{"id":752,"date":"2011-11-01T08:18:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T15:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glencora.org\/?p=752"},"modified":"2012-01-28T00:11:04","modified_gmt":"2012-01-28T00:11:04","slug":"focsstocitcssodaicalpesastacswadsswattoomnycnfs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/2011\/11\/01\/focsstocitcssodaicalpesastacswadsswattoomnycnfs\/","title":{"rendered":"FOCS\/STOC\/ITCS\/SODA\/ICALP\/ESA\/STACS\/WADS\/SWAT\/TOO\/MNY\/CNFS"},"content":{"rendered":"

I missed the FOCS business meeting for no good reason. \u00a0But I heard after that there was some discussion along the lines of how many papers FOCS should accept with people vying for fewer<\/em> papers and a more prestigious<\/em> conference. \u00a0Apparently there were complaints from the old guys<\/em> that most of the conference was under 35<\/em>. (Remember, this is day-after gossip laced with truthiness – I wasn’t there.)<\/p>\n

Anyhow, my real beef is with the number of conferences in our field. \u00a0Some are listed in the title of the post. \u00a0And these are only the conferences in the algorithms subdirectory of theory. \u00a0Under game theory you can go the FOCS\/STOC\/EC\/ISIT\/… route, under crypto, FOCS\/STOC\/CRYPTO\/EUROCRYPT\/… etc. \u00a0SO MANY CONFERENCES.<\/p>\n

For blanket TCS conferences though, we look to FOCS\/STOC in the US (and ICALP in Europe, which I have little experience with, so I will keep to the North American scene here). \u00a0But STOCS\/FOCS are only blanket in terms of topics, not attendance. \u00a0A Joint Math Meeting this is not. \u00a0While I had a great time with my friends and colleagues who were there, it was the absences that were notable. \u00a0Even colleagues from schools in California weren’t there, despite the proximity. Whole institutions left unrepresented. \u00a0So even if I do make it to one of STOC\/FOCS each year, what about those colleagues who choose to go to the other one. \u00a0Or opt out entirely, sticking to their SODAs and SoCGs. \u00a0When will I get to see them?<\/p>\n

Then there are the more practical considerations. \u00a0So much travel! \u00a0As a grad student it was awesome. \u00a0Free trip. \u00a0Not a care as to where the money came from. \u00a0Time away from school. \u00a0But now. \u00a0So much travel! \u00a0Who will teach my classes? \u00a0Who will pay for this? \u00a0How will I recoup a lost weekend? \u00a0(Answer: no one; me; with grumpiness.) \u00a0Add the wash, rinse, repeat cycle of resubmitted conference papers<\/a>. \u00a0More work for the many PCs that are formed. \u00a0And yes, there are practical considerations. \u00a0What model do we use? \u00a0What does the committee look like? \u00a0This has been discussed before. \u00a0I’m sure we can figure something out, even if we can’t agree on something.<\/p>\n

So why can’t TCS have a SIGGRAPH or CHI or AAAI? \u00a0Why can’t we meet all in one place once a year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I missed the FOCS business meeting for no good reason. \u00a0But I heard after that there was some discussion along the lines of how many papers FOCS should accept with people vying for fewer papers and a more prestigious conference. \u00a0Apparently there were complaints from the old guys that most of the conference was under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3747,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2690,106184,106190],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conference","tag-rant","tag-tcs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}