or vice-versa). I regularly submit and attend to SODA for</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">this community; but I do not usually attend or submit to SoCG, since I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">find the crowd a bit too small to justify it. Again, this indicates</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">that I would be most happy with a general meeting.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">That said, your proposal brings up two issues:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(1) creating a general meeting;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(2) ending the STOC conference.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The proposed hijacking of STOC to achieve (1) is scandalous, in my</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">view. Reputation dies quite quickly, so just naming it "STOC" would</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">not boost attendance, as much as you might want this to be the case.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">If this proposal is adopted, how would normal CVs look like? Should</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">one list "Strong STOC" and "Unselective STOC" for conference papers?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Thus, let me discuss the possibility of ending STOC (gracefully) in</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">order to make time for a new general conference. Since the idea of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">selected conferences will not disappear, this could have two effects:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(A) FOCS would become the only strong conference. Experience with</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">communities that have a single super-strong conference (SIGCOMM,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">SIGGRAPH) suggests this is a very bad idea. Having one deadline a year</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">is not good for quick dissemination, and could lead to unproductive</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">levels of competition.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(B) Second-tier conferences would be boosted to "top level." SODA is</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">already not far, while CCC could conceivably reach that level. But</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">this outcome would be quite unfortunate for TCS, since it would</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">already deepen a large gap between complexity theory and algorithms.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(One would expect complexity theory to be the bigger loser, as it</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">would be viewed as "philosophy" by contrast to the "useful</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">algorithms.")</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">To summarize, I think the goal of a broad meeting is laudable, but</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">ending STOC would be a rather unfortunate idea. There are many</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">alternative proposals. My favorite one would be to create broad</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">meetings through careful planning and colocation:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">* SoCG should colocate with STOC. The time periods are very close, so</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">this is easily done. At this late stage, it seems that bringing SoCG</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">kind of geometry back into STOC/FOCS is unfeasible, so this is the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">best possible outcome.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">* STOC/FOCS should increase in size by ~20%, allowing room for top</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">papers in areas that are currently SODA-only. The same could be said</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">about "non-STOC/FOCS cryptography," which seems to be an excluded</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">brand.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">* All conferences should have poster sessions.</span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-15404094151436380052010-05-13T19:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:49:57.954-07:00Omer Reingold<a href="http://weblog.fortnow.com/media/STOC/Reingold.pdf">PDF</a>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-41833593421133467532010-05-12T19:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:53:22.123-07:00Rocco Servedio<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I have mixed feelings about the proposal. I think there are strong arguments to be made for having a 'large science meeting' for TCS that is not exclusive in the way that STOC/FOCS are, so I like the idea of SIGACT being behind a conference of this sort. I think it is bad for the community that, more and more, the only attendees at STOC/FOCS are people with a paper.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But I am concerned about converting STOC itself into this conference. Perceptions are slow to change so if STOC turned into the kind of conference that is outlined -- where papers are submitted and accepted rather nonselectively -- then I think there would be confusion about whether papers are "old" STOC papers (I could see people calling them "real" STOC papers, unfortunately) or "new" STOC papers. This confusion would probably come up many times in evaluations, letters, etc. I also worry that halving the number of (let me say it) "real" STOC/FOCS papers is not a good thing in terms of growing the field.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I haven't thought this through very carefully, but maybe a possibility would be to have a large nonselective flagship conference annually in conjunction with STOC (which would retain its usual role and name). This could have a couple of pluses: there would be a built-in 'seed audience' of 'key players' at the new conference (the STOC attendees), and it could help to grow STOC's visibility since it would be right there with the larger meeting (much like having STOC at FCRC sometimes does now).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-58634028230714150542010-05-12T05:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:36:15.769-07:00Aaron Sterling<a href="http://oldblog.computationalcomplexity.org/media/STOC/Sterling.pdf">PDF</a>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-77808641572639240362010-05-12T04:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:43:43.617-07:00Madhu Sudan<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">1) I am in favor of rethinking the nature and size of STOC to serve our</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">community better. I am glad you are doing this.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">2) I am not in favor of turning STOC into a purely social event where people</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">publish papers merely to justify the travel to their funding agencies.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">3) I think we should rethink STOC because our community is getting larger,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">with very well developed closely connected subcommunities with a few but</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">positive number of broadly interesting results each year. In view of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">this STOC should grow, and try to support the greater volume of work, while</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">also trying to bring the subcommunities together.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">4) I think STOC should not aim to fill a predetermined number of slots</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(or number of sessions) nor should it try to needlessly restrict itself</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to fixed upper bounds. It should attempt to find papers that stimulate</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the program committee (which may composed as a union of subcommittees),</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and then simply determine what is breadth of interest in the stimulating</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">papers. (Among other things I hope this will allow program committees to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">view submissions "positively" rather than "negatively".) STOC's attitude</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">should be similar to that in typical journals today which don't view</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">papers as competition to other papers, but rather it should make</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">independent decisions on each paper independent of time/slot constraints.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Having done so, I don't see a need to drop standards dramatically -</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">we can fix the standards (strong interest among several PC members)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and keep the number of papers variable - I would estimate that this</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">might at most double the number of accepted papers (incidentally</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">do we have a good idea of the expected number of times a paper is submitted to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">FOCS/STOC conditioned on eventual acceptance?).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">5) I can imagine that coming up with a good implementation of the program</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">committee will be non-trivial, but should not be intractable. I am happy to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">give suggestions ...</span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-20335048186683661272010-05-11T23:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:55:07.244-07:00Kunal Talwar<br />
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I am generally suspicious of arguments that start with everyone-else-does-this (I guess my mom used it too many times :) ), so I came to this proposal with some skepticism. While further analysis has gotten me past the gut reaction, I still think the proposal in its current form may not be an ideal solution to whatever problem it is trying to fix.</div>
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An obvious disclaimer is that I have been part of the community for a very short period and probably have a relatively limited perspective. But I might as well share that limited perspective.</div>
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I think there are problems with FOCS/STOC and I am sure you have a list of things that people think are wrong with FOCS/STOC. So let me start with what I think is right with FOCS/STOC, so we do not throw the baby with the bathwater. Some of these positives happen to be just flip sides of the negatives, complicating the situation.</div>
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I think our community has made tremendous progress in several areas in recent years. And a lot of that progress has come not from one person hunkering down and solving problems, but from papers by different individuals that feed off each other. And this quick back-and-forth is tremendously helped by the fact that we have two conferences in a year (maybe 3 if you count soda/complexity) that we think are highly rewarding and visible outlets for our ideas; even those that we think could be developed further and lead to even better results. The deadlines for these conferences often compel us to get working to write up the ideas that exist is a vague form in our heads or on our whiteboards. Now there are some obvious drawbacks of this that I am sure you are thinking of right now (half-baked hastily written, sometimes incremental manuscripts). But it also hastens the pace of research: I like to think of these as 20 page contributions to a (very slow) polymath project. This brings in diverse perspectives, sometimes leading to better and faster final outcome than the hunker-down-in-the-basement model. Even mathematicians like Gowers are discovering the benefits of multiple-viewpoints-<wbr></wbr>collaboration (in the ongoing polymath 3). In an ideal world, we would all disseminate these 20-page contributions as soon as possible through the arxiv or through our web pages or our blogs, or through a modified STOC. However in practice, people have little incentive to do so unless they are worried about being scooped.<span> </span>It is hard to set up incentives for such sharing of ideas and focs/stoc miraculously do that. Removing incentives for sharing intermediate-sized works would result in more mature papers coming out of longer research programs. But there is a risk that there will be fewer final results that come out the back-and-forth,<span> </span>and there may be a slowdown effect on research.</div>
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<span> </span>In fact, FOCS/STOC conference pressure incentivizes us to (a) write up these results, and (b) write them up in a way that can be understood by, or at least appreciated by any one in the community. For comparison, I don't think other many communities have this latter feature.</div>
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That is related to another aspect of FOCS/STOC that I appreciate tremendously: the fact that I can go to a talk in a different subarea that I know little about, and learn something; often even learn something that I would find useful in my own research. I think these serendipitous connections are invaluable and help advance science. Our conference culture encourages outsider-friendly-<wbr></wbr>dissemination (both in writing and in talks), which in turn helps these connections. These connections are the main reason I go to FOCS/STOC.</div>
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I like to think that these features (fast exchange of ideas, ease of building connections between different areas) have helped people in our area make progress not just on our own problems, but even contribute significantly on relevant questions or problems in more mature areas.</div>
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The conference culture also has some obvious problems: there exist works for which "full" versions that are carefully refereed don't exist. But I also feel this is gradually fixing itself.<span> </span>As committees demand full proofs, people put out version on the arxiv once the paper is published, and as our journals get their act together and start returning reviews in reasonable timeframes, people will be more likely to send these full version to journals. Given the flux that the publishing industry is in, I wouldn't be surprised if within a decade, we (and older sciences)find a replacement that will have the benefits of journals without their negatives. But I digress.</div>
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Returning to the proposal at hand. I can think of two models for a central meeting of the community. SODA is one that many in the algorithms community feel fits that mold, but while being fairly inclusive, it stops very well short of the accept-nearly-all-reasonable-<wbr></wbr>submissions model. I really enjoy SODA.</div>
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The other model, more in line with the all-reasonable-submissions proposal, is what some other communities do: I have attended INFORMS (annual), some AMS meetings (every few months), and ISMP (every 3 years). My experience at these has been the direct opposite of enjoyment (and this is even when they had several sessions in my area of interest) . I have found these events to be extremely fragmented, with a very small number of attendees at each talk. As a result, the talks and the papers are directed at the experts, and I've found that when going to a session even slightly outside my expertise (e.g. measure concentration or optimization at AMS), I struggle to understand anything; this happens less at e.g. a crypto/communication complexity talk at STOC.</div>
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Many people I have talked to about INFORMS in the past have shared their dissatisfaction with it. In fact even navigating the schedule is impossible. I find the SODA list of abstracts to be close to the limit of what I can flip through and pick from in 3 days; for INFORMS, the only option is to look at session titles and decide where you want to be; even reading the paper titles and finding a set of non-overlapping favorites would take several hours. So to some extent, I think moving to the accept-all may have the affect of fragmenting the community, rather than bringing it together. Moreover, depending on the definition of reasonable (full proofs needed?), it may also exacerbate the problem of claimed-but-detailed-proof-in-<wbr></wbr>non-existent-full-version "result". Further, in the accept-all-reasonable model, submitters may have less incentive to write their submissions for anyone but the expert (since if they say it's good, it is in). I worry that the INFORMS model may reduce the cross-area interchange of ideas.</div>
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SODA is not perfect; the selection process has more randomness than one would like. But if one were to change STOC, I would strongly prefer the SODA model to the INFORMS one.</div>
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There are the other obvious negatives of changing STOC at all. An even more competitive FOCS, with much increased stakes, is probably not healthy. It may be forced to change in some unforeseen ways as a result of a drastic change in STOC. Depending on how the community reacts, there may be a decrease in the speed of dissemination, and an increase in the clique-ishness of dissemination.</div>
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Moreover, larger STOC (either model) means larger committees, which would eventually have to be partitioned into tracks, where there may not be cleanly defined balanced separators. That will also contribute to the fragmentation of a community and fewer bridges. Maybe such fragmentation is unavoidable as the community grows, but I personally would like to resist it as long as possible.</div>
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There are obvious benefits of your proposal that I will omit to avoid making this even longer. But I hope you would consider the above negatives when comparing the current proposal to other possible approaches to get some of those benefits.</div>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-4483546694853160992010-05-11T11:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:07:40.412-07:00Eva TardosTo summarize in a single sentence, I think this is a really bad idea,
and would like to strongly urge you NOT to do this. If you think there
is a need for such a venue, I see nothing wrong in suggesting to have
one. But why kill a really good meeting, like STOC.
<br />
For a longer version: you are comparing to how scientific meetings
work in other science fields, and basically suggest that we adapt to
how meetings work at other science fields. Each field has its own
culture, and I am sure the way the physics community works is well
supported by the way they run their meetings. However, we are a
subfield of computer science (as an ACM SIG), and it is best for us if
our meetings are set up similar to meetings in other CS areas. This
certainly helps those of us in academic computer science departments,
where the people from the other subareas of computer science are our
immediate colleagues. Typically CS subfields are organized around
selective conferences like FOCS and STOC. The systems people has SOSP
and OSDI, the database people have SIGMOD and VLDB, vision people have
CVPR and ICCV, the machine learning area has ICML and NIPS,
programming languages has POPL and PLDI, graphics has SIGGRAPH, etc.
<br />
You correctly point out that other scientific communities are not
organized around such meetings. The math community isn’t, physics
mostly isn’t, chemistry isn’t, and other engineering fields
aren’t either. But CS fields are. There are huge benefits of
having a community and meeting structure that is more similar to other
subfield of computer science, than to math. I do admit that scientific
computing is more like math and not CS. But they increasingly do get
questioned whether they should belong to math or to CS. The majority
of academics in our community are in CS departments (as are all but
one members of this EC). It serves our field incredibly well that we
are well integrated in the broader computer science community. By
being in CS departments (or CS groups at companies) we get involved
and impact issues that the broader community thinks about. This is
important to each of us, and certainly important to our field. I think
the proposed more math-like arrangement of the new STOC will hurt our
ability to do this. I can still remember the not-so distant past when
many theoreticians felt that their area was questioned in their own
department. Do you remember the <a href="http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/262301.262309">Karp committee report</a> on the future
of theoretical computer science from 1997. We are at a much better
point today. Changing our meeting structure closer to the math
community is a pretty big step in the wrong direction.
<br />
I assume you will argue that your proposal kept one such conference
FOCS, and that should be enough. I argue that its not enough. As you
saw on the list most areas have two and they often have a spring and a
fall one (just like we do). The graphics community has one only:
SIGGRAPH, and this single highest quality publication venue makes life
really hard for graphics people. They focus a lot of their afford all
year on the December SIGGRAPH deadline. Waiting 9+ months to get
something published at FOCS (or submitted to FOCS) does not seem
healthy for the community and does not seem good for science. Systems
till relatively recently had only one such opportunity SOSP and OSDI
alternating both in the fall. They added the related NSDI in the
springs 7 years ago.
<br />
Answering your concrete questions, I do feel STOC adequately serves
the community. I am sure not perfect, nothing is perfect. Improvement
is always possible. But the proposal is a big step in the wrong
direction.Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-64047921826229825502010-05-11T07:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:42:40.631-07:00Luca Trevisan<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">As our community has grown in numbers and in breadth, the number</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">of accepted papers in STOC and FOCS has stayed the same. This is</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">causing more competition for acceptance, with the usual consequences:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"safer" choice by the committee, a feedback effect on the community,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">making people focus on the more popular topic, general unhappiness,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">some subcommunities splitting off to their own specialized conference,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and so on.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The change that you propose would effectively kill off STOC as</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">a "prestigious" venue, and so we would double the pressure</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">on FOCS. I could imagine that junior people would send their good</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">papers to STOC, hoping that, despite the five parallel sessions, many</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">people would come to the talk, but then send it again to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">FOCS, in order to have the "stamp of approval" of a selective</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">conference in their CV.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The net effect is that the competitiveness and general</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">unhappiness will only get worse.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I also have one general and one concrete objection to big conferences,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">such as this new hypothetical STOC.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The big conferences like</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the International Congress of Mathematician, or the Modern</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Language Association Convention are products of times when</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">travel was difficult and expensive, but it was necessary because</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">conferences were the only ways to see new work. So it made sense</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to have a conference that everybody would want to go to, but just one.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Now we have various ways to stay in touch and to obtain papers</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">without going to a conference, and travel is still hard but it is</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">not so bad to go to two or three conferences every year. So it</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">makes more sense to have relatively smaller events where the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">quality of the interaction with the other participants (the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">main reason to go) is high.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">When we have a very big conference, involving four or more</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">parallel sessions and five hundred or more participants, the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">conference cannot be held in a normal hotel, which does not have</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the necessary facilities, so it has to be in a place that specializes</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">in large conventions, which is more expensive, and is often located</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">in unattractive locations. Eveyrthing becomes more complicated,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">from having lunch to finding the people you want to talk to.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Instead of going in this direction of radical change, which could</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">bring several unintended adverse consequence, I think we might instead</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">trying to gently increase the number of accepted papers at STOC</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and FOCS, and to find ways (for example, co-locating other conferences)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to increase participation.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-91448862131296729202010-05-09T23:30:00.000-07:002010-06-18T18:39:11.691-07:00Salil Vadhan<br />
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">Here are my thoughts:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">I do attend STOC/FOCS on a regular basis, with the goal of keeping up on how other areas of TCS are evolving. In fact, I have attended the last three STOCs. What keeps me from attending every time is simply needing to limit my total amount of travel, considering family and teaching. So I try to keep a balance between going to general theory conferences (ie FOCS/STOC), more specialized conferences (eg CCC and TCC), and focused workshops or one-time invitations. What has led me going to STOC rather than FOCS more often recently is the fact that STOC is not during the semester, and that I’ve been organizing other conferences/events around STOC the last few years. But, for the current discussion about overall attendance, perhaps the question of how often I attend is less relevant than whether or not I send my students to FOCS/STOC when they don’t have a paper – and the answer is that I do try to send each of them to one FOCS/STOC per year, typically the one that is closer to Boston.</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">The fact that other scientific disciplines have “traditional large meetings” does not imply that this is a better or more mature mode of operation for a field of research. Scientific communication, publication, and dissemination and are all very different now than they were when any of these fields (or computer science, for that matter) established their meeting culture. We should think about what’s best for TCS, given both the culture the field has established, and our assessment of present and future changes and opportunities.</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">While the conference system in CS certainly has some drawbacks, I think it is worth also reflecting on some of its benefits:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;"><span>o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">“Arbitration of competition of attention” (to quote Noam Nisan). I view the role of a STOC/FOCS PC as selecting a collection of papers from across TCS (particularly outside my own areas) that seem worthwhile for me to hear about. A traditional large scientific meeting will not have enough filtering to serve this purpose. Moreover, if it is broken into many parallel sessions, the talks will likely be aimed at narrower audiences. And if I’m just going to attend sessions focused on my own areas, I’d prefer to do this in smaller, specialized conferences and workshops, which are better suited to real research interaction.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;"><span>o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"> A level playing field for new people to get the attention of the community. A new researcher (eg grad student) submitting a strong (but not necessarily breakthrough) paper has the guarantee that it will get a serious evaluation by the program committee, and if accepted, it will be heard by a broad cross-section of the TCS community. With both the traditional large scientific meeting and internet dissemination, it seems to me that unknown researchers will have a much harder time getting the attention of the broader community. The “invited plenary talk” model of large scientific meetings seems likely to focus attention on more senior, established people than new researchers.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;"><span>o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">Encouraging people to write up and disseminate results more quickly than they otherwise would. Were it not for our regular conference deadlines, I know that I would probably sit on results much longer than I currently do. While the infamous CS deadline rushes probably do lead to less polished and sometimes more incremental papers, I am not sure this is a bad thing. The result is that ideas are communicated more quickly to the community, allowing other researchers to start building on them.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">I have had little exposure to “traditional large science meetings,” but right now it sounds much less appealing to me than STOC/FOCS, for all the reasons mentioned above. It feels as if the main community-wide interactions would become social rather than substantive.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">All the above said, I too am concerned that the attendance at STOC has not grown as the community (and number of submissions) have grown. But before proposing solutions, we should gather a lot more information about why people are and are not attending STOC, and what might attract them. (Not to mention data about how many attendees are authors, students, faculty, etc.) Without such information, I think that any adjustments should be incremental rather than revolutionary.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">Addendum (6/18):</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">After </span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">seeing </span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">the </span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">well-attended</span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"> co-location of STOC, CCC, and EC, I feel that a “Federated Theory Conference” may be a much better way of bringing the broader TCS community together than increasing the number of papers at STOC. This </span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">w</span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">ould be like FCRC, but focused on theory, and hence able to be much broader in its coverage of theory. One could imagine every few years trying to co-locate STOC with CCC, EC, SoCG, LICS, RANDOM-APPROX, TCC, PODC,</span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"> and more.</span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"> STOC could be in the middle of the meeting, and have nothing in parallel to it. This would bring many more people together while retaining the advantages of the current conference structure:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">The STOC program could remain small enough to serve a “highlighting” role with papers and talks aimed at the broader theory community,</span><br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">Through the co-located conferences, people would have enough going on in their subfield to justify the trip. Moroever the subfields can retain their own sense of community through the co-located conferences (where talks are aimed at people in the same subfield).</span><br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;"><span>-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11pt;">This seems to be simultaneously low-risk and high-reward. It can easily be tried as an experiment once, with potentially large payoff for the community if it works well. However, almost nothing needs to change as far as how the individual conferences work, so it is easily reversible.</span><br />
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</div>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-74751372411261140652010-05-09T23:00:00.001-07:002010-06-18T12:22:55.998-07:00Moshe Vardi<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">My reaction to this propose is WOW! It is quite a dramatic proposal.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It'd bring about a significant change in the culture of the theory community in the US.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Some thoughts:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">1. Right now the proposal is clear on what it proposes, but it is not clear on the motivation. Obviously, there is a sense that thngs are not working well right now, but no analysis of what is not working well and how that can be remedied.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">2. What will be the impact on the publication culture of the SIGACT community? There will be a lot of theory papers to shoehorn into FOCS. FOCS will become brutally competitive, perhaps too competitive. Is the goal to push more papers to journals? Should this goal be spelled out?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">3. An aspect that it not addressed explicitly in the proposal is the fragmentation of the theory community. While SIGACT nominally represents</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the theory community in the US, in reality it represents the STOC-FOCS-SODA community. This is in contrast, for example, to EATCS, which has managed to stay broadly representative. Will the new STOC format help STOC regain its breadth?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In summary, I think this is a bold proposal, which I find quite attractive. It holds the potential of reshaping how the US theory community runs its business. At the same time, it is not bold enough.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It does not explicitly describes what the problems are and what the goals are. I wonder whether just changing STOC, leaving FOCS and SOA unchanged, would accomplish the underlying goals. (For example, I could imagine that this change could be accompanied by FOCS significantly expanding the number of papers it accepts.) I realize that FOCS and SODA are independent organizations, but there is only one underlying community.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-66713466159319546772010-05-09T19:00:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:39:47.724-07:00Suresh Venkatasubramanian<a href="http://oldblog.computationalcomplexity.org/media/STOC/Venkat.pdf">PDF</a>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-57920012439162324042010-05-08T15:45:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:10:52.963-07:00Avi WigdersonI value the concern and discussion at SIGACT about STOC. However, I strongly object to the new proposal. It would devalue STOC to a level that may attract more people, but would have far smaller scientific value to attendants!
<br />
It is not clear to me why would people be attracted to a large meeting. I never got a sense at the large AMS meetings that it attracts top researchers, unless they happen to give invited lectures, or happen to agree with a bunch of colleagues to meet there.
Papers presented are almost all low quality (I tried and went to talks) and extremely poorly attended. In short, people would go even more to FOCS and much less to STOC. Why should you even present a paper at STOC, if it has no prestige, and if very few attend. Note that at FOCS/STOC currently attendance in a typical presentation is 50-100. I expect this would go down considerably at your kind of STOC!
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I think that to boost attendance at STOC, like FOCS, the service provided by choosing the *best* submissions is still the main attraction. Somehow this carries a weight saying - "look, this paper is relevant for the whole community, either because of wide interest or because it is major progress in a specific area". Your suggestion to give this up!
<br />
Of course, measures could be taken to improve the attractiveness of STOC. Much less radical than your suggestion would be the following obvious ones:
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<ul>
<li> Co-locate it with a few specialized conferences (eg with CCC, as in Boston this year, which can run in parallel to, say RECOMB, or SPAA, or some learning conference). All of the attendents will go to STOC, and then will go to their favorite specialized one. FCRC structure, where STOC retains its character, is much better!
</li>
<li> Another obvious suggestion is making STOC cheaper. I don't see why we have to go to the most expensive cities and hotels, and why we are not doing more at universities. I am not saying it is easy, but I am sure money is a constraint too.
</li>
<li> Finally, continue the tradition of a day with tutorials/surveys!
</li>
</ul>
In short, if people could make fewer trips to conferences, and pay less for them, they'd show up in larger numbers to STOC. I'd focus on increasing attractiveness while keeping scientific quality high - else I am afraid it will do no service to the community at all.
<br />
The strength and progress of TCS has been largely due to connections between its different subareas - I gave an invited STOC presentation on this topic "<a href="http://www.math.ias.edu/~avi/TALKS/STOC04.ppt">Depth through breadth (or why should we listen to talks in other areas)</a>"
<br />
Sure, you can relegate this to FOCS, and we'll have only one such conference, which will steal all the quality presentations and attendance from STOC.Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2709203140461243256.post-5446150517088656982010-05-08T15:30:00.000-07:002010-06-18T12:10:32.445-07:00Peter Winkler<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> The proposal seems actually to be two: (1) to offer a "traditional"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">scientific meeting to the theory community, and (2) to eliminate what</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">we know as STOC.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> The first seems like a good idea, although I'm not sure about the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">abstracts---is it supposed to be possible to have that *plus* a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">10-page abstract for FOCS, SODA or ICALP *and* a journal paper?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">If so, I'd suggest a paragraph or two maximum, just to clarify the title,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">plus a mandatory link to a personal website, archive or publication.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Let's not even call it an abstract---how about "clarification and pointer"?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It shouldn't be something anyone would be tempted to tout on a CV.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> The new meeting should probably be aimed for summers; it could</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">start out as biannual event like SIAM Discrete, or even as a one-time</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">meeting, to test the waters. Actually, the more I think about it, the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">more I like (1). We do need an inclusive, noncompetitive meeting in TCS.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> I don't understand the reasoning for Proposal (2) (unless SIGACT</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">feels it must eliminate one meeting to make way for another). Sure,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">FOCS and STOC play the same role, but so what? It means in</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">effect that there is one semiannual meeting, giving everyone two chances</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">per year to submit or attend. Very useful especially given the constraints</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">of the semester system.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> Personally, I adore attending FOCS, STOC, SODA & ICALP</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">(& PODC etc)---I like knowing that everything presented has merit</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and is relatively current. Being on the program committees is hard work</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">but very valuable to everyone. Math suffers from not having this tradition;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">discrete math is lucky to have SODA as an option. I was totally awed</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and delighted the first time I saw a STOC proceedings---brought to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">me by an intrepid undergraduate named Sam Buss. The best results,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">by community consensus; all new, all in one place! Wow!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> Even if you were to convince the community of the desirability of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">both (1) and (2), I would not call the new meeting "STOC." It just</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">wouldn't be STOC. People would end up talking about "new STOC"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and "old STOC", which is silly and totally unnecessary. Why invite</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">opposition from people who don't want the STOC entries on their</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">CV's devalued?</span>Lance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.com0