[sigcomm] sig/eurosig/asiasig?

[Nick Feamster]

At the risk of opening a can of worms, I will break the silence on this list:

What do folks think about the conference model of Crypto/Asiacrypt/Eurocrypt
that cryptographers have?

More conferences==more accepted papers + more accessibility for folks in other
countries + not being out-of-luck if you can't make (or submit to) the
singular event of the year.  The model also presents the option of traveling
overseas (or not), it might ameliorate scheduling conundrums (see below), and
it offers the opportunity for different Sigcomm conferences to develop slightly
different value structures, accommodating varied interests (e.g., one of these
might try to form closer ties with industry/practice).

One apparent downside I could see to this model is that the community might
not all convene in one place and might become more fragmented.  We could look
to the crypto community for some data.  My hypothesis is that such a model
would not fragment the community any more than, say, holding a single Sigcomm
in the first month of the fall term in Europe (discouraging potential U.S.
participants) or mid-August in the U.S. (discouraging potential European
participants).

-Nick