[TYPES] Dealing with conferences for the environment conscious

[Derek Dreyer]

A final word about this (for now):

Alessio asked me to clarify that he requires his `seeking job'
coauthors to referee as many conference papers as they get reviews
for, so that there is no unbalance. Usually, when he gets a review
request from a conference, he suggests one of his coauthors that might
be `in debt'.  He feels that my accusation that the "vegetarian"
option is unfair was based on a misrepresentation of what it is.

Actually, I don't feel that I've misrepresented anything, and I don't
see how Alessio's clarification changes anything.  I still think the
"vegetarian" option is unfair and inconsistent.  But there you have
it.

Derek

On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Derek Dreyer <dreyer at mpi-sws.org> wrote:
> With all due respect, Alessio, none of the options you've set forth
> makes much sense to me (although I do appreciate the nomenclature).
> Specifically:
>
>> 1 - PESCETARIAN: Only submit papers where some other author from
>> oneself is in need of a job or tenure (and they speak at the
>> conference), and reject invitations as invited speaker.
>
> For most people, I sense this would ultimately be such a minor
> restriction that it's hardly worth talking about.  The vast majority
> of papers published in, say, POPL, have multiple authors, very often
> including a student author (who will eventually seek a job), or a
> junior faculty member seeking tenure, or a member of a research lab
> who needs to publish in POPL to maintain their standing.  This
> pescetarian option would not prevent the authors of that very large
> subset of papers from continuing to submit to POPL or other major
> refereed conferences.
>
>> 2 - VEGETARIAN: In addition to 1, do not `review' papers for those
>> conferences (and compensate with very accurate reviews of journal
>> papers) and do not participate in their committees.
>
> I understand this is your current position, but to me it is untenable
> and clearly the worst of the three.  If you are going to submit papers
> to a conference, you ought to be willing to review papers for it.
> Only seems fair.  End of story.
>
>> 3 - VEGAN: Do not submit to, participate in, review for, and organize
>> conferences with published proceedings.
>
> This position is undeniably consistent.  However, if it is even too
> extreme for you, Alessio, I suspect it is unlikely to catch on.
>
> I'm going to invoke my moderator's prerogative to cut the discussion
> at this point concerning the best way to subvert the conference
> system.  If you have constructive suggestions to add, feel free to
> send them to me or Alessio, and we can compile them into a single post
> at a later date.
>
> Best regards,
> Derek
>