[sigcomm] ccr comments

[Nick Feamster]

Aside from the issues below (which I agree should be addressed), while we are
on the topic of CCR, I would like to say that the new CCR Online is very
helpful for "timely dissemination" (especially in comparison to the hard
copies that never seem to find their way to my mailbox anyway).  

The new setup is great; it is easy to navigate between different issues and
columns, and it's very easy to find the papers.  The ability to post and read
comments, as with the Sigcomm 2006 web site, is also a nice feature (perhaps
one we should all take more advantage of).  

Nice work!

One tiny suggestion that would make CCR even more useful: an RSS feed (which
Drupal already supports).  :)

-Nick

On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 11:09:13AM -0400, Mark Allman wrote:
>  
> I have a couple of CCR thoughts, based on that last few CCRs and
> triggered by the editor's message in the October issue.  Well, and
> Christophe said he wanted comments ...
> 
> (1) Reviewed Articles vs. Editorial Zone
> 
>     I am sometimes left wondering what the difference between the
>     "reviewed articles" and the "editorial zone" really is.  Sometimes
>     it is obvious.  The "10 papers" series (which I like a bunch!) is
>     clearly an editorial contribution, as is something like kc's call
>     for measuring a day in the Internet's life in the October issue.  I
>     think these sorts of things are a fabulous addition to CCR.
>     However, some of the items in the editorial zone seem like maybe
>     they ought to be in the reviewed papers section.  E.g., the "probe
>     gap" paper in the current issue (on quick look) seems to be more of
>     a paper than an editorial.
> 
>     I am not as concerned with the label that we put on these papers as
>     to how they are being judged for publication and how they are
>     approached by readers.  It seems confusing to me.  Are we creating a
>     way for people to publish sub-par papers as "editorials" right next
>     to better reviewed papers?  Maybe we could at least indicate the
>     editorial nature of things in the title of a paper so long-term it
>     is clear when reading / citing these papers?
> 
>     (Note: I am **not** suggesting that the probe gap paper is in any
>     way sub-par, it was just an example.  **Not**.)
> 
>     How is the classification made?  Do authors indicate which category
>     they'd like (sort of what I get from the guidelines on the web, but
>     not terribly clear)?  If not, then how is the decision made?  If so,
>     is the author's choice reviewed at all?  (I.e., "you say you want an
>     editorial, but this looks more like a paper that needs reviewed to
>     us".) 
> 
>     It is also not clear to me what criteria are being used to judge an
>     editorial contribution as fit to print.  E.g., I know of rejected
>     editorial contributions that, while maybe not perfect, did try to
>     convey technical thoughts to the community and here I see 5 pages of
>     dead tree in the October issue that--while amusing--will not really
>     move us forward.  If I had an editorial contribution rejected
>     recently I think I'd be a bit torqued at the current issue.
> 
>     Also, a nit: I see there is no page limit for editorial
>     contributions on the web.  I have heard anecdotes of people being
>     hassled for the length of small-ish (< 5 page) editorial
>     contributions---even though longer papers appear in the editorial
>     zone (excepting things like the re-print of Paxson's paper, which I
>     understand is a different animal).
> 
>     In general, I'd like to see more clarity on this subject.
> 
> (2) Not Many Papers
> 
>     As this issue's editorial notes there are not many reviewed papers
>     this time around (2).  The good news is that is not the lowest this
>     year (with the April issue containing only one!).  The year's
>     average is about 3 papers / issue.  Christophe notes that there were
>     13 papers submitted for the October issue (taking into account the
>     one that was withdrawn).  My read of his comments is that we're
>     rejecting reasonably good papers because authors cannot address
>     reviewers comments in less than a week.  This leads to a few
>     thoughts:
> 
>       + My take is that we seemingly *have* lost some reasonably decent
>         papers because authors cannot meet an "under one week" deadline.
>         That is a real shame, I think.  To me that says there is some
>         information that with a little effort would be good to get out
>         into the community in a timely fashion and yet by rejecting the
>         paper we're forcing authors to find another venue and undergo
>         another review cycle to get the information into the community.
>         That hardly seems to help the overall notion of timely
>         dissemination.  That's just a shame.
> 
>         (No, I did not have any papers under submission (and, hence,
>         rejected) for this issue.)
> 
>       + The "less than one week" notion in Christophe's editorial is at
>         odds with the "two week" guideline on the web page.  We should
>         at least be up-front with people in the submission guidelines.
> 
>       + But, really, "less than one week" or "two weeks" are both
>         extremely short.
> 
>       + And, so, in addition to it sounding like we have lost reasonable
>         papers because of this short turn-around, I also wonder if we
>         have (or will) lose submissions because of it.  We're all quite
>         busy and hearing that we might be under the gun for some unknown
>         amount of work might just make folks aim elsewhere.
> 
>     Can't we fix this fairly easily?  Why can't we let authors slip one
>     issue?  That still seems like "timely dissemination" to me because
>     it'll cost more than that to use another venue for a reasonable
>     piece of work that needs some buffing.  Or, maybe even better, just
>     backup the deadlines a month so "less than one week" turns into 4-5
>     weeks.  That is, instead of a 3 month cycle we go to a 4 month
>     cycle.  This will overlap things a bit, but somehow with 14
>     submissions / issue (or even double that), a fraction of those
>     accepted and 13 editors this overlap doesn't seem like it would be a
>     big deal.
> 
> I hope those comments are somehow useful.
> 
> allman
> 
> 
> 



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