[TYPES] online conferences should be free (was: global debriefing over our virtual experience of conferences)

[Talia Ringer]

Since I complained as last year about this, I've joined on the SPLASH
hybridization committee. My understanding so far is:

- there are some hidden costs
- overcharging some people acts as a subsidy for other people who need
scholarships
- planning is hard and everyone is afraid of losing money, so sometimes
people are conservative in budgeting because of this
- sometimes people overspend on platforms that probably aren't necessary

Anyways, I'll forward this to the rest of the committee when we plan the
hybrid fee structure. Hybrid is a bit different since there are still in
person costs, and costs of interaction between the two, but it's still
worth thinking about. Can't help with ICFP though. $100 seems like a lot
even knowing what I know about virtual budgets now.

On Sat, Jun 5, 2021, 12:04 PM Alejandro Díaz-Caro <alejandro at diaz-caro.info>
wrote:

> [ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list
> ]
>
> Dear all,
>
> The real costs of online conferences are much less than for physical
> ones, that is clear. However, it is not free of cost. The costs may
> be:
> * Publication costs (for example, LIPIcs charges 60 euros per paper)
> * Easychair licence
> * Award prize for best paper (if the conference have this kind of award)
> * Conference platform costs (Clowdr, Slack, Zoom, GatherTown, etc, all
> have an associated cost).
>
> From these four, the first three are somehow fixed with the number of
> accepted papers (which is usually similar from one year to the next).
> However the last one is the more difficult to predict, since platforms
> such as Clowdr, GatherTown, or Easychar's VCS charge per person
> (Easychair's VCS even charges per person per day). So, even if you get
> funding from the organising institution or sponsors, making it free of
> charge could imply a really big amount of registrations, and you may
> pay for those even if they do not show up at the conference.
>
> The solution that we chose at FSCD this year is to make it free of
> charge, unless we receive way too many requests (with "way too many"
> left undefined yet), surpassing the grants we have got for the
> conference. In such a case, we will ask for  a very modest amount
> (less than 10 dollars), making it clear that those who cannot pay, can
> participate enterally free of charge. So, we are hoping to have a
> fully free of charge conference (and quite probably we will), but we
> have no idea how many people will register and how much the bill at
> the chosen platform may grow.
>
> Of course there are also free platforms, but they are less reliable
> and you do not have anyone to ask if things do not work as expected.
>
> Coming from Argentina, I agree that conferences (specially virtual)
> should be free of charge or as cheap as they can, as much as they can.
> This allows students to participate. I also agree that the slogan "you
> will pay more attention to what you have paid" should not condition
> our conferences model. Paying attention to talks is a responsibility
> (or a choice) of the attendee (and of the speaker to make the talk
> interesting, maybe). Putting money in the middle to encourage it is
> not the best practice, in my opinion, especially if that could result
> in people left behind.
>
> Best,
> Alejandro
>
>
> On Fri, 4 Jun 2021 at 15:28, Mehmet Oguz Derin
> <mehmetoguzderin at mehmetoguzderin.com> wrote:
> >
> > [ The Types Forum,
> http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ]
> >
> > Outsider opinion: one good heuristic for pricing anything virtual and
> > making it accessible for underprivileged individuals is localized video
> > game & digital subscription prices. Companies expanding these have gone
> > through many stages regarding price localization (symbolic or not)
> > globally. - Oguz (Mehmet Oguz Derin)
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 4, 2021 at 4:18 PM Gabriel Scherer <
> gabriel.scherer at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > [ The Types Forum,
> http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list
> > > ]
> > >
> > > Dear list,
> > >
> > > Last year I played the unfortunate role of complaining about the $100
> price
> > > tag on ICFP'20 registration. There were some great improvements in
> further
> > > events, for example POPL'21 had "discounted rate: $10" as an
> unconditional
> > > registration option, and PLDI'21 offers the same option. (I still wish
> that
> > > there events were free, as is common with other scientific conferences
> like
> > > FSCD'20, IJCAR'20, LICS'20 etc., but $10 is still much closer to a
> symbolic
> > > sum than $100 for a strict subset of the world.).
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, it is my understanding that ICFP'21 is planning to
> reuse the
> > > same fee structure. The details are not clear yet and possibly subject
> to
> > > change, as registration hasn't opened; but this seems to be the current
> > > plan. I wish it was possible to have a (public) discussion about this
> > > choice in advance, and not just a month or two before the conference
> during
> > > summer holidays.
> > >
> > > SIGPLAN has decided not to publish budget information for ICFP'20, but
> my
> > > understanding is that the $100 registration scheme generated a strong
> > > profit for the conference, to the point that, if the costs are
> comparable
> > > to last year, last year profit would suffice to fund ICFP'21 entirely.
> Why
> > > would we have a $100 registration fee again?
> > >
> > > ICFP is a flagship conference at the intersection of theoretical works
> and
> > > practical functional programming, and it could attract a vibrant crowd
> of
> > > people outside academia (in particular: not students), who may not
> have an
> > > easy path to reimbursement -- this is especially important for the
> > > workshops.
> > >
> > > (Disclaimer: I'm criticising past registration fees and prospective
> > > registration fees, but not of course the people doing the hard work of
> > > organizing the conference! They have all my gratitude.)
> > >
> > > On Sun, Aug 23, 2020 at 4:05 PM Gabriel Scherer <
> gabriel.scherer at gmail.com
> > > >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear types-list,
> > > >
> > > > Going on a tangent from Flavien's earlier post: I really think that
> > > online
> > > > conferences should be free.
> > > >
> > > > Several conferences (PLDI for example) managed to run free-of-charge
> > > since
> > > > the pandemic started, and they reported broader attendance and a
> strong
> > > > diversity of attendants, which sounds great. I don't think we can
> achieve
> > > > this with for-pay online conferences.
> > > >
> > > > ICFP is coming up shortly with a $100 registration price tag, and I
> did
> > > > not register.
> > > >
> > > > I'm aware that running a large virtual conference requires computing
> > > > resources that do have a cost. For PLDI for example, the report only
> says
> > > > that the cost was covered by industrial sponsors. Are numbers
> publicly
> > > > available on the cost of running a virtual conference? Note that if
> we
> > > > managed to run a conference on free software, I'm sure that
> institutions
> > > > and volunteers could be convinced to help hosting and monitoring the
> > > > conference services during the event.
> > > >
> > >
>
>
>
> --
> http://staff.dc.uba.ar/adiazcaro
>