[sigcomm] another approach
Scott Shenker
shenker at icsi.berkeley.edu
Fri Nov 11 10:45:42 PST 2005
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).
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