[sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events

[Roch Guerin]

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 


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