[TYPES] Could we temporarily stop having conferences in the US?

[Alex Potanin]

Hi Fritz,

SIGPLAN technically has business meetings at POPL and PLDI for anyone to raise questions in person (or remotely via Discord if a virtual participant).

You can email the current EC, can be starting with Andrew as chair:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sigplan.org/ContactUs/__;!!IBzWLUs!Ud0CT6LbWmSY1LqU9jO9y7w-hi7AMEgGy9Gd-a2sB7AVkeD-OKJF3Y571my84jdAVIMtGi4HrmkctObIa5t6W5dWu1GVimMZY73L$ 

I am cc’ing him anyway.

Basically, SIGPLAN EC has day long meetings twice a year (at POPL and PLDI) where we try to make progress on all the issues we collect in the prior 6 months.

Then there are four SC chairs for the conferences:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sigplan.org/Conferences/__;!!IBzWLUs!Ud0CT6LbWmSY1LqU9jO9y7w-hi7AMEgGy9Gd-a2sB7AVkeD-OKJF3Y571my84jdAVIMtGi4HrmkctObIa5t6W5dWu1GVintbcTUZ$ 

As well as PACMPL Editor in Chief, who can help drive overarching decisions.

I have been pushing for SIGPLAN Track across four conferences as well as some form of hybrid while balancing the fact that conferences cost real money to run (and with prices rising so much we struggle to make the ends meet when running these SIGPLAN events as I found out now that I am a SIGPLAN Treasurer!):

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://blog.sigplan.org/2022/08/25/hybrid-splash-2021-retrospective/__;!!IBzWLUs!Ud0CT6LbWmSY1LqU9jO9y7w-hi7AMEgGy9Gd-a2sB7AVkeD-OKJF3Y571my84jdAVIMtGi4HrmkctObIa5t6W5dWu1GVio_4VeVz$ 

Finally, there is a “sigplan” Slack that EC at least use, but I do not think anyone else is there (as it is a free Slack, it deletes all messages). 😊 I’ll let Andrew make a call on whether we stick with that or pick a better platform to invite other people’s input.

Cheers,
Alex.

From: Types-list <types-list-bounces at LISTS.SEAS.UPENN.EDU> on behalf of Fritz Henglein <henglein at di.ku.dk>
Date: Wednesday, 24 September 2025 at 6:59 am
To: Types list <types-list at lists.seas.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: [TYPES] Could we temporarily stop having conferences in the US?

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Sam and others seem to imply that POPL, PLDI, ICFP, OOPSLA may be considered — or may usefully develop into being — fungible presentation and meeting events for PL research spaced across the calendar and continents. If POPL won’t do (scary US, too far awa), present and attend at nearby PLDI, etc. That’s an interesting thought. We already have PACMPL as the overarching journal for, by now, all of them. (With OA to boot.)

Getting visas and how long that takes, getting to places and affording that in time and money, plus  the luckily-rare-but-nonzero prospect of truly unpleasant personal consequences, have been a significant factor for Russians, Chinese Indians and others to various degrees for many years (less so for Americans, Japanese and Europeans).  Maybe the present volatile — dare I say scary? — context of US politics can serve as a burning platform for discussing and maybe eventually even effecting changes to PL business as usual such as coordinating the PACMPL meetings as Sam suggests.

F

PS: Derek, you write that the present discussions should best move to a broader SIGPLAN community platform. I’m thankful for having discovered and being able to follow this discussion via Types — is there a broader open platform for all of SIGPLAN that includes both card-carrying members and ordinary PL aficionados broadly?

PPS: Not copying the previous posts since top posting is an O(n^2) algorithm.

Fritz Henglein
+45-30589576