From jrex at CS.Princeton.EDU Fri Nov 4 09:23:38 2005 From: jrex at CS.Princeton.EDU (Jennifer Rexford) Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 12:23:38 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <4366591B.5040409@cs.princeton.edu> Message-ID: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> Hi folks, Discussion on the attendance-policy issues seems to have wound down. Vern and I compared notes and took a stab at formulating the SIG's stance on the issue: "SIGCOMM strongly encourages workshops and conferences to have open attendance but also recognizes that some events benefit from attendance restrictions, particularly in the first year or two. Although most SIGCOMM-sponsored events will have open attendance, the SIG may also sponsor a small number of limited-attendance workshops or conferences, though the attendance policy should be transparent and fair. Limited-attendance events should state their attendance policy, and the motivations behind the policy, in the conference materials (e.g., the conference Web site, the call for papers, and ACM conference approval forms)." To start moving toward closure, let's have a last call for comments, in the form of alternative wordings or directions for the *SIG's* stance on the issue, where we want to strike a good balance between the desire to support autonomy/flexibility for conference organizers and support the values of the SIG as part of a professional society. Thanks much... -- Jen and Vern -----Original Message----- From: sigcomm-bounces at postel.org [mailto:sigcomm-bounces at postel.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer Rexford Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 12:49 PM To: sigcomm at postel.org Subject: Re: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events Hi folks, FYI, I checked with ACM SIG Services on ACM's policies about restricted attendance events. The policy is rather vague, though such events are indeed permitted. See below... I've asked for some clarifications but expect that the SIGs are permitted a fair amount of discretion to decide whether to hold such meetings, and what policies (if any) to have on how attendance is determined. -- Jen ACM Policy on Restricted-Attendance Meetings Restricted-Attendance Meetings, as an extension of ACM conferences or workshops, and for circumstances in which it is clearly desirable to hold attendance down to the number of people who will be expected to contribute to the results of the session, shall have a place in ACM activities. In all cases, plans for such meetings shall be publicized and at least the opportunity to request permission to attend shall be extended to all members of cognizant ACM subgroups (such as SIGs and Chapters). For meetings of potentially broad general interest, such opportunity shall be extended to the entire membership of the ACM. _______________________________________________ sigcomm mailing list sigcomm at postel.org http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm From lepreau at cs.utah.edu Fri Nov 4 10:25:05 2005 From: lepreau at cs.utah.edu (Jay Lepreau) Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 11:25:05 -0700 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU>; from "Jennifer Rexford" on Fri, 04 Nov 2005 12:23:38 EST Message-ID: <200511041825.jA4IP589012786@bas.flux.utah.edu> Some quick comments (not in the form you requested). Some of this I said at the microphone at the SIGCOMM business meeting. 0. I have long experience with the closed WWoS/HotOS, the closest precursor to HotNets. I've always liked it and found it valuable, as I did the first HotNets. BUT: 1. Open is obviously the appropriate default for an academic/research venue. All sponsored gatherings should be open if possible. Closed should have the burden of proof. That is consistent with your proposed policy. 2. I'm not at all sure that limiting attendance at the ~65 level is required to maintain the good aspects of the Hot* workshops. There are lots of arguments why allowing more attendees might not have have a significant negative impact. Many of those arguments have been stated here; I could add more. 3. I expect that many or most of us are uncertain on the effect. We're researchers, so let's find out! We should experiment-- try one or two open HotNets. If they suffer significantly, go back to closed. 4. The point about the year-to-year degree of turnover among attendees was brought up. In the spirit of transparency, we can allow people to study that issue by publishing attendee lists, from all 4 HotNets and future ones. 5. Sponsorship and risks: this is a non-factor, for Usenix is always a great option for sponsorship and imposes no "openess" rules. In fact, HotOS was started under IEEE sponsorship, and is now Usenix-sponsored. From christophe.diot at thomson.net Sat Nov 5 05:40:05 2005 From: christophe.diot at thomson.net (Christophe Diot) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 14:40:05 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> Message-ID: <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> 2 comments: - you might want to make a differenciation between limited attendance and selected attendance. IMW was limited (FCFS with priority to authors) and hotnet is selected (PC chairs chose the participants). I am in favor of not allowing at all the selected attendance workshop. - writing the motivation will only convince those who want to be convinced. can you imagine someone writting: the goal is to create a clickish workshop ... :-) you can find the best politically correct writing, selected attendance will always look clickish. - we need to mention if the exec committee can decide not to support a closed attendance workshop. Jennifer Rexford wrote: > Hi folks, > > Discussion on the attendance-policy issues seems to have wound down. Vern > and I compared notes and took a stab at formulating the SIG's stance on the > issue: > > "SIGCOMM strongly encourages workshops and conferences to have open > attendance but also recognizes that some events benefit from attendance > restrictions, particularly in the first year or two. Although most > SIGCOMM-sponsored events will have open attendance, the SIG may also sponsor > a small number of limited-attendance workshops or conferences, though the > attendance policy should be transparent and fair. Limited-attendance events > should state their attendance policy, and the motivations behind the policy, > in the conference materials (e.g., the conference Web site, the call for > papers, and ACM conference approval forms)." > > To start moving toward closure, let's have a last call for comments, in the > form of alternative wordings or directions for the *SIG's* stance on the > issue, where we want to strike a good balance between the desire to support > autonomy/flexibility for conference organizers and support the values of the > SIG as part of a professional society. > > Thanks much... > > -- Jen and Vern > > -----Original Message----- > From: sigcomm-bounces at postel.org [mailto:sigcomm-bounces at postel.org] On > Behalf Of Jennifer Rexford > Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 12:49 PM > To: sigcomm at postel.org > Subject: Re: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events > > Hi folks, > > FYI, I checked with ACM SIG Services on ACM's policies about restricted > attendance events. The policy is rather vague, though such events are > indeed permitted. See below... I've asked for some clarifications but > expect that the SIGs are permitted a fair amount of discretion to decide > whether to hold such meetings, and what policies (if any) to have on how > attendance is determined. > > -- Jen > > ACM Policy on Restricted-Attendance Meetings > > Restricted-Attendance Meetings, as an extension of ACM conferences or > workshops, and for circumstances in which it is clearly desirable to > hold attendance down to the number of people who will be expected to > contribute to the results of the session, shall have a place in ACM > activities. In all cases, plans for such meetings shall be publicized > and at least the opportunity to request permission to attend shall be > extended to all members of cognizant ACM subgroups (such as SIGs and > Chapters). For meetings of potentially broad general interest, such > opportunity shall be extended to the entire membership of the ACM. > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm > > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm > -- Christophe Diot Thomson Paris Research Lab 46, quai A. Le Gallo 92648 Boulogne cedex +33-674-51-96-53 From llp at CS.Princeton.EDU Sat Nov 5 06:41:28 2005 From: llp at CS.Princeton.EDU (Larry Peterson) Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 09:41:28 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> Message-ID: I think you unfairly equate selected attendance with cliquish. After making sure at least one author per paper got to attend, I'd be surprised to learn that IMW didn't also reserve a slot for the PC and organizers. After that, is it better to allocate slots FCFS than, say, by preferentially inviting student co-authors, students that submitted papers, and other co-authors of accepted papers? But I think the exact algorithm misses the point. We give PC's the authority to put together the program. For small interactive workshops, "the program" includes the set of people in the room engaged in discussions over the presentations. In my view, the PC should retain the right to define the criteria by which the attendees are selected. They should be encouraged to be inclusive, in the same way we hope they don't select papers from only their friends, but whatever the outcome, the PC and its chair have to be entrusted to do the right thing. Larry On Nov 5, 2005, at 8:40 AM, Christophe Diot wrote: > 2 comments: > > - you might want to make a differenciation between limited > attendance and > selected attendance. IMW was limited (FCFS with priority to > authors) and hotnet > is selected (PC chairs chose the participants). I am in favor of > not allowing at > all the selected attendance workshop. > > - writing the motivation will only convince those who want to be > convinced. can > you imagine someone writting: the goal is to create a clickish > workshop ... :-) > you can find the best politically correct writing, selected > attendance will > always look clickish. > > - we need to mention if the exec committee can decide not to > support a closed > attendance workshop. > > Jennifer Rexford wrote: > >> Hi folks, >> >> Discussion on the attendance-policy issues seems to have wound >> down. Vern >> and I compared notes and took a stab at formulating the SIG's >> stance on the >> issue: >> >> "SIGCOMM strongly encourages workshops and conferences to have open >> attendance but also recognizes that some events benefit from >> attendance >> restrictions, particularly in the first year or two. Although most >> SIGCOMM-sponsored events will have open attendance, the SIG may >> also sponsor >> a small number of limited-attendance workshops or conferences, >> though the >> attendance policy should be transparent and fair. Limited- >> attendance events >> should state their attendance policy, and the motivations behind >> the policy, >> in the conference materials (e.g., the conference Web site, the >> call for >> papers, and ACM conference approval forms)." >> >> To start moving toward closure, let's have a last call for >> comments, in the >> form of alternative wordings or directions for the *SIG's* stance >> on the >> issue, where we want to strike a good balance between the desire >> to support >> autonomy/flexibility for conference organizers and support the >> values of the >> SIG as part of a professional society. >> >> Thanks much... >> >> -- Jen and Vern >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: sigcomm-bounces at postel.org [mailto:sigcomm- >> bounces at postel.org] On >> Behalf Of Jennifer Rexford >> Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 12:49 PM >> To: sigcomm at postel.org >> Subject: Re: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated >> events >> >> Hi folks, >> >> FYI, I checked with ACM SIG Services on ACM's policies about >> restricted >> attendance events. The policy is rather vague, though such events >> are >> indeed permitted. See below... I've asked for some >> clarifications but >> expect that the SIGs are permitted a fair amount of discretion to >> decide >> whether to hold such meetings, and what policies (if any) to have >> on how >> attendance is determined. >> >> -- Jen >> >> ACM Policy on Restricted-Attendance Meetings >> >> Restricted-Attendance Meetings, as an extension of ACM conferences or >> workshops, and for circumstances in which it is clearly desirable to >> hold attendance down to the number of people who will be expected to >> contribute to the results of the session, shall have a place in ACM >> activities. In all cases, plans for such meetings shall be publicized >> and at least the opportunity to request permission to attend shall be >> extended to all members of cognizant ACM subgroups (such as SIGs and >> Chapters). For meetings of potentially broad general interest, such >> opportunity shall be extended to the entire membership of the ACM. >> _______________________________________________ >> sigcomm mailing list >> sigcomm at postel.org >> http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm >> >> _______________________________________________ >> sigcomm mailing list >> sigcomm at postel.org >> http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm >> >> > > -- > Christophe Diot > Thomson Paris Research Lab > 46, quai A. Le Gallo > 92648 Boulogne cedex > > +33-674-51-96-53 > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm > > From salamat at rp.lip6.Fr Sat Nov 5 07:48:12 2005 From: salamat at rp.lip6.Fr (Kave Salamatian) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 16:48:12 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] Anonimity problem with pdf files Message-ID: <436CD43C.8070206@rp.lip6.Fr> Dear all, I think that the following experience might be useful for a lot of us as we are frequently reviewing paper. I was recently reviewing a paper and looking at my access log on the firewalll I figured out that my acrobat reader was making outgoing connection to a site registered under "remoteappraoch.com". Searching a little more I figured out that remoteapproach is company that add some script in acrobat file and through this code is able to track the IP address of the computer the pdf file is open on it (have a look at http://lwn.net/Articles/129729/?SID=8EA81D45601439DA364B1F185795031C). This seems to me an important breach to reviewer anomity. Even if I am not a fan of this reviewer anomity and would have preferred to move to an open and transparent reviewing process, it is not yet the case. I want therefore to make aware the colleagues of the existence of this thread. I don't think that the problem cannot be solved easily (maybe a verification tools at EDAS can be the solution or using a firewall on your computer can solve the problem or more simply not using reader 7.0 but xpdf) but meanwhile your anonimity is not garanteed. In a more general setting the publishing community is going toward adding this kind of script for author right purposes. Meaning that the question should be dealt at the community level. Bests Kav? Salamatian Associate Professor LIP6-UPMC From guerin at ee.upenn.edu Sat Nov 5 09:05:41 2005 From: guerin at ee.upenn.edu (Roch Guerin) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 12:05:41 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> Message-ID: <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> I agree that closed should not be equated with cliquish, but at the same time lets be realistic as a workshop that remains a closed venue over the years will end-up being viewed as cliquish, whether it is perception or reality. And I'll argue that if is the perception of many, then it is reality. I personally object to having the SIG continue support venues that remain closed over extended periods of time. I fully endorse allowing and even encouraging closed venues to help *start* new activities, but at some point these have to grow up and either fly on their own or come up with alternative sources of support. So no, I don't agree with the statement that "thePC should retain the right to define the criteria by which the attendees are selected." That is perfectly fine as a transient, but I personally don't find it acceptable as a steady-state behavior. Roch >I think you unfairly equate selected attendance with cliquish. >After making sure at least one author per paper got to attend, >I'd be surprised to learn that IMW didn't also reserve a slot >for the PC and organizers. After that, is it better to allocate >slots FCFS than, say, by preferentially inviting student co-authors, >students that submitted papers, and other co-authors of accepted >papers? > >But I think the exact algorithm misses the point. We give PC's >the authority to put together the program. For small interactive >workshops, "the program" includes the set of people in the room >engaged in discussions over the presentations. In my view, the >PC should retain the right to define the criteria by which the >attendees are selected. They should be encouraged to be inclusive, >in the same way we hope they don't select papers from only their >friends, but whatever the outcome, the PC and its chair have to be >entrusted to do the right thing. > >Larry > >On Nov 5, 2005, at 8:40 AM, Christophe Diot wrote: > > > >>2 comments: >> >>- you might want to make a differenciation between limited >>attendance and >>selected attendance. IMW was limited (FCFS with priority to >>authors) and hotnet >>is selected (PC chairs chose the participants). I am in favor of >>not allowing at >>all the selected attendance workshop. >> >>- writing the motivation will only convince those who want to be >>convinced. can >>you imagine someone writting: the goal is to create a clickish >>workshop ... :-) >>you can find the best politically correct writing, selected >>attendance will >>always look clickish. >> >>- we need to mention if the exec committee can decide not to >>support a closed >>attendance workshop. >> From shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu Sat Nov 5 10:53:17 2005 From: shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu (Scott Shenker) Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 10:53:17 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> Message-ID: <22964AD4-0B0C-4A25-B2A8-0508F890C7BD@icsi.berkeley.edu> Following up on the various messages from yesterday and today, I'd like to make the following comments: 0) I think SIGCOMM's main goal, when it comes to conferences, workshops, and the like, is to promote the cause of science and foster the education of its members. All attendance policies should be measured against this goal. 1) Correspondingly, I think that the vast majority of SIGCOMM events should be open so that everyone can benefit directly from the event, and that's the current state of affairs (I believe that hotnets is the only closed event). 2) However, I think it important that SIGCOMM not preclude the sponsorship of closed events. I think that for some discussion- oriented events, such as small workshops, limited attendance is a crucial factor for success. This would involve trading off some educational benefit for increased scientific benefit; I think some SIGCOMM-sponsored events should be able to make that tradeoff. 3) For such closed events, the attendance policies should be transparent (i.e., made known to the community) and geared towards promoting science and/or education. That should include giving the conference organizers (the PC, the PC chairs, the steering committee, etc.) some latitude in inviting members whose presence would contribute significantly to the success of the event. No one is in favor of having the PC just pick their friends, just as no one would accept the PC just accepting papers from their friends. The PC chairs, and the PC as a whole, are given the responsibility to make wise decisions, and we should trust them to do so. In hotnets, these discretionary invitations comprise only a small fraction of invitees (roughly 5 or 6 people, I believe, but the numbers could vary slightly from year-to-year), so this is a fairly narrow issue we are debating here. 4) If SIGCOMM decides that pro-forma fairness, in the guise of making every SIGCOMM-sponsored event open or making every closed workshop use mechanical acceptance rules (e.g., FCFS, authors only, etc.), is more important than promoting science, then it will have lost sight of a larger purpose. --Scott From christophe.diot at thomson.net Sat Nov 5 11:30:20 2005 From: christophe.diot at thomson.net (Christophe Diot) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 20:30:20 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <22964AD4-0B0C-4A25-B2A8-0508F890C7BD@icsi.berkeley.edu> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> <22964AD4-0B0C-4A25-B2A8-0508F890C7BD@icsi.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <436D084C.10408@thomson.net> > 4) If SIGCOMM decides that pro-forma fairness, in the guise of > making every SIGCOMM-sponsored event open or making every closed > workshop use mechanical acceptance rules (e.g., FCFS, authors only, > etc.), is more important than promoting science, then it will have > lost sight of a larger purpose. making fairness orthogonal to promotion of science is pretty adventurous. I advocate fairness to help promotion of science to all, and not to a small number of privileged people. however, i agree with point 1, 2, and 3! From shenker at ICSI.Berkeley.EDU Sat Nov 5 11:52:44 2005 From: shenker at ICSI.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Shenker) Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 11:52:44 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <436D084C.10408@thomson.net> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> <22964AD4-0B0C-4A25-B2A8-0508F890C7BD@icsi.berkeley.edu> <436D084C.10408@thomson.net> Message-ID: <8D8A342F-CCF8-4BBE-BFC0-A7E402305702@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU> On Nov 5, 2005, at 11:30 AM, Christophe Diot wrote: > > >> 4) If SIGCOMM decides that pro-forma fairness, in the guise of >> making every SIGCOMM-sponsored event open or making every closed >> workshop use mechanical acceptance rules (e.g., FCFS, authors >> only, etc.), is more important than promoting science, then it >> will have lost sight of a larger purpose. > > making fairness orthogonal to promotion of science is pretty > adventurous. I advocate fairness to help promotion of science to > all, and not to a small number of privileged people. That's noble of you, but it doesn't seem responsive to my point. While I understand that it makes an attractive target for your polemic, no one is advocating acting in the interests of a small number of privileged people. What we are asking is if SIGCOMM should give the PC chairs some latitude in attendance policies when, and only when, it improves the advancement of science for all. From christophe.diot at thomson.net Sat Nov 5 13:37:21 2005 From: christophe.diot at thomson.net (Christophe Diot) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 22:37:21 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <8D8A342F-CCF8-4BBE-BFC0-A7E402305702@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> <22964AD4-0B0C-4A25-B2A8-0508F890C7BD@icsi.berkeley.edu> <436D084C.10408@thomson.net> <8D8A342F-CCF8-4BBE-BFC0-A7E402305702@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <436D2611.4030601@thomson.net> > That's noble of you, but it doesn't seem responsive to my point. While > I understand that it makes an attractive target for your polemic, no one > is advocating acting in the interests of a small number of privileged > people. this kind of comment doesnt help us make progress. my point is just that i disagree with the fact that (in your point 4) defining rules goes against promotion of science. how polemic is that? > What we are asking is if SIGCOMM should give the PC chairs some > latitude in attendance policies when, and only when, it improves the > advancement of science for all. the answer to the last question is clearly yes. however, there seems to be a disagreement on whether "selected" attendance achieves this goal! in addition, for a selective discussion among a small number of people sigcomm sponsorship is not needed (ex: WIRED in oregon in 2003, INTIMATE in paris in 2003). From christophe.diot at thomson.net Sat Nov 5 13:23:44 2005 From: christophe.diot at thomson.net (Christophe Diot) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 22:23:44 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> Message-ID: <436D22E0.4080509@thomson.net> Roch Guerin wrote: > I agree that closed should not be equated with cliquish, but at the same > time lets be realistic as a workshop that remains a closed venue over > the years will end-up being viewed as cliquish, whether it is perception > or reality. And I'll argue that if is the perception of many, then it > is reality. > > I personally object to having the SIG continue support venues that > remain closed over extended periods of time. I fully endorse allowing > and even encouraging closed venues to help *start* new activities, but > at some point these have to grow up and either fly on their own or come > up with alternative sources of support. > > So no, I don't agree with the statement that "thePC should retain the > right to define the criteria by which the attendees are selected." That > is perfectly fine as a transient, but I personally don't find it > acceptable as a steady-state behavior. i tend to strongly agree with this! and Larry's position sounded completely fair to me as a transient situation. From llp at CS.Princeton.EDU Sat Nov 5 13:54:21 2005 From: llp at CS.Princeton.EDU (Larry Peterson) Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 16:54:21 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <436D22E0.4080509@thomson.net> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> <436D22E0.4080509@thomson.net> Message-ID: I'm afraid I don't understand the "transient" argument. If a small workshop with controlled attendance is good in years 1 thru 3, what changes in years 4 and 5... IMW is not a good example since it went from workshop to conference due to a maturing of the area. I don't see hotnets doing that since its whole point is to foster a discussion about emerging ideas, vision statements, and the such. Larry On Nov 5, 2005, at 4:23 PM, Christophe Diot wrote: > i tend to strongly agree with this! and Larry's position sounded > completely fair to me as a transient situation. > > From guerin at ee.upenn.edu Sat Nov 5 17:09:41 2005 From: guerin at ee.upenn.edu (Roch Guerin) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 20:09:41 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> <436CB635.9070800@thomson.net> <436CE665.2090403@ee.upenn.edu> <436D22E0.4080509@thomson.net> Message-ID: <436D57D5.6000901@ee.upenn.edu> Larry, Let me make it more explicit. A closed venue aimed at ensuring sufficient focus to get an activity off the ground that eventually will benefit the whole community is perfectly OK. A closed but more mature venue that argues that it benefits the whole community is what I don't buy. Offering broad exposure to new ideas by allowing everyone interested to participate, at least as an audience, is in my mind a key requirement in order to claim that this is benefiting the SIG at large. This has *nothing* to do with wether or not a small workshop is good or not, and everything to do with who is allowed to benefit from that goodness. I'm sure you can make a convincing case that a private beach is "good", just don't ask for state or federal sponsorship for it ;-) I'll argue that if there is a substantial demand from the community for a forum addressing a particular topic, then this is a sign that this forum has matured, as was indeed the case for IMW. It may then well be that given the current state of networking research, discussing emerging ideas and vision statements is now a mature topic and something that many should be allowed to be exposed to and even involved in. If that turns out to be the case, then people should be allowed that option. Alternatively, if Hotnets is not targeting a mature area, then it wont attract too many people even if you open it up. So what's the problem? Roch > I'm afraid I don't understand the "transient" argument. If a > small workshop with controlled attendance is good in years 1 > thru 3, what changes in years 4 and 5... IMW is not a good > example since it went from workshop to conference due to a > maturing of the area. I don't see hotnets doing that since its > whole point is to foster a discussion about emerging ideas, > vision statements, and the such. > > Larry > > On Nov 5, 2005, at 4:23 PM, Christophe Diot wrote: > >> i tend to strongly agree with this! and Larry's position sounded >> completely fair to me as a transient situation. >> >> From touch at ISI.EDU Sun Nov 6 13:34:54 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 13:34:54 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> References: <200511041721.jA4HLcZH026179@bluebox.CS.Princeton.EDU> Message-ID: <436E76FE.2090503@isi.edu> I like the initial proposal Jen posted; it sets the right tone about limited attendance (OK for startup or small number) and policy (seems to prohibit or at least make very difficult 'invitation' events ), although I agree with Christophe that I'd prefer to be more explicit about excluding support for those. I disagree that the PC should be deciding attendance; they already get to decide what is presented. Deciding the audience defeats the ACM's stated goal of open discourse; it's too easy to end up with 'mutual admiration societies', 'cliques', or other versions of distorted feedback. As to Scott's point about this not affecting HotNets (based on how many invitations are issued), I would expect the larger impact to be on whether it can stay invited/limited at still be SIGCOMM affiliated. It's too far along to count under initial conditions. As to Scott's point about losing the point, the meetings the SIG sponsors are to promote the _discourse_ part of science. We're not a research organization. Promoting/advancing science per se is for the NSF, DARPA (when it puts the R back in, at least ;-) or other organizations; they already have numerous closed meetings. I agree with what others have concluded on invitation-based events; they may be useful, but are not appropriate use of ACM resources. Joe Jennifer Rexford wrote: > Hi folks, > > Discussion on the attendance-policy issues seems to have wound down. Vern > and I compared notes and took a stab at formulating the SIG's stance on the > issue: > > "SIGCOMM strongly encourages workshops and conferences to have open > attendance but also recognizes that some events benefit from attendance > restrictions, particularly in the first year or two. Although most > SIGCOMM-sponsored events will have open attendance, the SIG may also sponsor > a small number of limited-attendance workshops or conferences, though the > attendance policy should be transparent and fair. Limited-attendance events > should state their attendance policy, and the motivations behind the policy, > in the conference materials (e.g., the conference Web site, the call for > papers, and ACM conference approval forms)." > > To start moving toward closure, let's have a last call for comments, in the > form of alternative wordings or directions for the *SIG's* stance on the > issue, where we want to strike a good balance between the desire to support > autonomy/flexibility for conference organizers and support the values of the > SIG as part of a professional society. > > Thanks much... > > -- Jen and Vern > > -----Original Message----- > From: sigcomm-bounces at postel.org [mailto:sigcomm-bounces at postel.org] On > Behalf Of Jennifer Rexford > Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 12:49 PM > To: sigcomm at postel.org > Subject: Re: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events > > Hi folks, > > FYI, I checked with ACM SIG Services on ACM's policies about restricted > attendance events. The policy is rather vague, though such events are > indeed permitted. See below... I've asked for some clarifications but > expect that the SIGs are permitted a fair amount of discretion to decide > whether to hold such meetings, and what policies (if any) to have on how > attendance is determined. > > -- Jen > > ACM Policy on Restricted-Attendance Meetings > > Restricted-Attendance Meetings, as an extension of ACM conferences or > workshops, and for circumstances in which it is clearly desirable to > hold attendance down to the number of people who will be expected to > contribute to the results of the session, shall have a place in ACM > activities. In all cases, plans for such meetings shall be publicized > and at least the opportunity to request permission to attend shall be > extended to all members of cognizant ACM subgroups (such as SIGs and > Chapters). For meetings of potentially broad general interest, such > opportunity shall be extended to the entire membership of the ACM. > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm > > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051106/ce6b93da/signature.bin From minshall at acm.org Mon Nov 7 19:07:04 2005 From: minshall at acm.org (Greg Minshall) Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:07:04 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 04 Nov 2005 11:25:05 MST." <200511041825.jA4IP589012786@bas.flux.utah.edu> Message-ID: <20051108030705.14FA8EB7E1@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> thoughts: 1. i was also a happy WWOS attendee. 2. i think duration of the limited attendance is not the issue. a good, small conference, could be limited attendance for years. in Jen's 4 November note, i would delete ", particularly in the first year or two". 3. some of what we do, we do for our members. else of what we do, we do for the "network research community at large". for example, SIGCOMM publications are available to all through the ACM digital library (rather than just available to SIGCOMM members). 4. a limited conference may "further research only for the attendees". but, that seems unlikely. it will hopefully (if it is any good) further the field of network research. thus, it will be directly of benefit to the set of attendees, and indirectly of benefit to the rest of us. presumably, ideas, even papers, from the workshop, eventually make it to SIGCOMM, or are shot down. 5. i think "cliquishness" for attendance is similar to cliquishness for paper acceptance. we try hard to avoid the appearance and we also try (hard?) to avoid the reality (if we don't try *hard* to avoid the reality, it is because we don't believe it exists, i think). 6. i think SIGCOMM can pass to the steering committee can pass to the program chairs/PC the responsibility for selecting the attendees in those cases where that seems appropriate. 7. the default for the very few limited attendee workshops would probably be authors, PC, co-authors, plus some others. one argument seems to be whether "some others" is FCFS or "selected conversation invokers". i think *this* particular delta should be up to the steering committee/chairs/PC. 8. i think the workshop report should include a list of attendees, as well as accepted papers, etc. could be online. i think Roch's point that a workshop closed for a number of years will end up being viewed as being cliquish is not any truer than the perception after a number of years that paper acceptance at SIGCOMM is cliquish, and is a reason to try to avoid cliquishness, and avoid the perception of cliquishness, but not a reason to avoid accepting good papers to SIGCOMM. 9. i think "fairness" *is* orthogonal to "good science". again, we accept papers based on quality, not based on some concept of "fairness" that would require a toss of a coin, etc. interesting the bifurcation amongst us "community members". there seem to be side A and side B, and not much in between! i guess this means there is exactly one point on which we disagree (perhaps "transient" versus "possibly permanent"). Greg From feamster at lcs.mit.edu Mon Nov 7 19:48:06 2005 From: feamster at lcs.mit.edu (Nick Feamster) Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 22:48:06 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <20051108030705.14FA8EB7E1@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> References: <200511041825.jA4IP589012786@bas.flux.utah.edu> <20051108030705.14FA8EB7E1@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> Message-ID: <20051108034806.GA26089@lcs.mit.edu> Independent of my personal stance on "open" vs. "limited" for ACM-funded events, I think we might want to give a little more thought to effective ways to blur the distinction between these two extremes. For example, one point in the solution space (which I am not necessarily advocating) might be: - Some form of limited attendance policy (FCFS, authors only, etc.) - Live webcast of workshop - 20-minute talks, 7 minutes of questions from people present in the room, 3 minutes of "mailbag" questions by email - Scribes to take notes of Q&A, to be published at the end of the workshop (digitally, if funds are limited). Volunteering to scribe could, of course, be one way to get invited. Those people who send thoughtful questions by email might raise the attention of the workshop organizers for the next year. Feel free to rip this apart; I am merely suggesting that there may be a way to use technology to strike the right balance between limited attendance, meritocracy, and openness. We are, after all, a communications society. -Nick From minshall at acm.org Tue Nov 8 06:53:43 2005 From: minshall at acm.org (Greg Minshall) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 06:53:43 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 07 Nov 2005 22:48:06 EST." <20051108034806.GA26089@lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <20051108145343.171BCEBA73@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> hi, Nick, since the goal of limited attendance is to get very interactive, rooms small enough not to need a microphone, etc., and since these things typically don't have any overhead in terms of personnel to field e-questions, i would probably take you up on your offer to rip your proposal apart;-). it would be an interesting experiment at, say, SIGCOMM. however, we used to try something like that years ago at the IETF, and the experience there was that people "listening" were not very (often) moved to engage in dialog, and (at least with the tools of the time) it was also a very clunky process. cheers, Greg From mallman at icir.org Tue Nov 8 07:55:36 2005 From: mallman at icir.org (Mark Allman) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 10:55:36 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <20051108145343.171BCEBA73@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> Message-ID: <20051108155536.9AAE437D6B3@lawyers.icir.org> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051108/592faeaf/attachment.ksh -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 185 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051108/592faeaf/attachment.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Tue Nov 8 12:17:37 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:17:37 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <20051108034806.GA26089@lcs.mit.edu> References: <200511041825.jA4IP589012786@bas.flux.utah.edu> <20051108030705.14FA8EB7E1@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> <20051108034806.GA26089@lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <437107E1.6060103@isi.edu> Nick Feamster wrote: ... > For example, one point in the solution space (which I am not necessarily > advocating) might be: > - Some form of limited attendance policy (FCFS, authors only, etc.) > - Live webcast of workshop > - 20-minute talks, 7 minutes of questions from people present in > the room, 3 minutes of "mailbag" questions by email > - Scribes to take notes of Q&A, to be published at the end of > the workshop (digitally, if funds are limited). Volunteering > to scribe could, of course, be one way to get invited. > > Those people who send thoughtful questions by email might raise the > attention of the workshop organizers for the next year. > > Feel free to rip this apart; I am merely suggesting that there may be a > way to use technology to strike the right balance between limited > attendance, meritocracy, and openness. We are, after all, a > communications society. Why do we need a balance? The reasons to have limited attendance are: a) limited space that happens, but is generally not the typical issue it's easy enough to get larger venues for future years b) desire to limit the size of the group discussing the work opening the meeting up to web input doesn't help this it's been tried at other venues, notably the IETF, where questions often came in too late to be useful c) desire to limit the content of the group discussing the work this is, I believe, the hidden intent behind some of the nature of 'invitations'; this is diametrically opposed to the notion of a conference providing a public venue I.e., conferences and workshops - public venues for research - should be OPEN. Special meetings - private venues for promoting research or policy - can be invitation-based, but they're a completely different animal, and there are very few (9/11, Internet attacks, etc.) and far between. Greg said: > 4. a limited conference may "further research only for the attendees". but, > that seems unlikely. it will hopefully (if it is any good) further the field > of network research. thus, it will be directly of benefit to the set of > attendees, and indirectly of benefit to the rest of us. presumably, ideas, > even papers, from the workshop, eventually make it to SIGCOMM, or are shot > down. IMO, (b) has its place for a research organization. The ACM isn't one, and isn't here to promote research. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051108/1fc64a25/signature.bin From shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu Tue Nov 8 13:08:57 2005 From: shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu (Scott Shenker) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 13:08:57 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <437107E1.6060103@isi.edu> References: <200511041825.jA4IP589012786@bas.flux.utah.edu> <20051108030705.14FA8EB7E1@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> <20051108034806.GA26089@lcs.mit.edu> <437107E1.6060103@isi.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 8, 2005, at 12:17 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > > Greg said: >> 4. a limited conference may "further research only for the >> attendees". but, >> that seems unlikely. it will hopefully (if it is any good) >> further the field >> of network research. thus, it will be directly of benefit to the >> set of >> attendees, and indirectly of benefit to the rest of us. >> presumably, ideas, >> even papers, from the workshop, eventually make it to SIGCOMM, or >> are shot >> down. > > IMO, (b) has its place for a research organization. The ACM isn't one, > and isn't here to promote research. > > Joe > The ACM's own description of its role (on its web page) is: "ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences, and applications of information technology." While I haven't studied ACM's bylaws and charter at all, I think this brief description would encompass what Greg is talking about. From touch at ISI.EDU Tue Nov 8 13:16:48 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:16:48 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: References: <200511041825.jA4IP589012786@bas.flux.utah.edu> <20051108030705.14FA8EB7E1@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> <20051108034806.GA26089@lcs.mit.edu> <437107E1.6060103@isi.edu> Message-ID: <437115C0.8090003@isi.edu> Scott Shenker wrote: > > On Nov 8, 2005, at 12:17 PM, Joe Touch wrote: >> >> Greg said: >>> 4. a limited conference may "further research only for the >>> attendees". but, >>> that seems unlikely. it will hopefully (if it is any good) further >>> the field >>> of network research. thus, it will be directly of benefit to the set of >>> attendees, and indirectly of benefit to the rest of us. presumably, >>> ideas, >>> even papers, from the workshop, eventually make it to SIGCOMM, or are >>> shot >>> down. >> >> IMO, (b) has its place for a research organization. The ACM isn't one, >> and isn't here to promote research. >> >> Joe > > The ACM's own description of its role (on its web page) is: > > "ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is an international > scientific and educational organization dedicated to advancing the arts, > sciences, and applications of information technology." > > While I haven't studied ACM's bylaws and charter at all, I think this > brief description would encompass what Greg is talking about. Yes, but that's not what conferences and workshops are necessarily for. Those are venues for discourse, not mechanisms for advancing the arts, sciences, etc. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051108/07a2dd92/signature.bin From minshall at acm.org Tue Nov 8 15:48:06 2005 From: minshall at acm.org (Greg Minshall) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 15:48:06 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:17:37 PST." <437107E1.6060103@isi.edu> Message-ID: <20051108234806.D8E90EBD79@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> Joe, trying to understand the sociology of all this... could you elaborate a bit on: > desire to limit the content of the group discussing the work > this is, I believe, the hidden intent behind some of the > nature of 'invitations'; ? thanks, Greg From touch at ISI.EDU Tue Nov 8 16:00:58 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 16:00:58 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <20051108234806.D8E90EBD79@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> References: <20051108234806.D8E90EBD79@open-131-161-253-87.cliq.com> Message-ID: <43713C3A.2090001@isi.edu> Greg Minshall wrote: > Joe, > > trying to understand the sociology of all this... > > could you elaborate a bit on: > >> desire to limit the content of the group discussing the work >> this is, I believe, the hidden intent behind some of the >> nature of 'invitations'; > > ? The only reason for having person-specific invitations - vs. random - is that some people's participation is viewed as more valuable than others, a-priori. This allows the chair to skew the content of the discussion. E.g., if we want to have an ATM-fest, we might invite only ATM-friendly folk. Or for ATM-bashing, only ATM haters. While I appreciate that we all would like to 'trust the chairs', we do NOT trust the chairs to _invite_ all the papers (or the PC, for that matter) - they chose them based on submissions and feedback. Where submissions are not open or feedback not provided, sponsorship has not been granted (or been withdrawn). Similarly, participation should not be invited either. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051108/59ef2c08/signature.bin From vern at icir.org Tue Nov 8 16:53:55 2005 From: vern at icir.org (Vern Paxson) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 16:53:55 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 08 Nov 2005 16:00:58 PST. Message-ID: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> > >> desire to limit the content of the group discussing the work > >> this is, I believe, the hidden intent behind some of the > >> nature of 'invitations'; > ... > This allows the chair to skew the content of the discussion. E.g., if we > want to have an ATM-fest, we might invite only ATM-friendly folk. Or for > ATM-bashing, only ATM haters. I must say, I was about this close to laughing out loud when I read this. I have a hard time seeing this view as anything other than, well, paranoid. Yes, what you describe is *possible* if the chair can invite attendees, but it's by no means likely from my experience; and it's a presumption of bad faith that I find disheartening. > While I appreciate that we all would like to 'trust the chairs', we do > NOT trust the chairs to _invite_ all the papers (or the PC, for that > matter) Regarding your parenthetical, in fact we do. Case in point, this year's SIGCOMM PC was selected by the chairs without input from the TAC. We requested that they solicit input; they declined; we still sponsored the event. Vern From touch at ISI.EDU Tue Nov 8 18:01:09 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 18:01:09 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> Message-ID: <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> Vern Paxson wrote: >> ... >> This allows the chair to skew the content of the discussion. E.g., if we >> want to have an ATM-fest, we might invite only ATM-friendly folk. Or for >> ATM-bashing, only ATM haters. > > I must say, I was about this close to laughing out loud when I read this. > I have a hard time seeing this view as anything other than, well, paranoid. > Yes, what you describe is *possible* if the chair can invite attendees, > but it's by no means likely from my experience; and it's a presumption of > bad faith that I find disheartening. It's an exaggeration to show the point. Proponents of invitation meetings already noted inviting people who they felt would be active participants (would they have a bias towards active 'pro' participants, vs. active 'con' ones?), or limiting per-institution or per-group (which presumes that all in a group or institution think the same way or have the same to offer a meeting). The key question is _why_ random isn't good enough, and why limit attendance at all? >> While I appreciate that we all would like to 'trust the chairs', we do >> NOT trust the chairs to _invite_ all the papers (or the PC, for that >> matter) > > Regarding your parenthetical, in fact we do. Case in point, this year's > SIGCOMM PC was selected by the chairs without input from the TAC. We > requested that they solicit input; they declined; we still sponsored the > event. The parenthetical was intended to be parsed the other way - neither the chair nor the PC invite the papers. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051108/d4ae735e/signature.bin From llp at CS.Princeton.EDU Tue Nov 8 19:56:10 2005 From: llp at CS.Princeton.EDU (Larry Peterson) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 22:56:10 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> Message-ID: <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> If the issue is a transparent invitation policy, then I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. However, this notion that the PC/chairs are playing favorites and stacking the deck is both bewildering and insulting. In the interest of putting forward a tangible proposal that we can discuss, I propose a transparent policy that roughly matches past practice: o the PC and SC o one author per paper o as many students as we have scholarships for (preferring co-authors of accepted papers and then co-authors of submitted papers) o sponsor representatives (e.g., from NSF) This gets us to roughly 80-90%. Then, at the Chair/PC's discretion: o as many second authors or authors of rejected papers as we can fit, perhaps with a slight bias for students/faculty at the hosting site. Logistically, the invitation list probably needs to be finalized by the chairs (as people accept or decline), but it seems reasonable to have the PC put forward a list of "invite if room" people based on the discussion during the PC meeting. (I should probably add at this point that all HotNets have had co-chairs, meaning that there's already some checks-and-balances built into the system.) One final point. I know much of this discussion is about perception as much as reality. Here's a small data-point of reality. In looking at the registration list for 3 of the first 4 HotNets (all I have at the moment), I count a total of 181 attendees and 145 unique individuals. Larry On Nov 8, 2005, at 9:01 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > > > Vern Paxson wrote: > >>> ... >>> This allows the chair to skew the content of the discussion. >>> E.g., if we >>> want to have an ATM-fest, we might invite only ATM-friendly folk. >>> Or for >>> ATM-bashing, only ATM haters. >>> >> >> I must say, I was about this close to laughing out loud when I >> read this. >> I have a hard time seeing this view as anything other than, well, >> paranoid. >> Yes, what you describe is *possible* if the chair can invite >> attendees, >> but it's by no means likely from my experience; and it's a >> presumption of >> bad faith that I find disheartening. >> > > It's an exaggeration to show the point. Proponents of invitation > meetings already noted inviting people who they felt would be active > participants (would they have a bias towards active 'pro' > participants, > vs. active 'con' ones?), or limiting per-institution or per-group > (which > presumes that all in a group or institution think the same way or have > the same to offer a meeting). > > The key question is _why_ random isn't good enough, and why limit > attendance at all? > > >>> While I appreciate that we all would like to 'trust the chairs', >>> we do >>> NOT trust the chairs to _invite_ all the papers (or the PC, for that >>> matter) >>> >> >> Regarding your parenthetical, in fact we do. Case in point, this >> year's >> SIGCOMM PC was selected by the chairs without input from the TAC. We >> requested that they solicit input; they declined; we still >> sponsored the >> event. >> > > The parenthetical was intended to be parsed the other way - neither > the > chair nor the PC invite the papers. > > Joe > > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm > From touch at ISI.EDU Wed Nov 9 00:49:33 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:49:33 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> Message-ID: <4371B81D.8010908@isi.edu> Larry Peterson wrote: > If the issue is a transparent invitation policy, then I don't think > anyone is arguing otherwise. However, this notion that the PC/chairs > are playing favorites and stacking the deck is both bewildering and > insulting. > > In the interest of putting forward a tangible proposal that we can > discuss, I propose a transparent policy that roughly matches past > practice: > > o the PC and SC > o one author per paper > o as many students as we have scholarships for (preferring > co-authors of accepted papers and then co-authors of > submitted papers) > o sponsor representatives (e.g., from NSF) (minor nit: ACM sponsors meetings; the NSF, companies, etc. are called 'supporters') Supporters of a specific meeting often get a slot as part of their support for the meetings they support, but they should not get any particular privileges at meetings they don't support or any other non-attendee privileges. > This gets us to roughly 80-90%. Then, at the Chair/PC's discretion: > > o as many second authors or authors of rejected papers as we can > fit, perhaps with a slight bias for students/faculty at the hosting > site. Authors of rejected papers makes some sense - they've already expressed interest and effort, but it should be random. As to bias towards the hosting site, see "playing favorites/stacking decks" above. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051109/db9d1214/signature-0001.bin From guerin at ee.upenn.edu Wed Nov 9 05:09:37 2005 From: guerin at ee.upenn.edu (Roch Guerin) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 08:09:37 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> Message-ID: <4371F511.50401@ee.upenn.edu> Larry, This is as good a proposal as we can get, when it comes to outlining invitation policies for closed venues. On the other hand, I think that one of the key issue we have been debating is the extent to which closed venues, that are and remain closed by design, are of benefits to the whole community at large. For any venue, you have so called "direct" benefits that are in a form that is accessible by all, such as proceedings or recording of the sessions that are made available for public viewing. These are tangible items that can be assessed relatively easily. Then you have what I would call "indirect" benefits that are essentially measuring the subsequent impact the venue has in terms of promoting a new research agenda or initiating discussions and follow-on work on various problems. In the case of open venues, one can make the case that everyone has access to these benefits if they choose to participate. The situation is different for closed venues, which argue that a small, selected audience is needed in order to enable the kind of interactions that produce such outcomes. This is I believe the source of the debate, as for closed venues the only clear/immediate beneficiaries are the attendees and not necessarily the community at large. Arguing that this is the case is where things start being more in the realm of opinions than hard evidences, and for which, as Greg articulated, there seems to be two different view points. I know that personally I am not convinced that a venue that persists as a closed event represents a good "return on investment" of SIG resources in terms of offering sustained benefits to the entire community. This does not mean that such a venue wont be producing good results, but just that over time there is a law of diminishing return in terms of the the spill-over of these benefits to the rest of the community. I would rather apply SIG resources to foster initiatives in new directions (again, these can be closed initially in order to help things get started) and support venues that ultimately open-up to let the community directly decide how to best derive benefits from those venues. Roch >In the interest of putting forward a tangible proposal that we can >discuss, I propose a transparent policy that roughly matches past >practice: > > o the PC and SC > o one author per paper > o as many students as we have scholarships for (preferring > co-authors of accepted papers and then co-authors of > submitted papers) > o sponsor representatives (e.g., from NSF) > >This gets us to roughly 80-90%. Then, at the Chair/PC's discretion: > > o as many second authors or authors of rejected papers as we can > fit, perhaps with a slight bias for students/faculty at the hosting > site. > >Logistically, the invitation list probably needs to be finalized >by the chairs (as people accept or decline), but it seems reasonable >to have the PC put forward a list of "invite if room" people based >on the discussion during the PC meeting. (I should probably add at >this point that all HotNets have had co-chairs, meaning that there's >already some checks-and-balances built into the system.) > >One final point. I know much of this discussion is about perception >as much as reality. Here's a small data-point of reality. In looking >at the registration list for 3 of the first 4 HotNets (all I have at >the moment), I count a total of 181 attendees and 145 unique >individuals. > >Larry > From jrex at CS.Princeton.EDU Wed Nov 9 05:35:05 2005 From: jrex at CS.Princeton.EDU (Jennifer Rexford) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 08:35:05 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> Message-ID: <4371FB09.5070602@cs.princeton.edu> Joe, > The key question is _why_ random isn't good enough, and why limit > attendance at all? I'll take a stab at this, despite my personal preference for open attendance. Why limit attendance? Because attendance, along with other factors such as venue selection, have a significant impact on the amount of discussion that ensues in a workshop. I attended the MIT HotNets (because I was presenting a paper) and it was, in my opinion, the best workshop or conference I ever attended. The room was small, and shallow, and the mingling area outside the room was small. We didn't need microphones. People interupted during the presentations, and talks engendering discussion ran long. Attendance was by no means the only factor here, but it was undoubtedly a factor. Would I want other people in the community to have the benefit of this experience? You bet. Yet, I'm not able to say what the maximum number is where this dynamic starts to break down, and I appreciate that the breaking point does not depend only on size. For example, a larger room, or a room with poor acoustics, or a room that opens into a distracting place where people want to mingle instead of attending the talks, etc. all detract from the experience. Fortunately, all of these factors can be controlled in venue selection, and the organizers take on the responsibility for handling that, so these issues are orthogonal to our discussion here. Attendance size, and the makeup of the attendees, are the only remaining issues before us. So, what are the trade-offs between random and other methods? Random is clearly fair, which is an important goal for a professional society. Would random attendance generate the same level of discussion as other methods? I don't know, but my inclination is that it might not. For example, if you did "random amongst authors of submitted papers" or "random among authors of papers the PC viewed as above some bar -- i.e., excluding papers that were clearly written just to be eligible to attend", you might get folks more likely to contribute actively to the discourse. Of course, such methods (like any others) are just heuristics, as you can't easily control whether people will be active, thoughtful participants at a workshop, but these kinds of methods might be reasonably viewed as more likely to engender technical discussion. Then, sprinkle in the fact that we really want to have students participate in all of our events, because they are the lifeblood of our community, and they (like the rest of us) learn on the job. So, I could see forgoing "random" in favor of a policy that tried to get a mix of students (e.g., as authors of strong submissions that weren't accepted). Anyway, where am I heading with this? I think we have a classic case of competing priorities here. Personally, I think the community is interested in an open event where hot topics are presented and discussed, and I lean toward openness, even if a larger event inevitably decreases the amount of discourse somewhat. Yet, I can see the points of the other side on this, in terms of wanting to limit attendance to keep the level of discourse high. I (again, personally, as opposed to trying to dictate policy) can see the SIG sponsoring a few limited attendance events, as long as the policy is transparent and fair -- where I realize that fair is a slippery word. -- Jen <-- with SIG chair hat off From llp at CS.Princeton.EDU Wed Nov 9 06:30:06 2005 From: llp at CS.Princeton.EDU (Larry Peterson) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 09:30:06 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <4371F511.50401@ee.upenn.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> <4371F511.50401@ee.upenn.edu> Message-ID: <6A973701-28AF-4FD9-B3D1-D3412DDD73D6@CS.Princeton.EDU> You've done a good job of articulating the issues. We can debate: o value of closed (in absolute terms) o value of closed (in terms of ROI to SIGCOMM) o if closed, how do we select attendees o if closed, how many people is too many I think you're pointing to the 2nd issue as the one on which we have a disagreement (with the caveat that the ROI is higher during the first couple of years, so maybe such events are worth sponsoring as they start). However, I believe SIGCOMM's investment in HotNets is pretty small. It was larger when SIGCOMM helped jump start the workshop by publishing the proceedings, but that's no longer the case. Does this then boil down to an issue of principle? Maybe... From one perspective, framing the issue as one of "fairness and openness" certainly leads to the position you're taking. From another perspective, "fostering scientific dialogue" seems to be the tag line I'm advocating. Let me try the following argument. SIGCOMM can't prohibit private meetings among researchers with common interests. They happen because they have value, and quite frankly, we all we to be invited to those meetings because we know their tremendous value. HotNets is an opportunity for SIGCOMM to sponsor such a meeting with a much greater degree of fairness and equal-opportunity than the best of these private meetings. A much broader and changing set of people get to participate, and budgets willing, the proceedings might even be published. My view is that there's room under SIGCOMM's tent to support a limited number of such events. Larry On Nov 9, 2005, at 8:09 AM, Roch Guerin wrote: > Larry, > > This is as good a proposal as we can get, when it comes to outlining > invitation policies for closed venues. > > On the other hand, I think that one of the key issue we have been > debating is the extent to which closed venues, that are and remain > closed by design, are of benefits to the whole community at large. > > For any venue, you have so called "direct" benefits that are in a form > that is accessible by all, such as proceedings or recording of the > sessions that are made available for public viewing. These are > tangible > items that can be assessed relatively easily. > > Then you have what I would call "indirect" benefits that are > essentially > measuring the subsequent impact the venue has in terms of promoting a > new research agenda or initiating discussions and follow-on work on > various problems. In the case of open venues, one can make the case > that everyone has access to these benefits if they choose to > participate. The situation is different for closed venues, which > argue > that a small, selected audience is needed in order to enable the > kind of > interactions that produce such outcomes. This is I believe the source > of the debate, as for closed venues the only clear/immediate > beneficiaries are the attendees and not necessarily the community at > large. Arguing that this is the case is where things start being > more > in the realm of opinions than hard evidences, and for which, as Greg > articulated, there seems to be two different view points. > > I know that personally I am not convinced that a venue that > persists as > a closed event represents a good "return on investment" of SIG > resources > in terms of offering sustained benefits to the entire community. This > does not mean that such a venue wont be producing good results, but > just > that over time there is a law of diminishing return in terms of the > the > spill-over of these benefits to the rest of the community. I would > rather apply SIG resources to foster initiatives in new directions > (again, these can be closed initially in order to help things get > started) and support venues that ultimately open-up to let the > community > directly decide how to best derive benefits from those venues. > > Roch > > >> In the interest of putting forward a tangible proposal that we can >> discuss, I propose a transparent policy that roughly matches past >> practice: >> >> o the PC and SC >> o one author per paper >> o as many students as we have scholarships for (preferring >> co-authors of accepted papers and then co-authors of >> submitted papers) >> o sponsor representatives (e.g., from NSF) >> >> This gets us to roughly 80-90%. Then, at the Chair/PC's discretion: >> >> o as many second authors or authors of rejected papers as we can >> fit, perhaps with a slight bias for students/faculty at the >> hosting >> site. >> >> Logistically, the invitation list probably needs to be finalized >> by the chairs (as people accept or decline), but it seems reasonable >> to have the PC put forward a list of "invite if room" people based >> on the discussion during the PC meeting. (I should probably add at >> this point that all HotNets have had co-chairs, meaning that there's >> already some checks-and-balances built into the system.) >> >> One final point. I know much of this discussion is about perception >> as much as reality. Here's a small data-point of reality. In looking >> at the registration list for 3 of the first 4 HotNets (all I have at >> the moment), I count a total of 181 attendees and 145 unique >> individuals. >> >> Larry >> > > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm > From shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu Wed Nov 9 09:00:02 2005 From: shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu (Scott Shenker) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 09:00:02 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <4371FB09.5070602@cs.princeton.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <4371FB09.5070602@cs.princeton.edu> Message-ID: <0F4E0F81-3BAC-410C-9CC9-FA16A6E72CDF@icsi.berkeley.edu> There's no doubt that some of the issues we are discussing here are important, but I think we've ignored part of the story. A few years ago, Larry and David came up with the idea of creating a new kind of networking conference that became Hotnets. I don't think anyone can reasonably question that Hotnets has been of great benefit to the field as a whole in terms of spurring discussions of new topics and new approaches; many people (myself included) consider it to be the most interesting networking conference our community has. Moreover, I don't think Hotnets, at least not in recent years, has been a significant drain on SIGCOMM resources (Jen, please correct me if I'm wrong), nor do I think there have been cases of discretion-abuse by the PC chairs. All in all, there seems little doubt that Hotnets has been a huge plus for the community. I hope, in all our complaining, we don't forget all the good that has come from Hotnets, nor forget to thank Larry and David for taking the initiative to do something of great benefit for the community. Given its focus on gripes, not gratitude, I'd say the discussion on this list only reinforces the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished. From touch at ISI.EDU Wed Nov 9 10:05:13 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 10:05:13 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <0F4E0F81-3BAC-410C-9CC9-FA16A6E72CDF@icsi.berkeley.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <4371FB09.5070602@cs.princeton.edu> <0F4E0F81-3BAC-410C-9CC9-FA16A6E72CDF@icsi.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <43723A59.9020901@isi.edu> Scott Shenker wrote: > There's no doubt that some of the issues we are discussing here are > important, but I think we've ignored part of the story. A few years > ago, Larry and David came up with the idea of creating a new kind of > networking conference that became Hotnets. I don't think anyone can > reasonably question that Hotnets has been of great benefit to the > field as a whole in terms of spurring discussions of new topics and > new approaches; many people (myself included) consider it to be the > most interesting networking conference our community has. That is true, but may have happened if the meeting were open as well. > Moreover, > I don't think Hotnets, at least not in recent years, has been a > significant drain on SIGCOMM resources (Jen, please correct me if I'm > wrong), That is correct (speaking as past SIG treasurer). > nor do I think there have been cases of discretion-abuse by > the PC chairs. Whether we trust the chairs or not is not the issue; whether the SIG should sponsor meetings where such trust is part of the contract is. As I've noted before, chairs already get quite a lot of control - in selecting the PC and guiding the content of the meeting, as well as shaping the venue and making it more 'discussion friendly'. Let's also not forget that HotNets, like FDNA, has provided a sorely needed venue for the number and kinds of papers that have had difficultly getting into Sigcomm, as well as papers in their preliminary form that may later do so. FDNA suffered from competition with HotNet and Sigcomm's 'white papers', not from open attendance. So let's put another possibility on the table. Maybe *some* closed meetings are OK for the SIG to sponsor, but maybe THIS isn't one of those meetings, exactly because Sigcomm is already so competitive. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051109/fdfc1503/signature.bin From mallman at icir.org Thu Nov 10 21:19:13 2005 From: mallman at icir.org (Mark Allman) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:19:13 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <43723A59.9020901@isi.edu> Message-ID: <20051111051913.E4A6A380096@lawyers.icir.org> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051111/09d9f7ee/attachment.ksh -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 185 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051111/09d9f7ee/attachment.bin From guerin at ee.upenn.edu Fri Nov 11 04:33:15 2005 From: guerin at ee.upenn.edu (Roch Guerin) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 07:33:15 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <6A973701-28AF-4FD9-B3D1-D3412DDD73D6@CS.Princeton.EDU> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> <4371F511.50401@ee.upenn.edu> <6A973701-28AF-4FD9-B3D1-D3412DDD73D6@CS.Princeton.EDU> Message-ID: <43748F8B.5040103@ee.upenn.edu> Larry, Thanks for the additional input and let me try to see if I can both summarize some of the positions that have been expressed and maybe identify a possible consensus, mostly along similar lines as what Mark outlined in his last email. I don't think that anyone is disagreeing with the potential benefits associated with small, focused venues such as HotNets, and in particular of the positive role that HotNets has played over the past few years. In that respect, I believe that the concerns that Scott expressed in his last email are not the issue. The main question is how to reconcile the need for keeping the audience sufficiently small to be conducive to interactive and productive exchanges, with the need to be "open" regarding who has (direct) access to the benefits associated with participating in those exchanges. The latter being also key in broadening our community and bringing in new people. This, as you point out, is probably largely an issue of principle, and although I wont really follow you in your argument that "private meetings will happen anyhow because of their intrinsic value, so lets make the best of it by ensuring that they are as fair as possible", I also don't think that things are completely black and white and there should be room for a consensus middle-ground. The main sticking point is again that of openness of attendance, but I'll be the first to agree that openness itself does not have an unambiguous definition. Charging a $500 admission fee rules out participating in some conferences for many. Similarly, as has been pointed out, the selection of a given location will open attendance to some and close it for others, etc. So the question is where to draw the line to on one hand keep the overall audience small enough, and on the other hand open attendance enough so as to give "outsiders" a reasonable chance of getting in. I think there is some consensus that authors of accepted papers and PC members should be given priority in terms of attendance. So the question is then how many more slots can be accommodated after that, how are they to be allocated, and what is the threshold/process that would meet the goal of sufficient openness? I don't think it would be productive to go into bean counting specifications regarding the number of "open" slots, but it might be possible to generate some rough guidelines on what would be a reasonable percentage and how these could be allocated. There have been a number of proposals put forward to accomplish this, but my own preference is to go with something with the least number of control knobs, e.g., 30% of open slots that are allocated on a fcfs basis or any other scheme that is as transparent as possible. I actually don't think that it is that meaningful or even practical to tightly control/monitor a single instance of a venue, and instead I think that Mark's "sliding window" approach that monitors attendance diversity over a number of years is the better way to go about it (I must admit having also been surprised by the number you gave regarding HotNets attendance - 145 unique individuals out of 181 for the last 3 years - which is really great). In that respect, I very much like the longer term perspective of his proposal. I think that guidelines that on one hand call for some partial opening of the attendance criteria of a "closed" venue, e.g., having a certain percentage of open slots, and more importantly enforce a monitoring of the actual attendance diversity of a period of several years can represent a reasonable approach and compromise. Obviously, there are some mechanical details that need to be addressed, e.g., Mark's suggestion for a SC, and there has to be a commitment to enforce the guidelines and be willing to pull the plug if necessary, but this might be a solution that satisfies the principle of openness and accessibility to the larger community, while preserving the ability to keep audiences small enough to allow interactive discussions. Roch > You've done a good job of articulating the issues. > We can debate: > > o value of closed (in absolute terms) > o value of closed (in terms of ROI to SIGCOMM) > o if closed, how do we select attendees > o if closed, how many people is too many > > I think you're pointing to the 2nd issue as the one on which > we have a disagreement (with the caveat that the ROI is higher > during the first couple of years, so maybe such events are worth > sponsoring as they start). > > However, I believe SIGCOMM's investment in HotNets is pretty > small. It was larger when SIGCOMM helped jump start the workshop > by publishing the proceedings, but that's no longer the case. > > Does this then boil down to an issue of principle? Maybe... > >From one perspective, framing the issue as one of "fairness > and openness" certainly leads to the position you're taking. > >From another perspective, "fostering scientific dialogue" > seems to be the tag line I'm advocating. > > Let me try the following argument. SIGCOMM can't prohibit > private meetings among researchers with common interests. > They happen because they have value, and quite frankly, we > all we to be invited to those meetings because we know their > tremendous value. HotNets is an opportunity for SIGCOMM to > sponsor such a meeting with a much greater degree of fairness > and equal-opportunity than the best of these private meetings. > A much broader and changing set of people get to participate, > and budgets willing, the proceedings might even be published. > My view is that there's room under SIGCOMM's tent to support > a limited number of such events. > > Larry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051111/e370fa71/attachment.html From shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu Fri Nov 11 07:22:28 2005 From: shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu (Scott Shenker) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 07:22:28 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: <43748F8B.5040103@ee.upenn.edu> References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> <4371F511.50401@ee.upenn.edu> <6A973701-28AF-4FD9-B3D1-D3412DDD73D6@CS.Princeton.EDU> <43748F8B.5040103@ee.upenn.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2005, at 4:33 AM, Roch Guerin wrote: > I don't think that anyone is disagreeing with the potential > benefits associated with small, focused venues such as HotNets, and > in particular of the positive role that HotNets has played over the > past few years. In that respect, I believe that the concerns that > Scott expressed in his last email are not the issue. With all due respect, Roch, I think they are the issue. My point, which you are free to ignore but not to dismiss, is that this mailing list has been full of criticism and back-seat driving, and completely devoid of gratitude. In an environment like this, few people are going to step forward and take the initiative to do good things. Given the level of hand-wringing over a handful of at-large invitees, if I were on the hotnets steering committee I'd immediately take hotnets out of SIGCOMM and not look back.... From jrex at CS.Princeton.EDU Fri Nov 11 07:41:48 2005 From: jrex at CS.Princeton.EDU (Jennifer Rexford) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:41:48 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> <4371F511.50401@ee.upenn.edu> <6A973701-28AF-4FD9-B3D1-D3412DDD73D6@CS.Princeton.EDU> <43748F8B.5040103@ee.upenn.edu> Message-ID: <4374BBBC.8000407@cs.princeton.edu> Scott, I agree that you raise an important point. The HotNets steering committee has done yeoman service in creating a very successful event. As I mentioned in my first e-mail on the list, we should do everything we can not to get in the way of dedicated volunteers trying to do their jobs and create successful events, by erring on the side of autonomy wherever possible. This whole discussion arose in the context of what specific (hopefully very limited) areas, if any, the SIG should provide guidlines or requirements to the steering committees of sponsored events. The goal is limit the intrusion to as few areas as possible, motivated by the values of the SIG and the needs of the community. I think this is a useful discussion to have. I'm sorry that implicit criticism -- and perhaps moreso the perception of criticism -- of a specific event (namely HotNets) has creeped into the discussion. That was certainly not our intent. Throughout this discussion, we're all just trying to do our jobs, too, in terms of responding to the needs of the community. This is not fun. Folks on the list may disagree on the details, but I think we are all trying to act with the good of the community in mind. On that, I don't think there is disagreement. -- Jen > On Nov 11, 2005, at 4:33 AM, Roch Guerin wrote: > > >>I don't think that anyone is disagreeing with the potential >>benefits associated with small, focused venues such as HotNets, and >>in particular of the positive role that HotNets has played over the >>past few years. In that respect, I believe that the concerns that >>Scott expressed in his last email are not the issue. > > > > With all due respect, Roch, I think they are the issue. My point, > which you are free to ignore but not to dismiss, is that this mailing > list has been full of criticism and back-seat driving, and completely > devoid of gratitude. In an environment like this, few people are > going to step forward and take the initiative to do good things. > Given the level of hand-wringing over a handful of at-large invitees, > if I were on the hotnets steering committee I'd immediately take > hotnets out of SIGCOMM and not look back.... > _______________________________________________ > sigcomm mailing list > sigcomm at postel.org > http://www.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcomm From guerin at ee.upenn.edu Fri Nov 11 09:08:23 2005 From: guerin at ee.upenn.edu (Roch Guerin) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 12:08:23 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events In-Reply-To: References: <200511090053.jA90rtqO005949@jaguar.icir.org> <43715865.8070405@isi.edu> <05C22734-CE84-4673-97EC-7FF279963F3C@cs.princeton.edu> <4371F511.50401@ee.upenn.edu> <6A973701-28AF-4FD9-B3D1-D3412DDD73D6@CS.Princeton.EDU> <43748F8B.5040103@ee.upenn.edu> Message-ID: <4374D007.2010908@ee.upenn.edu> Scott, Maybe I have not carefully read all the emails that have circulated, but I don't think I have seen criticism targeted explicitly at HotNets, which I think everyone has agreed has played a very positive role over the past few years. And that certainly has not been the motivation behind any of the inputs I have made to the discussion. As far as gratitude is concerned, this seems to be a totally different topic, and maybe one that is worth its own discussion, i.e., are we doing enough to acknowledge people's efforts and contributions when they volunteer time and energy that ultimately benefits the whole community. It is probably true that we don't, but I'll argue that this extends beyond HotNets and lumping the two together does not seem really justified. So again maybe I am being myopic, but I've viewed HotNets as a catalyst for a discussion on the role and scope of limited-attendance venues, and not as the target of any specific criticism. I'm neither ignoring nor dismissing your point, I just don't think that it is the case. Roch >> I don't think that anyone is disagreeing with the potential benefits >> associated with small, focused venues such as HotNets, and in >> particular of the positive role that HotNets has played over the >> past few years. In that respect, I believe that the concerns that >> Scott expressed in his last email are not the issue. > > > With all due respect, Roch, I think they are the issue. My point, > which you are free to ignore but not to dismiss, is that this mailing > list has been full of criticism and back-seat driving, and completely > devoid of gratitude. In an environment like this, few people are > going to step forward and take the initiative to do good things. > Given the level of hand-wringing over a handful of at-large invitees, > if I were on the hotnets steering committee I'd immediately take > hotnets out of SIGCOMM and not look back.... From shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu Fri Nov 11 10:45:42 2005 From: shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu (Scott Shenker) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:45:42 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] another approach Message-ID: Here's a somewhat different discussion we could be having, motivated by the following somewhat disjoint set of points: 1) I see the policy decision confronting SIGCOMM as roughly whether or not SIGCOMM is willing to sponsor closed events and, if so, whether or not those closed events can have any discretionary attendance policies. I think we are all in agreement that there shouldn't be many closed events nor many discretionary attendees, so the real question is whether SIGCOMM takes a stance that absolutely precludes either. I think we should reach closure (not consensus) on this soon. 2) However, I think another, and more important, problem facing SIGCOMM is the fact that our many of our conferences have so little industry involvement. In the database community, for instance, conferences have very active and wide-ranging exchanges between industry and academia; in fact, you often can't tell the two apart. The same can't be said for Sigcomm (the conference) or Hotnets. 3) Also, Hotnets was designed to with two goals in mind: (a) encouraging "idea" papers and (b) fostering discussion during/after the presentation. These two goals need not be linked in other conferences, and perhaps we should try to develop a new conference with stresses (a) but not (b). 4) These two observations lead to the proposal that SIGCOMM start a new multi-track conference that is open and invites 6-page papers that are either "idea" papers (in the sense of Hotnets) or "reality" papers (describing a current problem, or even just current practice in a relevant area). This could become the main alternative to Sigcomm for the SIGCOMM community, providing a venue for the free exchange of early ideas and where academia and industry could have more fruitful interaction. 5) In addition to benefitting the SIGCOMM community, this would also reduce the importance of the current controversy, in that if this new conference was successful it would relegate Hotnets to the role of an academic debating club (still available to those who enjoy that sort of thing). From michalis at cs.ucr.edu Fri Nov 11 11:27:23 2005 From: michalis at cs.ucr.edu (Michalis Faloutsos) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 11:27:23 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] another approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2005, at 10:45 AM, Scott Shenker wrote: > 4) These two observations lead to the proposal that SIGCOMM start a > new multi-track conference that is open and invites 6-page papers > that are either "idea" papers (in the sense of Hotnets) or "reality" > papers (describing a current problem, or even just current practice > in a relevant area). I could not agree more. This is a more fundamental and important need. We absolutely need such a conference. We need a place for cute observations, crazy radical ideas, creative criticism half baked ideas for early feedback. Limiting to 6 pages will be key. -- Michalis %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % Michalis Faloutsos 951 827-2480 (o) % UC Riverside, Dpt Comp. Sci. 951 328-9296 (h) % Riverside, CA 92521, USA 951 827-4643 (FAX) % % HTTP : www.cs.ucr.edu/~michalis/ % E-mail: michalis at cs.ucr.edu %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% From douglis at acm.org Fri Nov 11 11:50:23 2005 From: douglis at acm.org (Fred Douglis) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 14:50:23 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] another approach Message-ID: <4374F5FF.3000403@acm.org> > > 4) These two observations lead to the proposal that SIGCOMM start a > > new multi-track conference that is open and invites 6-page papers > > that are either "idea" papers (in the sense of Hotnets) or "reality" > > papers (describing a current problem, or even just current practice > > in a relevant area). > > I could not agree more. This is a more fundamental and important need. > We absolutely need such a conference. > We need a place for cute observations, crazy radical ideas, creative > criticism > half baked ideas for early feedback. > Limiting to 6 pages will be key. Except that everything you just described is valid for HOTNETS. I think that HOTNETS fills this niche, and fills it well, and I'm sorry to see all the talk about moving it out of SIGCOMM due to the heated debate over limited attendance. But as I said once before, sponsorship of a professional organization serves many purposes, including the insurance and financial deep pockets you need when something goes completely amiss. If I were on the steering committee, I wouldn't follow Scott's lead out the door, I'd fight for ACM support. As for industrial participation, that's orthogonal, and I'd think that SIGCOMM could find room for a session for an industrial track a la SIGMOD. Fred From Bonaventure at info.ucl.ac.be Fri Nov 11 12:13:33 2005 From: Bonaventure at info.ucl.ac.be (Olivier Bonaventure) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 21:13:33 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] another approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4374FB6D.5010707@info.ucl.ac.be> Scott, > > 4) These two observations lead to the proposal that SIGCOMM start a > new multi-track conference that is open and invites 6-page papers > that are either "idea" papers (in the sense of Hotnets) or "reality" > papers (describing a current problem, or even just current practice > in a relevant area). This could become the main alternative to > Sigcomm for the SIGCOMM community, providing a venue for the free > exchange of early ideas and where academia and industry could have > more fruitful interaction. I completely agree that having a conference where both academia and industry meet would be useful. I think that such a conference would also be useful for industry. A few months ago, there were discussions on the NANOG mailing list about the possibility of having a way to publish NANOG papers that go beyond the 20 minutes presentation typically found at NANOG. During the IETF plenary in Paris, there was also a question on how to improve cooperation between the industry that today drives most of IETF and academia. Olivier From jeffmogul at acm.org Fri Nov 11 14:39:37 2005 From: jeffmogul at acm.org (jeffmogul@acm.org) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 14:39:37 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] industrial participation ... Re: another approach Message-ID: <200511112239.jABMdbhW029546@wera.hpl.hp.com> Since we've shift topics a little, I'll jump in. I've tilted twice at this particular windmill (i.e., trying to get non-academic people to publish research-like papers). Once was as the chair of the second and last "Workshop on Industrial Experiences with Systems Software" , and once as co-chair of the SIGCOMM 2003 NICELI workshop . Neither event attracted a lot of submissions, although I think in the end they were both valuable for the attendees. It definitely takes a serious commitment on the part of the PC chair and members to aggressively solicit papers from industrial authors (excluding the major corporate research labs). It's not like SIGCOMM or HotNets or IMC, which always seem to have large pools of submissions. In the case of WIESS, I think we decided that the well was basically dry, partly because the scope was too narrow. NICELI also had a rather narrow scope, but because it was a hot topic at the time (RDMA, basically) the result was more coherent. Also, I think NICELI succeeded in part because it was co-located with SIGCOMM, which meant that both attendees and submitters had other incentives to participate. (WIESS was co-located with OSDI, which gave us a good audience but somehow didn't result in submissions.) My recommendation would be to consider co-locating a workshop on industrial networking innovation, engineering, and operation at the annual SIGCOMM conference. I'd discourage pure-research submissions (but academic-practitioner collaborations would be great). I suspect there are enough potential authors (if the scope is broad enough) outside the usual academic + research-lab world to make this viable, although it will take some effort to solicit enough papers. It's crucial that the organizers not try to impose the same acceptance criteria as one would expect for a true research conference/workshop, or else we would just end up with Yet Another one of those. -Jeff From randy at psg.com Fri Nov 11 14:56:57 2005 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 12:56:57 -1000 Subject: [sigcomm] industrial participation ... Re: another approach References: <200511112239.jABMdbhW029546@wera.hpl.hp.com> Message-ID: <17269.8633.300629.173736@roam.psg.com> > My recommendation would be to consider co-locating a workshop on > industrial networking innovation, engineering, and operation at > the annual SIGCOMM conference. urban legend has it that willie sutton was once asked why he robbed banks. the legend says he answered "that is where the money is." if you want industry and ops, go where industry and ops already are. randy From touch at ISI.EDU Sat Nov 12 22:13:54 2005 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:13:54 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] another approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4376D9A2.2030905@isi.edu> Scott Shenker wrote: > Here's a somewhat different discussion we could be having, motivated > by the following somewhat disjoint set of points: > > 1) I see the policy decision confronting SIGCOMM as roughly whether > or not SIGCOMM is willing to sponsor closed events and, if so, > whether or not those closed events can have any discretionary > attendance policies. I think we are all in agreement that there > shouldn't be many closed events nor many discretionary attendees, so > the real question is whether SIGCOMM takes a stance that absolutely > precludes either. I think we should reach closure (not consensus) on > this soon. The stance has, FWIW, a range of "absolutes" that have been put forth that distinguish different dimensions: - open vs. limited attendance - for limited: invitation vs. control-free attendance - one time vs. short-range vs. persistent limited attendance Note that these affect HotNets because it is in the extrema of both dimensions. The only other dimension we haven't talked about involves more control over the papers themselves: - open vs. invitation-only presentations That should be discussed as wekk. > 2) However, I think another, and more important, problem facing > SIGCOMM is the fact that our many of our conferences have so little > industry involvement. It'd be useful to understand what kind of involvement we'd seek. It'd be very useful, e.g., to have more interest in tech transfer of our ideas to industry, or for industry to bring their problems to our community. > 3) Also, Hotnets was designed to with two goals in mind: (a) > encouraging "idea" papers and (b) fostering discussion during/after > the presentation. These two goals need not be linked in other > conferences, and perhaps we should try to develop a new conference > with stresses (a) but not (b). FDNA tried to do that, as do many of the other workshops at Sigcomm, FWIW. > 4) These two observations lead to the proposal that SIGCOMM start a > new multi-track conference that is open and invites 6-page papers > that are either "idea" papers (in the sense of Hotnets) or "reality" > papers (describing a current problem, or even just current practice > in a relevant area). This could become the main alternative to > Sigcomm for the SIGCOMM community, providing a venue for the free > exchange of early ideas and where academia and industry could have > more fruitful interaction. Sure - we had a survey about spinning FDNA in to a stand-alone meeting. One trick is that the 'idea' papers from FDNA competed with the 'white papers' sought for Sigcomm; we do need to keep that issue in mind. The SIG tries not to sponsor or have 'in cooperation' meetings that compete (addressing avoidance of competition is a prerequisite, as per the ACM paperwork associated with this process). > 5) In addition to benefitting the SIGCOMM community, this would also > reduce the importance of the current controversy, in that if this new > conference was successful it would relegate Hotnets to the role of an > academic debating club (still available to those who enjoy that sort > of thing). However, it would put the SIG in the position of picking one of the two to sponsor or even endorse as 'in cooperation', as per above. That's the catch here... Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/sigcomm/attachments/20051112/dc855806/signature.bin From christophe.diot at thomson.net Sat Nov 19 02:04:47 2005 From: christophe.diot at thomson.net (Christophe Diot) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 11:04:47 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] CCR shadow reviewing for students and junior faculties Message-ID: <437EF8BF.7070002@thomson.net> At the last CCR editor's meeting, we decided to put together a parallel reviewing process where (in short) PhD students and junior faculties could choose papers to review among CCR submissions. The rule to participate would be similar to the one used last year for the shadow PC: be a PhD student or be a recent faculty who has never been involved in a conference TPC. The idea is that these "shadow" reviews would be checked by the editor in charge of the paper and if they are good, be forwarded to the paper authors' with the official reviews. The authors of the shadow review would receive the official reviews together with the decision of the CCR editor. We need a simple web page where reviewer candidates could register by research interest, view submitted papers and select the one they want to review. the rest of the process can be handled by email. This email has 2 purposes: - get comments (positive or negative) on this idea; and - find a volunteer to develop the web page. merci / christophe -- Christophe Diot Thomson Paris Research Lab 46, quai A. Le Gallo 92648 Boulogne cedex +33-674-51-96-53 From vern at icir.org Sat Nov 19 23:22:52 2005 From: vern at icir.org (Vern Paxson) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 23:22:52 -0800 Subject: [sigcomm] CCR shadow reviewing for students and junior faculties In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 19 Nov 2005 11:04:47 +0100. Message-ID: <200511200722.jAK7Mq4d013009@jaguar.icir.org> > This email has 2 purposes: > > - get comments (positive or negative) on this idea; and I definitely like the idea. > - find a volunteer to develop the web page. Sorry I can't offer to do this :-(. Vern From acaro at bbn.com Mon Nov 21 08:23:14 2005 From: acaro at bbn.com (Armando L. Caro, Jr.) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 11:23:14 -0500 Subject: [sigcomm] CCR shadow reviewing for students and junior faculties In-Reply-To: <437EF8BF.7070002@thomson.net> References: <437EF8BF.7070002@thomson.net> Message-ID: <4381F472.6010209@bbn.com> Christophe Diot wrote: > > The rule to participate would be similar to the one used last year for the > shadow PC: be a PhD student or be a recent faculty who has never been involved > in a conference TPC. > This email has 2 purposes: > > - get comments (positive or negative) on this idea; and I like the idea, but why is it limited to PhD students and recent faculty? I think it should also include recent PhD graduates that are not in academia and who have never been involved in a conference TPC. -- Armando www.armandocaro.net From christophe.diot at thomson.net Mon Nov 21 08:44:46 2005 From: christophe.diot at thomson.net (Christophe Diot) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 17:44:46 +0100 Subject: [sigcomm] CCR shadow reviewing for students and junior faculties In-Reply-To: <4381F472.6010209@bbn.com> References: <437EF8BF.7070002@thomson.net> <4381F472.6010209@bbn.com> Message-ID: <4381F97E.6060807@thomson.net> Armando L. Caro, Jr. wrote: > > I like the idea, but why is it limited to PhD students and recent > faculty? I think it should also include recent PhD graduates that are > not in academia and who have never been involved in a conference TPC. my mistake. it includes graduate students and recent graduates as long as they have not been involved in any TPC. ch -- Christophe Diot Thomson Paris Research Lab 46, quai A. Le Gallo 92648 Boulogne cedex +33-674-51-96-53