tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post1445811966124427664..comments2024-03-14T01:32:43.610-06:00Comments on The Geomblog: On getting rid of ACM affiliation...Suresh Venkatasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-62227745354981988392011-11-23T01:49:12.689-07:002011-11-23T01:49:12.689-07:00It's a shame that this conversation has been s...<i>It's a shame that this conversation has been so centered around money, </i><br /><br />David, that's because the most significant <em>benefit</em> of staying with ACM involves money. I agree that the other issues you list are more important.<br /><br /><i>SIGACT has been nice enough to advance money or, like last year, give a small donation, if FOCS might otherwise run a deficit.</i><br /><br />So in principle, that option should be open to SOCG as well. Right??JeffEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17633745186684887140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-11996288100413396432011-11-22T22:05:59.072-07:002011-11-22T22:05:59.072-07:00Paul: sorry about the id-wall but every time I tak...Paul: sorry about the id-wall but every time I take it down I get hit hard by spammers. You should be able to comment with openid, but I think some people have been having trouble with that, too, so I don't know. Anyway, I definitely agree that ACM is much better than IEEE in this respect, but that doesn't mean that I think ACM is perfect.D. Eppsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11923501729858669855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-32232169503948995662011-11-22T19:45:05.248-07:002011-11-22T19:45:05.248-07:00Neal: I didn't actually register for STOC - I...Neal: I didn't actually register for STOC - I registered for CCC - but I am not sure they even did a USB stick for STOC. I think they made them available on a website for download. For FOCS we did the USB stick format - it cost around $5 each even with rush delivery because the content was only ready 2 weeks before the conference.<br /><br />David: I don't comment on your blog because of the identity-wall you have on it. However, I will comment here. It is a big mistake in your latest post to lump the disfunctional IEEE in with ACM. <br /><br />IEEE has financial problems of losing money on print journals. The disfunction is in part the result of a lawsuit. The IEEE Computer Society DL competes with IEEExplore because the Computer Society was first with CSDL and does not get a proper cut of revenues from IEEExplore. They put the content on CSDL first and it later migrates to the IEEExplore. <br /><br />There is a lot of meta-data that goes with the ACM DL (including disambiguated forward and backward cites) that Google scholar may eventually get right but you won't get with other sites.Paul Beamenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-28367235979357770302011-11-22T13:46:09.649-07:002011-11-22T13:46:09.649-07:00@Paul
I attended FCRC 2011 this summer. The EC p...@Paul<br /><br />I attended FCRC 2011 this summer. The EC proceedings were a USB stick with a logo. What does the ACM charge for this type of thing? Did STOC does something similar at FCRC?Nealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06306714297735275545noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-72402598140705615882011-11-22T13:42:00.179-07:002011-11-22T13:42:00.179-07:00I'm not a CG theorist, however I agree with yo...I'm not a CG theorist, however I agree with your assessment. Before floating off to industry I was involved in a niche area of optimization algorithm theory. The community moved into the ACM and it has been a benefit. The ACM can be viewed as infrastructure for letting the community focus on the science. <br /><br />WRT proceedings, why bother with the difficulties of traditional printed proceedings? The JMLR does fine with electronic only publishing and the ACM's digital library indexes them as does the DBLP.Nealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06306714297735275545noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-88705577147947068292011-11-22T13:03:30.846-07:002011-11-22T13:03:30.846-07:00It's a shame that this conversation has been s...It's a shame that this conversation has been so centered around money, because my feeling is that the obstacles to organizing the conference outside the US (as happens regularly), the demand for copyright over our articles, and the automatic paywalling of those articles, are bigger issues than the money.D. Eppsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11923501729858669855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-74994996883247984282011-11-22T10:35:21.733-07:002011-11-22T10:35:21.733-07:00Jeff: When I last checked which was five years ag...Jeff: When I last checked which was five years ago, ACMs charges for CDs were only about 25% of the costs for printed proceedings and the shipping costs were much lower. (For STOC 2006 it cost us only an extra $1K for 300 CDs in addition to printed proceedings but there is a fixed editorial cost.) I have dealt with IEEE publishing where they charge about the same for CDs as printed proceedings but we did an "electronic only" version which costs about 1/3 of 250 printed proceedings. It would be easy enough to check recent budgets of ACM conferences like STOC that are doing electronic only.<br />(ACM kicks back money from every DL page-view to SIGACT. This isn't what they are charging for - they are charging for indexing, table of contents and final version editing and submission management.)<br /><br />You ask about FOCS and IEEE. You are right. IEEE does not give a similar benefit to the TCMF which runs FOCS, CCC, and LICS. There is no permanent budget, no kickback from the DL; we have to budget 20% overhead, 10% contingency and we only get HALF of the money back from surpluses which must be spent in the following year with no carry-over, whereas at ACM, 100% of the surplus over that 16% admin fee goes straight to SIGACT which can carry funds over.<br /><br />SIGACT has been nice enough to advance money or, like last year, give a small donation, if FOCS might otherwise run a deficit. (As you can see we don't really want any surplus at FOCS since the community loses half of that money.)Paul Beamenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-39662122496605599302011-11-22T05:08:03.902-07:002011-11-22T05:08:03.902-07:00It's my understanding that SIGMOD was able to ...It's my understanding that SIGMOD was able to negotiate much lower contingency fees since they had never ran a deficit. It would be worth exploring this option, as well as the one indicated by Paul before making a final decision.Alex Lopez-Ortiznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-30166073273637865952011-11-22T03:40:12.735-07:002011-11-22T03:40:12.735-07:00My mistake. When I looked back we had a minimal 4...My mistake. When I looked back we had a minimal 4% contingency for STOC 2006. (ACM's default was a much larger figure and SIGACT covered the difference.) This is pretty small compared with anything else and frankly a little over-optimism in receipts and # of attendees easily covers it.Paul Beamenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-25423737618577670612011-11-22T03:32:15.528-07:002011-11-22T03:32:15.528-07:00Hmm. I wonder whether this has to do with joint s...Hmm. I wonder whether this has to do with joint sponsorship. When I was on the SIGACT Exec in the early 2000's we decide to drop the contingency fee (for conferences that regularly didn't have a loss) and back it with SIGACT funds. We did have a big hit with a RECOMB loss one year. Maybe SIGGRAPH won't do this. This seems like a point worth negotiating but not a reason to leave.Paul Beamenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-56291356236681992812011-11-22T03:12:10.021-07:002011-11-22T03:12:10.021-07:00We had printed proceedings back then which did cos...<i>We had printed proceedings back then which did cost a chunk of change BUT without them why are proceedings such a cost for SoCG now?</i><br /><br />The cost of printed proceedings for ACM-sponsored conferences is amortized across the thousands of libraries and subscribers that pay for them. In years that SOCG was held in cooperation with ACM instead of sponsored by ACM (sometimes due to banking laws in the host country), ACM only amortized the cost of printed proceedings across the conference registrants. Add international shipping costs, stir, and bake. If I recall correctly, when SOCG was held in Korea in 2007, each copy of the proceedings cost the registrant about $60.<br /><br />(Remember when you could still buy old SODA proceedings for $25 a copy?)<br /><br />Without printed proceedings, printing and shipping costs go away, but the cost of updating and maintaining the ACM Digital Library does not. My impression is that going electronic-only does not substantially lower ACM's budget line for proceedings.<br /><br /><i>SIGACT... has a large accumulated surplus that SoCG would be walking away from - on the order of $800K in the bank</i><br /><br />Can I correctly conclude from this comment that FOCS has no access to this surplus, since it is sponsored by IEEE rather than ACM?JeffEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17633745186684887140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-13485429640283979852011-11-22T03:05:28.398-07:002011-11-22T03:05:28.398-07:00Do you have a sample budget I can see? That seem...Do you have a sample budget I can see? That seems weird.Paul Beamenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-62711879360489296382011-11-22T01:28:29.707-07:002011-11-22T01:28:29.707-07:00@Paul Maybe we've been doing something wrong, ...@Paul Maybe we've been doing something wrong, but ACM has regularly charged us a contingency (at least that's what they called it).Suresh Venkatasubramanianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-64650540917268740732011-11-22T01:25:21.377-07:002011-11-22T01:25:21.377-07:00i was re-reading your original post and some thing...i was re-reading your original post and some things don't seem right. <br /><br />I ran local arrangements for STOC 2006 in Seattle and ACM did NOT require any budgeted contingency - that was guaranteed by SIGACT (which incidentally has a large accumulated surplus that SoCG would be walking away from - on the order of $800K in the bank - under the control of people you can elect rather than admi staff). <br /><br />What ACM did charge was a 16% administration fee, a chunk of which went back to SIGACT. They did a lot for that overhead. They did the full RFP for the hotels, negotiated the contract, got us substantially reduced rates on regonline for registration and handled every financial item - I simply sent the bills to them and they paid them. I was finished with everything 60 days after the conference was over. <br /><br />We had printed proceedings back then which did cost a chunk of change BUT without them why are proceedings such a cost for SoCG now?Paul Beamenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-21137511922122624302011-11-22T01:21:30.897-07:002011-11-22T01:21:30.897-07:00Suresh, I share your reservations about leaving SI...Suresh, I share your reservations about leaving SIGACT (and to a much smaller extent, SIGGRAPH). It would be very easy to misinterpret SOCG's departure from ACM as further deliberate separation from the rest of the theoretical computer science community.<br /><br />Nevertheless, I believe leaving ACM is worth that risk. If the vote goes through, the steering committee will have to smooth some feathers. The SOCG community will have to become more active in SIGACT to ensure that they are properly represented, especially with funding agencies, but frankly, we need to do that anyway.<br /><br />The only other substantive argument in favor of staying with ACM is their financial backing for conferences, in particular, insurance against potential budget overruns. But as far as I know, SOCG has never run a deficit, and even in years when ACM did not sponsor the conference (every conference outside the US so far), local organizers have been able to secure significant external funding.JeffEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17633745186684887140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-55295299545565713532011-11-22T01:20:50.576-07:002011-11-22T01:20:50.576-07:00Your "SoCG is too small" sounds like dig...Your "SoCG is too small" sounds like digging for excuses rather than a real reason. Graph Drawing is smaller than CG and survives well enough as independent. It's not only large conferences that can do that.D. Eppsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11923501729858669855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-38377547490663262822011-11-22T00:52:45.764-07:002011-11-22T00:52:45.764-07:00@Paul, while your point about COLT is well taken, ...@Paul, while your point about COLT is well taken, the SoCG steering committee did address that issue by recommending a switch to the Dagstuhl LIPIcs series, which has funding from the German government to provide a persistent archival function.Suresh Venkatasubramanianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-86501444763555413962011-11-22T00:50:09.396-07:002011-11-22T00:50:09.396-07:00COLT withdrew from ACM a number of years ago. Go ...COLT withdrew from ACM a number of years ago. Go ahead and try to search for the proceedings on the web. At least according to DBLP, you'll find that the papers are stored in a bunch of random places, some of which serve them well, some of which don't. It is a mess. There's no pay-wall but also no consistency. I am not sure one should think of COLT as such a positive example that SoCG should follow.Paul Beamenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-71344446728379139512011-11-21T23:41:24.357-07:002011-11-21T23:41:24.357-07:00ML and NLP are MUCH larger communities, and that&#...ML and NLP are MUCH larger communities, and that's a primary reason why they can survive happily (VLDB is another example). CG is very small.Suresh Venkatasubramanianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-36231515233738642662011-11-21T23:39:17.302-07:002011-11-21T23:39:17.302-07:00ACM gets reasonable amount of prestige from having...ACM gets reasonable amount of prestige from having a conference like SoCG under its umbrella. This is not about money. This is about an association that no longer serves the community but instead serves some bizarre purposes of its own. There are many top communities in CS not associated with the ACM, and they seem to be quite happy (Machine learning/NLP comes to mind).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-817393301697682532011-11-21T23:12:12.480-07:002011-11-21T23:12:12.480-07:00Yes, but who's hurt more by the decision ? ACM...Yes, but who's hurt more by the decision ? ACM doesn't get enough revenue from SoCG for the conference to have much leverage. And many other conferences (even small ones) run in conjunction with ACM.Suresh Venkatasubramanianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-76991997651967185322011-11-21T23:09:45.653-07:002011-11-21T23:09:45.653-07:00This is an ACM decision - they decided not to let...This is an ACM decision - they decided not to let SoCG be run in collaboration with ACM. If they want to keep SoCG as ACM conference they have to show commitment to openness and flexibility. Otherwise, ACM would be completely irrelevant in 5 years.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com