[sigcomm] attendance policies for SIGCOMM-affiliated events

[Scott Shenker]

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