Re: [Tccc] presentations by non-authors

>
> The third moral of the story ... those of us who
> attend those conferences for their technical
> content, do not need glamorous dinners, or lavish
> social events. An exciting technical discussion
> would be a much better (and more cost effective)
> choice.

A somewhat related issue: I think there has generally been the tendency to provide the same set of "features" to every attendee, including students. It would be possible to offer a cheaper bare-bones rate that covers only the room rental and other similar costs, but then we'd have to check lunch tickets at the door and exclude students from the social event. (The typical cost of a social event is at least $100 if any food is involved; lunch is $50/head.) I suspect this upgrading of the experience of the conference is partially a reaction to the fact that the technical presentation has become a smaller part of the attraction of a conference, given the issue I mentioned, so that there's a feeling that nobody "senior" is going to show up unless the conference provides attractive options for socializing.

There's also basic economics: There doesn't seem to be much evidence that people select conferences to submit to based on cost (and that cost is usually unknown at the time of submission in any event), so there's no incentive for a general chair to put together a bare-bones event.

Roughly similar considerations apply for the hotel vs. university issue: Often, universities are less convenient - you can't just take the elevator from your room to the meeting facility. For example, for Columbia, you'd probably have to take the subway from the hotel to 116th Street, since there are few hotels in the immediate neighborhood. (Dormitories are generally not an option - they are unavailable during the academic year and booked for summer school groups in the summer.)

If you're general chair, you don't want to offer the Walmart version of the conference - everyone then notices how bad the food was compared to last year and that there wasn't a social event. Thus, I suspect we generally have to blame ourselves, as senior members of the community, rather than (say) the societies for the above-inflation increase in cost.

Henning
_______________________________________________
Tccc mailing list
Tccc@lists.cs.columbia.edu
https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/tccc