Hey, comment 1 is from me. I didn’t mean to be Anonymous. It’s just that my browser usually fills in the form for me, but I’m not using my regular browser.
I fail to see the difference between conference and journal reviewing, except that conference papers are shorter and therfore lack detail. Still “dude tells dude his opinion”.
Ultimately, yes, but my experience has been that journal editors require a conclusive peer review before accepting a paper.
Now specialized conferences are great for creating intensive atmospheres, especially if the encourage work-in-progress submissions of high quality. This likely involves a different reviewing process than many prestigious meetings.
My experience has been that prestigious conferences tend to proudly favor a small set of topics and directions as “interesting”. Eventually, all papers end up having the same biases.
What machine learning and democracy taught us is that diversity matters a whole lot. Packing a room full of people who think exactly alike is a recipe for disaster. That’s not how science moves forward.
If it we worked that way, we would still have alchemy conferences. It takes a chemist to tell the alchemists they are wrong. You want to invite the people who disagree with you at your party.
Anonymoussays:
Daniel, I agree completely with your arguments. On the stay-at-home side, you should add concern for the impact of air travel on climate change. On the go-to-a-prestigious-conference side, there is the appeal of travel to exotic locations. 🙂
I fail to see the difference between conference and journal reviewing, except that conference papers are shorter and therfore lack detail. Still “dude tells dude his opinion”.
Now specialized conferences are great for creating intensive atmospheres, especially if the encourage work-in-progress submissions of high quality. This likely involves a different reviewing process than many prestigious meetings.
Although I’ve not been to any of the prestigious conferences in my field, I do keep track of the papers. In this sense, my experience mirrors yours: the papers become homogenous over time. In my work, to borrow a phrase from one of Mike Myers’ characters on Saturday Night Live, “If it’s not type theory, it’s crap!”
It may not be good for my academic career to eschew these prestigious conferences, but I have my doubts I would be able to get a paper into them since I am essentially arguing the opposite — and I don’t have any previous clout.
A lot of the ideas I’ve been putting together have come from revisiting old ideas and Google Scholar searches, not looking through what gets published in the well-regarded conferences and journals.
A lot of the ideas I’ve been putting together have come from revisiting old ideas and Google Scholar searches, not looking through what gets published in the well-regarded conferences and journals.
I guess I share some of the rebel spirit. 🙂
That’s what research is supposed to be. And once people read your papers, they should be able to appreciate your results, whether or not they appeared in one of the trendy conferences.
Of course, if they just look for the name of a prestigious conference, you might get in trouble… but anyone who reviews your work without reading your papers is a fraud. He may be a fraud with power, but he is, nevertheless a fraud.
There is a theory going around that reading someone’s papers is a lot of work. To read them carefully is hard, yes… but to browse and read random sections is not that hard. And you quickly get a feel for what the researcher is after… whether he is just following trends or building up an original research program. Of course, this assumes that you are interested and know the area a bit, but experienced researchers get to know several areas (unless they belong to one of these focused communities).
Sebsays:
Thanks for those insights. I dug around that “killing physics” thread and found this nice summary of why misfit work is not encouraged by the scientific system, and what might can be done about it: http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/no-new-einstein.pdf
Hey, comment 1 is from me. I didn’t mean to be Anonymous. It’s just that my browser usually fills in the form for me, but I’m not using my regular browser.
I fail to see the difference between conference and journal reviewing, except that conference papers are shorter and therfore lack detail. Still “dude tells dude his opinion”.
Ultimately, yes, but my experience has been that journal editors require a conclusive peer review before accepting a paper.
Now specialized conferences are great for creating intensive atmospheres, especially if the encourage work-in-progress submissions of high quality. This likely involves a different reviewing process than many prestigious meetings.
My experience has been that prestigious conferences tend to proudly favor a small set of topics and directions as “interesting”. Eventually, all papers end up having the same biases.
What machine learning and democracy taught us is that diversity matters a whole lot. Packing a room full of people who think exactly alike is a recipe for disaster. That’s not how science moves forward.
If it we worked that way, we would still have alchemy conferences. It takes a chemist to tell the alchemists they are wrong. You want to invite the people who disagree with you at your party.
Daniel, I agree completely with your arguments. On the stay-at-home side, you should add concern for the impact of air travel on climate change. On the go-to-a-prestigious-conference side, there is the appeal of travel to exotic locations. 🙂
I fail to see the difference between conference and journal reviewing, except that conference papers are shorter and therfore lack detail. Still “dude tells dude his opinion”.
Now specialized conferences are great for creating intensive atmospheres, especially if the encourage work-in-progress submissions of high quality. This likely involves a different reviewing process than many prestigious meetings.
Although I’ve not been to any of the prestigious conferences in my field, I do keep track of the papers. In this sense, my experience mirrors yours: the papers become homogenous over time. In my work, to borrow a phrase from one of Mike Myers’ characters on Saturday Night Live, “If it’s not type theory, it’s crap!”
It may not be good for my academic career to eschew these prestigious conferences, but I have my doubts I would be able to get a paper into them since I am essentially arguing the opposite — and I don’t have any previous clout.
A lot of the ideas I’ve been putting together have come from revisiting old ideas and Google Scholar searches, not looking through what gets published in the well-regarded conferences and journals.
I guess I share some of the rebel spirit. 🙂
A lot of the ideas I’ve been putting together have come from revisiting old ideas and Google Scholar searches, not looking through what gets published in the well-regarded conferences and journals.
I guess I share some of the rebel spirit. 🙂
That’s what research is supposed to be. And once people read your papers, they should be able to appreciate your results, whether or not they appeared in one of the trendy conferences.
Of course, if they just look for the name of a prestigious conference, you might get in trouble… but anyone who reviews your work without reading your papers is a fraud. He may be a fraud with power, but he is, nevertheless a fraud.
There is a theory going around that reading someone’s papers is a lot of work. To read them carefully is hard, yes… but to browse and read random sections is not that hard. And you quickly get a feel for what the researcher is after… whether he is just following trends or building up an original research program. Of course, this assumes that you are interested and know the area a bit, but experienced researchers get to know several areas (unless they belong to one of these focused communities).
Thanks for those insights. I dug around that “killing physics” thread and found this nice summary of why misfit work is not encouraged by the scientific system, and what might can be done about it: http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/no-new-einstein.pdf