Re: [Tccc] Cost of attendance from developing countries / in general

Dear Colleaugues,

I have resisted entering the debate but as I am rather weak when it comes to
resisting such things I will offer a word or two.

The real issue is not the economy or the registration fees or who presents
the paper or how to manage the awards or which city to hold a conference or
what the sponsoring organization's policy is.
The real issue is the "choking" effect the proliferation of conferences has
had on the quality of the research discourse in the community. I predict
"CONFERENCE-DAMMERUNG" if you allow me to paraphrase the Wagner epic opus
magnus.
There is confusion out there. Young researchers (and old ones at that) are
getting increasingly disoriented about what is going on. I have read a
plethora of preposterous opinions and comments during this debate. It does
confirm in my mind that the problem lies elsewhere.
Conferences (with VERY few exceptions) are not anymore genuine forums for
the exchange and dissemination of technical information. They have become
trivialized. Often they are business operations. Also, they are vehicles for
people to add to their resumes (as authors or as organizers). The quality of
what is submiited and.or accepted has, on average, declined dismally. The
review process has almost become a random process.
This debate is only the beginning of a broader re-adjustment that will
redefine what this vehicle of scientific interaction has become.
Carry on! The end is ...near!

Tony

ps: I apologize if I sound cynical, pessimistic, and non-constructive

Anthony Ephremides
Cynthia Kim Professor of Information Technology
ECE dept and ISR, University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
301-405-3641, etony(at)umd(dot)edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roch Guerin" <guerin@ee.upenn.edu>
To: "Joe Touch" <touch@ISI.EDU>
Cc: "Celia Desmond" <c.desmond@sympatico.ca>; <tccc@lists.cs.columbia.edu>;
<habib@ccny.cuny.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2009 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Tccc] Cost of attendance from developing countries / in
general

Joe,

Joe Touch wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
>
> Roch Guerin wrote:
> ...
>
>>> Well, none given out from the conference, but there are subsidies given
>>> out by the SIG - and that money comes from conference surpluses. For the
>>> SIGCOMM conference, this includes the SIGCOMM award winner (who is
>>> typically the keynote), the student award winner. There are also funds
>>> for the GeoDiversity grants.
>>>
>>>
>> Sure, but as you point out, these have *nothing* to do with the budget
>> of an individual conference.
>>
>
> They do as follows:
>
> - - when an organization has a surplus, it can afford to run closer to the
> edge of losing money
>
> - - when an organization has no surplus, it needs a conference to add to
> the surplus (e.g., the ACM requires that a SIG have 50% of its yearly
> operating budget in surplus)
>
> As a result, how you perceive the "overhead" tax depends on whether you
> think:
> a) you're paying into a fund that you thin you never see
>
> b) you're paying into a fund that already gives back
> to you this year
>
We are not debating these. As has been made eminently clear, this is
not a punctual issue even if there are punctual triggers for reopening
the debate. We are discussing the outcome of different approaches to
running conferences, which largely manifest themselves in differences in
registration fees.

Overhead taxes are not a question of perception, they are a question of
checks and balances and how much visibility there is in those checks and
balances. Having that visibility can go a long way towards addressing
some of those issues, but it is a symptom and not a cause, i.e., if
conference costs were all low and consistent, we would be having this
exchange.
> As to travel to the meeting and complementary meetings, I can speak for
> myself right now, for both my roles in the ACM and the IEEE:
>
You are not the issue ;-)) and I don't think anyone suggested you were.
The question is more in terms of how many others end-up asking for free
registration and travel support on behalf of the conference. I am not
saying that none of these are valid, but they add-up and at a minimum
disclosure of how they were incurred and for what purposes would go a
long way towards either forcing greater discipline or making people
realize the need for such expenses.
> 1) I have never received a free registration EXCEPT when keynote
>
> 2) I have never received travel funds, a hotel room, or
> honoraria except as a tutorial presenter (which is typical
> in both organizations, and is part of the separate tutorial
> budget, FWIW)
>
> 3) I have no "entertainment budget", and have never held an
> organizational meeting whose expenses were submitted for
> reimbursement
>
> 4) the only other "comps" I have received were things that
> the hotel threw into the contract free, e.g., larger room
> (for every N rooms, they give a room upgrade), or a plate
> of fruit or such
>
> Please also keep in mind that the conference costs also pay for the TPC
> meeting (teleconference, meeting space, lunch/dinner), and paper
> management costs (EDAS fees, DOCOLOC fees, etc.). Some groups use free
> services for this (Sigcomm, e.g.); others (esp. larger meetings) use pay
> services due to issues of scale. These costs are small, but nonzero.
>
As you said, these are small and in my experience are in the noise when
it comes to determining registration fees.

Roch
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