It's not the citation in the paper, it's the two or three lines the reference itself takes up in the references section. When we publish papers, we are always p

It's not the citation in the paper, it's the two or three lines the reference itself takes up in the references section. When we publish papers, we are always pressed for space, and we always have to decide what we have to cut. I can't speak for where you publish, but in computer science conferences, we have page limits.