[TYPES] Why are ACM conference registrations so expensive now?

[Adam Chlipala]

On 12/15/23 7:33 AM, Guilherme Espada wrote:
> Adam Chlipala wrote:
>
> > at the same as our conferences are applying
> > significant financial cost and volunteer effort to provide what may
> > actually be a net negative.
>
> I will not pass judgment on the rest of your email, but I feel like there
> is something I must clarify:
>
> Our 'in-house' AV Team actually *saves* SIGPLAN a fair chunk of money, 
> in most
> cases even in comparison to just having in-room AV fully provided by 
> the hotel.
> It also incorrect to assume that if we stopped recording talks, the 
> tech issues
> would magically disappear.
Certainly, it is a complex job to get the bits to the right places at 
the right times, and the volunteer team that you lead has done a great 
job of solving that problem cost-effectively!  I just think it is 
worthwhile for the community to decide what value we place on a solution 
to that hard problem.
> In addition, recording talks provide a valuable service:
> * To the members of the community who cannot afford to attend.
> * To the members of other communities who might have an
>   interest in some intersectional work.

I think the perceived value of talks in the first place, even those 
experienced in-person, may be out-of-wack with the realities of 
advantages vs. reading papers.  Everyone can read the papers in any 
case, especially given SIGPLAN's commitment to open access. Our brains, 
tuned through evolution in small hunter-gatherer bands, attach value to 
being in the same room as impressive people saying things well (and, 
with some discount factor, to virtual approximations thereof), as the 
ability to attend impressive talks is connected to building social 
status in the group.  However, I think it's questionable that this 
medium scores well for actual explanation of complex ideas, compared to 
papers.

> * To the authors, who greatly appreciate having a recorded version of 
> their
>   talk, both for reference, exposure and archival.
This mode can be accommodated easily with authors recording their own 
videos, which are likely to be higher-quality than what is captured at a 
conference.  The conference infrastructure can still accommodate 
distributing author-produced videos, as we did in many cases during 
lockdown.
> Given we have volunteers who
> believe in the mission of making the community more open, and that gladly
> provide this service, I don't think there is a good reason to stop 
> recording.
We've been together in a conference session recently whose start was 
delayed at least 30 minutes for debugging of AV issues.  I believe that 
would be significantly less likely to happen if we only needed to get 
pixels over an HDMI cable to a projector.  My understanding of 
video-streaming workflows is that they invariably require relatively 
complex software to intervene between the presenter's laptop and the 
display screen, which need not be the case without a goal to send a talk 
elsewhere.  These delays should be appreciated as real costs of more 
complex arrangements.  (This community is in a good position to realize 
how much less reliable systems can become when they move from 
hardware-only to include software!)