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I don't know how conferences work but isn't it the purpose of a conference to discuss a certain paper? Aren't sessions planned in which a paper is taken and dis

by Yuioup 13y ago

I don't know how conferences work but isn't it the purpose of a conference to discuss a certain paper? Aren't sessions planned in which a paper is taken and dissected? I can very well imagine that papers like this would be quickly discovered and discredited. Sure, it may not happen before the conference starts but at some point either before or after everybody sits down to discuss the paper it should be glaringly obvious. IANAScientist ...

ngkabra 13y ago
Most conferences are supposed to have a selection process (in most cases a "peer review" process) in which all submissions are sent to multiple reviewers who are experts in that area, and only papers which are deemed "acceptable" by a majority of the reviewers are published. Usually this means that the paper should be relevant to the conference, should have results that are worth publishing, and should have something new - something that hasn't been done before. All of this is supposed to happen before the paper is accepted for publication. The proceedings of top conferences in most fields are, in my opinion, more important than the actual conference itself.
gphilip 13y ago
> isn't it the purpose of a conference to discuss a certain paper? No. The purpose of a conference [1] is to have researchers present their results. The timing guidelines for a typical conference talk would look like: 15 minutes for the talk, 5 minutes for questions and comments, and 5 minutes for setting up the next talk. As you can imagine, this doesn't give much time for discussions; dissecting a paper is not part of the agenda. The questions and comments raised in the 5-minute period after the talk usually are along the lines of "Do you think your approach will work for this other problem?", rather than "Can you explain how this step in the argument works?". If you have a question of the latter kind, then you are supposed to discuss it with the author offline, so that the conference schedule is not affected. The conference does not provide you with a forum to discuss papers at any depth. [1] All of this pertains to Theoretical Computer Science conferences; I suspect conferences in other fields are similar, but I don't know for sure.
- Yuioup 13y ago
  Thanks for clearing it up. So basically there is a lack of pre-conference peer review.
  - ngkabra 13y ago
    Right. In fact, in my opinion, the most important thing a conference provides is the quality of the peer-review and the selection process. So a conference that claims peer-review, but does not provide it, is really taking your money and not providing value for it.

by Yuioup 13y ago

ngkabra 13y ago

Most conferences are supposed to have a selection process (in most cases a "peer review" process) in which all submissions are sent to multiple reviewers who are experts in that area, and only papers which are deemed "acceptable" by a majority of the reviewers are published. Usually this means that the paper should be relevant to the conference, should have results that are worth publishing, and should have something new - something that hasn't been done before. All of this is supposed to happen before the paper is accepted for publication. The proceedings of top conferences in most fields are, in my opinion, more important than the actual conference itself.

gphilip 13y ago

> isn't it the purpose of a conference to discuss a certain paper? No. The purpose of a conference [1] is to have researchers present their results. The timing guidelines for a typical conference talk would look like: 15 minutes for the talk, 5 minutes for questions and comments, and 5 minutes for setting up the next talk. As you can imagine, this doesn't give much time for discussions; dissecting a paper is not part of the agenda. The questions and comments raised in the 5-minute period after the talk usually are along the lines of "Do you think your approach will work for this other problem?", rather than "Can you explain how this step in the argument works?". If you have a question of the latter kind, then you are supposed to discuss it with the author offline, so that the conference schedule is not affected. The conference does not provide you with a forum to discuss papers at any depth. [1] All of this pertains to Theoretical Computer Science conferences; I suspect conferences in other fields are similar, but I don't know for sure.

Yuioup 13y ago
Thanks for clearing it up. So basically there is a lack of pre-conference peer review.
- ngkabra 13y ago
  Right. In fact, in my opinion, the most important thing a conference provides is the quality of the peer-review and the selection process. So a conference that claims peer-review, but does not provide it, is really taking your money and not providing value for it.