On having a huge sadneess

Update (4/25): Lightly edited in response to Uriel's comments

Every blog on the planet has picked up the story of SCIgen. MIT students Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn, and Dan Aguayo wrote an automatic CS paper generator and used its output [pdf] to Sokalize the infamous computing spamference WMSCI 2005. Someone sent a sharply-worded inquiry to the conference organizer, "Professor" Nagib Callaos. Callaos wrote back with a mindboggling rambling rationalization [pdf], written in full-bore buzzwordia academica. Most, but not all of the letter now appears on the WMSCI web site. (All spelling and grammatical errors in the following quotations are in the original PDF letter.)

In our acceptance e-mails we were very explicit about the reasons we had in accepting a small percentage of papers as “non-reviewed papers”. [...] We felt it was not fair, not even ethical, to refuse a paper, which refusal was not suggested by its reviewers.

In most computer science conferences and journals (APS notwithstanding), it's considered unfair, even unethical, to accept a paper whose acceptance was not suggested by its reviewers.

Personally I find it difficult to believe that no one on the absotively geenormous WMSCI program committee was willing to read each paper that was submitted. More to the point, Callaos seems unaware of the differences between “review” and “sanity check”. It's one thing to accept some submissions without review; it's quite another to accept papers without reading them at all.

Mathematics conference talks are typically accepted based on a 50-word abstract (and the reputation of the speaker). It is common and accepted practice for presentations to described preliminary results, which are not assumed to be correct until a paper is vetted by the community. These abstracts are by no means “reviewed”. Unlike in computer science, math talk abstracts rarely appear in proceedings, and they do not seriously affect in hiring and tenure decisions. Nevertheless, someone always checks the abstract to make sure it fits within the scope of the conference, or at least that the submitter hasn't gone off his meds. And yes, sometimes junk gets through (even at the most tightly reviewed conferences), but the audience at least expects that the organizers made a good-faith effort to weed out nonsense.

Not so in this case. By accepting the fake paper—by allowing papers to be accepted without human intervention of any kind—the WMSCI organizers have destroyed any expectations that the papers they acccept are anything but crap. Anyone who has published a paper in WMSCI now has a large albatross in their CV. No doubt some of those authors naïvely submitted to WMSCI in good faith, expecting that they would get something more than 20 minutes in front of an audience for their $370, as they would for any reputable computer science conference.

The author(s) of a fake paper accepted as a non re-reviewed one has complete responsibility on the content of their paper.

Well, sure. But that's also true of non-fake papers that have undergone formal peer review. It doesn't matter whether a paper has been formally refereed by armies of experts; if it's wrong, it's the author's fault, not the reviewers'.

If you check the web you can find many conferences accepting reviewed and non-reviewed papers.

I'm not aware of any computer science conference that publishes papers in its proceedings with no reviewing whatsoever. (And if such conferences do exist, so what? If all your friends jumped off a cliff yadda yadda?) Nor am I aware of conferences that charge a separate registration fee for each accepted paper, or that require a fee to publish a paper even if the author does not actually attend the conference. (Admittedly, I do know of conferences that allow each registrant at most one talk, but exceptions are not for sale, and they don't publish proceedings.)

Different kinds of reasoning can be found in the specialized literature on the subject, explaining why non-reviewed papers might, and even should, accepted. Robin and Burke (1987, Peer review in medical journals, 91(2), 252-255), for example, affirm with regards to journals, that “Editors should reserve space for articles... that receive poor review...they should publish unreviewed material...” (In A. C. Weller, 2001 Editorial Peer Review, Its Strengths and weaknesses, p.371)

(Gotta love those ellipses. What are they hiding, I wonder?)

Somewhat to my surprise, the book Callaos cites actually exists, but Callaos is seriously misrepresenting its content. Ann Weller's book is a systematic review of editorial review practices, primarily in the medical sciences, discussing several alternatives to traditional peer review, but never suggesting that scientific work should be published without review of any kind. In a letter responding to a review of her book in Medscape General Medicine, Weller writes:

The Netprints statement quoted by Anderson,^[3] that "[c]asual readers should not act on findings" while the manuscript is on the Web site during the peer-review process is, I think, problematic. I believe that medical findings should not be published (made public) until they have been subjected to peer review. To quote from my monograph: "There are those who suggest that the traditional role of editorial peer review in the publication process be eliminated. If eliminated, there would be no system of quality control and this important point should not be lost on those who want to replace peer review and support an open, nonvetted system of communication." (page 321). I was pleased to discover, in my analysis of studies of electronic publishing, that "[t]he little data available indicate that peer review of ejournals is similar to the traditional process of editorial peer review." (page 303) [...] If new electronic models of peer review do surface, any new model must maintain the integrity of science and scholarly communication. In short, medical studies, whether electronic or print, need to be subjected to peer review prior to publication.

Even if the citation were honest, citing a study of peer review in medical journals to justify an acceptance policy in a computer science conference seems a bit specious. Computing and medicine have very different cultural standards for scholarly communication. But Callaos appears to be bolstering his argument by citing an authority that takes exactly the opposite position than the one he argues. Shame, shame, shame.

(To be fair, I have not read Weller's book. My picture of its content comes from the multiple book reviews and other commentary by Weller sprinkled around the web. It's also true that Callos isn't citing Weller herself, but what appears to be a minority opinion. Frankly, this smells a bit like citing a quotation by a creationist in a book by Stephen Jay Gould. But I repeat, I haven't read the book itself.)

So, we are making the commitment to send submitted papers to reviewers, but we cannot assure that the reviewers will make their reviews on time, because this is not in our hands.

What exactly is the program committee's job, then?

As you and most scholars know, and as it has been repetitively written in specialized books and articles on the subject, the reviewing process is formal for journals by non-formal, or informal for conference proceedings, because the timeliness of the proceedings publications and because they represent a place to publish before sending a paper to a journal.

This point is correct but irrelevant. The informality of the reviewing process is not the issue, but rather its non-existence.

After examining several definitions of the phrase “peer-reviewed journal”, Weller (2002, Editorial Peer Review, p. 16) states that “These definitions contain a common element in that they each require some type of review of a manustript other than the editor. Some definitions are more presciptive than others, incorporating the number of processes and requirement. These definitions do not adress such issue as the percentage of material in a journal that should be peer reviewed, or many other details of the process.”

The self-serving irrelevance of this quotation is breathtaking. Again, Weller is discussing publication of medical research, not computer science research. In computer science, the phrase “refereed journal” has a straightforward, unambiguous meaning: Without exception, every paper published in a refereed computer science journal is refereed.

On the WMSCI web page, after complaining about the conference site being hacked, Callaos adds more specious rationalization:

The quality level of WMSCI conferences has been tested for about 9 years by their participants who, in many cases congratulated the Organization and the Program Committee. How could you otherwise explain the conference attendance increase from 45 to a range of 900-1150 attendees in the last years?

So there are a lot of people desperate for publications. The popularity of the conference is no indication of its quality; if anything, the correlation is negative. A better (but still problematic) metric is citations—How often are WMSCI papers actually cited in the computing literature? Not very often.

DeBakey (1990, Journal peer reviewing. Anonymity or disclosure? Archives of Ophthalmology, 108(3), 345-349) asked “is a reviewer of a manuscript…always a peer: a person who has equal standing with another, as in rank, class or age?” So, according to this definition of peer (equal standing of academic rank, for example) we are definitely not making “peer reviews”, and this kind of “peer reviews” is definitely not the base of our paper acceptance policy. We have no feasible way of knowing if the reviewers have the same academic ranks as those of the authors of the paper being reviewed.

What definition? DeBakey isn't offering a definition; he's asking a question, and the answer to the question is OF COURSE NOT, YOU IDIOT! followed by a smack to the back of the head. The idea that age, class, or academic rank could play a role in the paper review process is mind-boggling. There is no expectation in computer science that papers by full professors are reviewed by full professors, or that papers by graduate students are reviewed by graduate students, or (Loki forbid) that papers by 30-something upper-middle-class Republicans are only reviewed by 30-something upper-middle-class Republicans. Even if matching the academic ranks of submitters and reviewers were desirable, it would be impossible. Academic ranks have very different meanings in diffferent countries, and even among different universities in the same country. “Peer” means anyone who, in the opinion of the editor or program committee, has the expertise to make an informed judgement about the quality of the paper. (I'd like to see Callaos argue in court that “a jury of his peers” means twelve Venezuelan former professors of computer science.)

The most charitable interpretation of Callaos' responses is that he and his cohorts earnestly believe that they are providing a much-needed outlet to publish papers without the benefit of peer review of any kind. Perhaps they really believe that their actions are justified by their references to irrelevant literature and non-standard definitions of common English words. Perhaps they are not malicious, but merely gullible.

Perhaps they really do have the best of intentions. But we all know where that road leads.

But the most likely interpretation is that they are running a straightforward scam to exchange money for CV bullets. After all, Callaos still gives himself the title "Professor" even though he appears to have retired from his former faculty position at Simon Bolivar University; his conference charges separate registration publication fees for each accepted paper; the conference has a history of accepting fake papers; the acceptance letters are sent from a Venezuelan email address, but include an office building in Orlando as a return address; the conference web site is full of meaningless pseudo-intellectual gibberrish; and most tellingly, they send ridiculous amounts of spam to attract submissions. These are not actions of a reputable publisher.

Okay, I've kicked the dead horse long enough. But I can't resist one last quotation, this time from the first editorial of the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, of which Professor Callaos is the Editor-in-Chief. Read the whole thing, and be amazed.

Our methodological strategy will be a systemic, not a systematic one. To organize the editorial process and to manage the publishing operational activities will be done with an open, adaptable and evolutionary methodological system. It will have the flexibility required to adapt the journal, its editorial policy, its organizational process and its management to the dynamics of its related areas and disciplines, to changes produced by the inherent learning process involved, and to the uncertainty of the environment. It would be a matter of applying Ashby’s Requisite Variety principle, concepts related to Prigogine’s dissipative structures and other basic principles found in General Systems Theory, General Systems Methodology and Cybernetics. Consequently, we will not have a deterministic and a completely pre-conceived systematic editorial methodology, nor completely pre-determined and static editorial policy, but, in both cases, they will be open, flexible, adaptable and evolutionary.

Comments

[Suresh]

wow.

Wow.

WOW.

too bad your head had to explode :)

How did they get ACM to publish their proceedings in 2001?

[Otfried]

For what it is worth, there are (mildly) serious conferences in CS (and probably many other fields) that require a payment of the registration fee for an accepted paper.

For instance, I got this with the letter of acceptance of a paper submitted to COCOON 2001:

Your camera-ready paper must be received by me on or before May 7, 2001.
The deadline is firm. For each accepted paper, a registration fee is
required with your camera-ready copy. Please enclose at least one author's
registration with payment. Failing to do so will risk your
paper not to be published in the proceedings. Registration fees for
accepted papers are not refundable.

I was shocked and upset at that point. In fact, this reads as if a separate registration fee had to be paid for each paper. Fortunately, we got away with presenting two papers on a single registration fee (only one author could attend).

[Mitch]

1) This is irrelevant to the point but I'm still curious: don't -all- conferences require registration fees for people giving talks (of course with uncommon exceptions)?

2) What is amazing about the situation is that Callaos has done -non-trivial- time-consuming research in an attempt to justify whatever reviewing methods he claims his committee uses. So he already suspects that others might think his methods a bit fishy.

[Mitch]

Now this -is- relevant:

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4116&n=3

[Rich Bateman]

Mitch, you're fantastic. That Onion article... I'm going to frame it in my office ^.^ (Now where's my fourth-grade student aide... I bet I could pay him in nickels!)

[Mark Liberman]

I've taken a look at one of Nagib Callaos' own publications here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002080.html

It seems to have the properties that you'd expect.

[Orange]

Is it just me, or does that editorial from Callaos's journal sound an awful lot like it may have been a randomly generated fake editorial? If the good professor had reviewed the MIT students' fake paper himself, would he have even recognized it as fake?

[Otfried]

"don't -all- conferences require registration fees for people giving talks"

Yes, of course, if you attend the conference you pay the registration fee. What is uncommon is to ask for payment up-front (a cheque to accompany the camera-ready copy, so to speak), or to ask a participant presenting two papers to pay two registration fees.

[Luis Vicente]

"don't -all- conferences require registration fees for people giving talks"

yes, most of them do. But anyway, I don't know what the situation is in other fields, but in my own -linguistics- conference fees aren't anywhere near that expensive. The most expensive fee I've ever paid was for GLOW 2004, and it was 70 Euro, if I remember right (some $90). And that was by far the most expensive. Normal registration fees are around 30/40 Euro ($40/50), and, for what I know, *never* is a separate fee required if you want to publish your paper in the proceedings.

[Jeff Erickson]

Sadly, the high registration fee for SCI isn't a red flag. Fees for computer science conferences vary a lot, but they're always exhorbitant, because (as you no doubt already know) we computer scientists are just DROWNING in grant money.

[cough cough]

Here are a few examples of EARLY registration fees, with area, location, and sponsoring professional society (if any). Student rates follow in parentheses. On-site registration is always significantly more expensive. These are all top-tier conferences in ther respective areas. None of them charges a separate fee for publishing a paper in the proceedings or extra fees for presenting multiple papers.

SOCG 2005 (computational geometry, ACM, Pisa): €320 (€170)

STOC 2005 (theoretical CS, ACM, Baltimore): $480 ($190)

SODA 2005 (algorithms, SIAM, Vancouver): C$460 (C$165)

SIGMOD/PODS 2005 (databases, ACM, Baltimore): $685 ($340)

SIGGRAPH 2005 (graphics, ACM, Los Angeles): $825 ($395)

Meshing Roundtable 2004 (meshing, Williamsburg): $395 ($130)

WAFR 2004 (robotics, Utrecht): €650 (€350)

[Gregg]

BTW, Google directed me to two sites when I typed in "spamference": this one, and http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~jz/sci/. Not to Language Log, which is the site that led me here. I think I'll check back in a week to evaluate the word's memishness. (A word I made up which appears on four sites, according to the gods of Google.)

[Gregg]

BTW, Google directed me to two sites when I typed in "spamference": this one, and http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~jz/sci/. Not to Language Log, which is the site that led me here. I think I'll check back in a week to evaluate the word's memishness. (A word I made up which appears on four sites, according to the gods of Google.)

"SOCG 2005 (computational geometry, ACM, Pisa): €320 (€170)"

"WAFR 2004 (robotics, Utrecht): €650 (€350)"

Note that the €320 for SOCG 2005 does not even include the conference banquet (a separate €60).

The €650 for WAFR, on the other hand, included three nights in a pretty nice hotel.

None of these conferences (as far as I know) required authors to include payment with their camera-ready copy to ensure inclusion of the paper in the proceedings...

[Uriel]

All this gleeful excoriating of WMSCI 2005 conference organizer Nagib Callaos reminds me of the riot of contempt and drunken scorn that greeted a recent wedding between two human beings who to all appearances shared a genuine, heartfelt love for each other.

Of course, for much of the vulgar masses, buried in their soap operas and celebrity mags, everything is seamy, nothing imaginable is solemn and true. Yet as far as I know there was not much reason to doubt the genuineness of Prince Charles's marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles.

How the mob loves it when normal social restraints are loosed and they're given license to beat somebody up.

Your howl of smirking self-righteousness above actually isn't as superior as you plainly believe. You present this quotation:

---------------------------------
Different kinds of reasoning can be found in the specialized literature on the subject, explaining why non-reviewed papers might, and even should, accepted. Robin and Burke (1987, Peer review in medical journals, 91(2), 252-255), for example, affirm with regards to journals, that “Editors should reserve space for articles... that receive poor review...they should publish unreviewed material...” (In A. C. Weller, 2001 Editorial Peer Review, Its Strengths and weaknesses, p.371)
---------------------------------

A quotation is normally introduced somehow or other, and preceded by a colon. What is this a quotation from? In fact it comes from Callaos's defense of the conference's acceptance of the bogus papers at http://www.iiisci.org/sci2005/website/regards.asp , though your diatribe doesn't indicate it.

"Gotta love those ellipses," you jeer. Why? Do the omissions distort the meaning? You don't say.

You declare that "Callaos is seriously misrepresenting" Weller's book's contents and pretend you've actually looked at the book. But you've missed the fact that Callaos is quoting Robin and Burke -- NOT Weller. So your purported rebuttal -- a quotation of Weller's views -- is no rebuttal at all.

Seeking to reinforce your position, you make the predictable point, since Robin and Burke were talking about medical research, that "Computing and medicine have very different cultural standards for scholarly communication."

Yes, no doubt, they're extremely, awesomely different. But if medical scholars have argued for publishing unreviewed papers, it's obviously legitimate for Callaos to cite them in support of the same practice in CS. If someone argued the opposite way -- saying "if unreviewed research is OK in CS then it's OK in medicine" -- I could see someone balking, since CS doesn't normally involve life and death. But Callaos's reasoning here is perfectly reasonable, despite your overflowing scorn.

Your further point -- "journals and conferences play very different roles" -- really seems desperate. What are you saying? Conferences should have higher standards than journals?

Your yet further point displays still greater desperation. You are intent on producing a whole list of different, independent ways in which Callaos has made himself ridiculous. But you run out of new charges. So you lengthen the list by repeating an earlier charge, thinking no one might notice: "Callaos appears to be bolstering his argument by citing an authority that takes exactly the opposite position than the one he argues. Shame, shame, shame."

I'm not an academic; I don't know scholarly conference norms; I don't know what WMSCI is. But the above is lousy polemics.

I got involved on seeing the issue discussed at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/20/193638.php . I commented that Callaos's defense was not obviously unreasonable; then one of the hoaxers added a comment later.

The test of reasonableness for WMSCI's acceptance procedures is the results those procedures produce.

And this little hoax is nowhere near the same ballpark as Alan Sokal's.

[Jeff Erickson]

Thanks for your comments, Uriel.

The public excoriation of WMSCI has been a long time coming. There is no love lost here; we really just want them to go away. It's a lovely metaphor you're using, but it's completely inappropriate. (And who let Queen Camilla and the paparazzi into this?)

Yes, my post is sloppy, snarky, and immature (very much like, some would say, its author). But this blog isn't my job; it's a hobby, and one that I frankly admit that I'm not very good at (yet?). You came here looking for my personal opinion, and you got it, warts and all. (If you were looking for something else, you came to the wrong place. Cameras and royal paraphernalia are on the third floor.) Maybe I am merely rationalizing my failure to argue effectively, to use good scholarship in defense of my personal opinion. Perhaps I am guilty of the same sloppy rationalization that I'm accusing Callaos of demonstrating. Nevertheless, I think my point (and my scorn) is reasonable.

As you surmised, the unattributed quotations are all from Callaos' ridiculous 4-page PDF letter, to which I rather obviously linked immediately before the first quotation. And it *is* ridiculous. At best, his arguments support light reviewing of conference publciations. Fine; we already do that. But his argument doesn't even come close to defending WMSCI's willingness, even in principle, to publish literally random garbage.

"But if medical scholars have argued for publishing unreviewed papers, it's obviously legitimate for Callaos to cite them in support of the same practice in CS." Er...obviously? Sorry, but that's not at all obvious to me! Of course he's free to cite whoever he wants, but his citations don't lend any legitimacy to his arguments. Are we supposed to listen to them just because they're doctors? Why?

It's true that computer science research doesn't (usually) involve matters of life and death; I imagine most computer scientists are very thankful for that. But we do heavily on cultural norms in matters of hiring, promotions, tenure, department rankings, resource allocation, grant allocation, and so forth. For better or worse, computer scientists use conference publications as both a vehicle for publicity and a metric for performance. We academics aspire to be a meritocracy, and we generally dislike, even despise, anyone who works against that aspiration.

To me, WMSCI looks like the academic equivalent of a term-paper writing service or Rent-a-Coder. They sell CV bullets, $370 a pop. That's bad.

"The test of reasonableness for WMSCI's acceptance procedures is the results those procedures produce." Indeed it is. At least if you believe the conceit that good research is cited frequently, those procedures haven't produced much. (See my Google Scholar link.)

"And this little hoax is nowhere near the same ballpark as Alan Sokal's." That's a fair point. On the other hand, this is much closer to home for me than the Socal Text mess was.

"I'm not an academic; I don't know scholarly conference norms; I don't know what WMSCI is." Ah. Then, if you don't mind me asking, why do you care? Why get involved in your neighbors' family disputes? What are you actually defending?

Good polemics, perhaps? If so, your criticism is perfectly appropriate and welcome, and I apologize for wasting your time. Better luck with the next blog.

But if your only goal is to publicly look down your nose at us clueless reactionary academics, working ourselves into a self-righteous tizzy over an issue that you openly admit you don't understand, take care not to let the door hit you on the way out.

[Uriel]

"an issue that you openly admit you don't understand" somewhat overstates my concessions, but since you wonder why I care, I'll explain: I happened to see an argument at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/20/193638.php where a lady named Lisa was defending what seemed like an entirely sensible view, while the opponents pestering her seemed dense and obtuse. Naturally I empathized with her. So I volunteered a brief comment to show she wasn't alone in the universe. Then one of the pranksters appeared, pointing to your post, which of course he felt was "excellent" (since it makes his little triumph seem worthwhile). Since I was now implicated, I had little choice but to follow up to uphold truth and justice.

I haven't claimed Callaos is a great guy. I just found the arguments against him unconvincing and poorly made. And I found the joyful stomping up and down on his carcass and the sycophantic followup by Suresh a bit distasteful.

Plus the whole thing exacerbates my general annoyance with the world's academics and intellectuals for not being more engaged in public debate about the world's REAL problems instead of whatever you do in your niches.

Example: Millions or billions of $ worth of productivity are lost because of spam, spyware, viruses. Yet the public is ignorant of the fact that these problems could be ELIMINATED for normal users who simply want to surf the web, read email, and do word processing.

Somehow the absurdity of me and millions of other Windows users wasting time and money with these problems persists. Somehow, democracy and capitalism are failing to produce the solutions they should. It's partly because relatively credible computer science experts like you are silent.

I suppose you want to claim your attack on Callaos is a contribution. Let's look at the nub of the issue:

-----------------------------------
For better or worse, computer scientists use conference publications as ... a metric for performance. We academics aspire to be a meritocracy, and we generally dislike, even despise, anyone who works against that aspiration.

To me, WMSCI looks like the academic equivalent of a term-paper writing service or Rent-a-Coder. They sell CV bullets, $370 a pop. That's bad.
-----------------------------------

I have to confess that this too is deeply unconvincing. I don't see a meritocracy being undermined here. If you guys have such lousy performance metrics, isn't *that* the problem? --rather than the phony conferences to which lousy metrics inevitably lead?

But lousy metrics and general folly are well-known hallmarks of the academy. It's also well known that clever people defying conventional wisdom get no support. (Lisa was an exception.) Which is perhaps why Robin and Burke's proposal is actually reasonable, in CS as well as medicine: "Editors should reserve space for articles... that receive poor review...they should publish unreviewed material..."

[Russell Barton]

All these cream pies desperately needed to be thrown.
Thanks very much, as in the longer term it can only help
Please consider crossing your pseudo-paper program with a
PowerPoint presentation generator, as further discrediting PowerPoint may lead, in the longer term, to better business meetings with better presentations.
Best regards, Russell

[Ben]

Uriel, when Callaos cited Robin and Burke (via Weller), at best he was quoting something that was put forth in the publication he quoted from as a straw argument. This is analogous to basing an argument off a statement by Ken Lay quoted in a book on business ethics. Furthermore, I don't think it's too high of a standard to ask that any serious academic, or semi-serious conference organizer, track down the original article and figure out whether or not it supports his argument. The very fact that Callaos is lazy enough not to read the Robin & Burke article indicates the callous lack of concern for scholarship that appears to be the norm for the WMSCI organizers.

Second, despite my similar abhorrence for spam, spyware, etc., your aside has absolutely no relevance to the topic, other than as an ad hominem attack on Jeff. I'm sure you don't find much of academia useful or relevant. Sociological research into team behavior may have little relevance to you if you're a small business owner rather than part of a team of executives. That doesn't mean it's a topic unworthy of research. As an academic whose field is in the social sciences, I find most of computer science largely irrelevant to my everyday life -- all I need are some basic data analysis programs, word processing, and access to the internet. That doesn't mean that computer science that isn't utilized by the population at large isn't worthy of research. In fact, I would argue democracy and capitalism are producing exactly as they should - there's clearly a demand for seemingly irrelevant computer science, or else the professors wouldn't be getting paid. Just because it's not YOUR demand doesn't mean that the system's faulty.

Third, despite the sub-optimal nature of publication as a measure of performance, that in itself is not a reason to defend lousy conferences that attempt to manipulate the system. If people like Jeff and the MIT students who created the paper discredit conferences like WMSCI, publication becomes a more effective measure of performance. The problem is with the slimier aspects of humanity attempting to cash in on inefficiencies in the system. Jeff is doing an admirable thing in ridiculing that which deserves to be ridiculed. Also, note that in the absence of an ability to change the metric for performance, because it's generally not the academics who are struggling to get published and get those vital bullets on their CV that make hiring decisions, the most effective thing grad students can do to make the performance measure better is to discredit the phony conferences.

Finally, it's the drunken, vulgar masses who do matter, and for the most part, make the decisions. That mob elects the government officials who dole out scarce grant money to CS researchers. That mob, you and I included, are the people most likely to be fooled by conferences with no concern for academic integrity, and are the people that most need the protection that Jeff and others provide.

Keep up the good work.

[Uriel]

Gee, there are not a few logical lapses here.

The beginning I don't even understand:

---------------------------------
when Callaos cited Robin and Burke (via Weller), at best he was quoting something that was put forth in the publication he quoted from as a straw argument. This is analogous to basing an argument off a statement by Ken Lay quoted in a book on business ethics.
---------------------------------

What do you mean??

Guessing: Do you maybe mean that Weller was citing Robin and Burke in order to support a view contrary to the one they urge? --because Robin and Burke are supposed to be as disreputable as Ken Lay? If that's your point, you need to make it more clearly. Plus offer some substantiation for your idea that Weller uses this unusual manner of argumentation.

---------------------------------
Furthermore, I don't think it's too high of a standard to ask that any serious academic, or semi-serious conference organizer, track down the original article and figure out whether or not it supports his argument. The very fact that Callaos is lazy enough not to read the Robin & Burke article indicates the callous lack of concern for scholarship that appears to be the norm for the WMSCI organizers.
---------------------------------

My impression was that the full original article was reprinted in Weller's book. Is that not so?

In other news, I really don't think I'm guilty of any "ad hominem attack." Seems to me it's fair to remark, when I see an overblown attack on someone who's at worst a small-time offender, that the firepower would be better spent on major offenders.

Your pointing to the fact that professors get paid as proof that their research is worthwhile is almost laughable. Alan Sokal proved (or at least made persuasive evidence for) the worthlessness of what some paid professors do.

There is an underlying contradiction here:

---------------------------------
in the absence of an ability to change the metric for performance, because it's generally not the academics who are struggling to get published and get those vital bullets on their CV that make hiring decisions, the most effective thing grad students can do to make the performance measure better is to discredit the phony conferences.
---------------------------------

The CS establishment, you imply, is fairly foolish, in that it's content to use foolish performance metrics. Yet your solution seeks to discourage and ultimately eliminate unreviewed research. That would produce a situation in which research cannot be disseminated unless vetted by this same foolish CS establishment.

[Anonymous]

Most of what Uriel states as common fact are just plain orthogonal to anything I've experienced in academia. (E.g. "But lousy metrics and general folly are well-known hallmarks of the academy. It's also well known that clever people defying conventional wisdom get no support.")

Do you really think that ALL such people get no support? Or even MOST of them? The comment is obviously false in light of all the "unconventional" developments over, say, the last 50 years. The above reads as merely a bitter rant with ulterior motives. If that is actually not the case, then I suppose someone else requires a lesson on how to present an argument.

Perhaps if Uriel had any idea how silly the accepted paper actually was, Uriel would better understand our ridicule. To me, any conference that permits randomly generated gibberish to be published should not persist in a society that cares at all about quality in science. I believe this in spite of whatever standards some medical journal may have. If obviously content-free garbage appears in the pages of a publication, that publication should (at the very least) undergo some negative pressure to prevent it from happening again. (Unless of course it is a humor mag!)

-- r.w.

P.S. Uriel, I'm a computer scientist, but I have no idea how to solve the spam problem. Wish I did. Since you're so convinced it can be "ELIMINATED", with the only real impediment being that we are all just too snooty/aloof to do something about it, I (and tons of other researchers working on this!) am very curious as to what you have in mind.

[Uriel]

>Do you really think that ALL [clever] people get no support? Or even MOST of them?

r.w., give a fellow a bit of license! OK, there was a bit of generalizing going on there. But was J.K. Galbraith completely deluded when he said that only cataclysms can overturn the conventional wisdom?

The case for academic folly is supported by the misguided performance metrics others here have referred to, and by the Sokal hoax, and surely much additional evidence which as an academic you're in a better position than me to know about. (I do still have a bit of contact with academia. A recent encounter is described at http://urielw.com/incommens.htm .)

>any conference that permits randomly generated gibberish to be published ....

I understand the paper was basically unreviewed. This discussion hasn't convinced me of the evils of an open and honest policy of not reviewing some papers.

>I'm a computer scientist, but I have no idea how to solve the spam problem.

It's not a technical issue but a political one. It'd be easy to eliminate spam through legislation. (I amplify a bit at http://urielw.com/ratat3.htm .)

[Anonymous]

Is it just my observation that the people with tens of papers to their credit (peer reviewed, un reviewed, whatever) are still teaching and feeding the conference paper mills while the hot shot practitioners of computer science have started up, gone public and cashed out on the fruits of their labor?

I've actually been to this conference. While the quality of most of the papers was not high (although generally higher than the one Scigen generated) there were some interesting people there including a fair number of grad students and the like.

There is a place for conferences that are lightly reviewed simply as a place for these grad students. They might make a bullet point on a C.V. but it's not a very important one. But this particular conference oversteps those bounds.

[Mr. Ed]

Uriel, I have to tell you that you come across -- at least to me -- as someone who enjoys arguing and tearing down other people's arguments, simply for the sake of tearing down the arguments. While people like this do exist, I do not believe they offer much in the way of productive work. You suggest that "the world's academics and intellectuals" are not trying to solve real problems, yet you persist in arguing about a conference in a field you admit know little about. Why should the academics have sole responsibility in solving problems? Shouldn't you spend less time engaged in meaningless debate and more time trying to implement your solutions to world problems?

I do not mean this sarcastically. You mentioned a method to rid the world of spam, involving some legal requirements. I read your link and am unconvinced. Nevertheless, I am willing to consider it. I am not, however, a politician able to enact laws. I am an academician, and we are notoriously poor at getting laws passed. Since you state that you are not in academics, it is likely you would be at least as influential as me. So why do you criticize computer scientists about this problem, when it is really *you* who should be engaged in fixing it?

Instead you seem more interested in criticizing academics: "lousy metrics and general folly are well-known hallmarks of the academy." Honestly, if you think so little of us academics, why do you dump the world's problems in our laps, instead of trying to fix them yourself? If you think we're incompetent, then why bother to berate us? It's a waste of your time and ours.

If you think we *should be* and *could be* competent, why not encourage us instead of slighting us? As it stands, we have only two choices: 1) ignore you, making your posting a waste of time, or 2) defend ourselves, taking up the time you wanted us to use elsewhere.

I suppose there is a third option. We *could* have said "oh boy -- he is right! We should do what he says!" But even if you somehow thought that might happen, by now you should know it didn't.

Personally, I hope you decide to start building ideas, rather than tearing them down. Your idea for the internet seems unlikely to me, but I support anything which might work. If you could get people to *support* something, maybe we could actually get something done, which is what you really wanted, right?

[Uriel]

>If you think we *should be* and *could be* competent, why not encourage us instead of slighting us?

The "slighting" you object to consists of my responses to a wild and unconvincing excoriation of an academic conference (by our host and others).

No one here has yet accounted for the central objection that's been made to the conference, which depends on the academic establishment rewarding participation in allegedly phony conferences.

Of course I recognize that academics are one of the smartest groups there are. I hardly think it should be necessary to "encourage" you by avoiding observations pertinent to a topic you're discussing.

And I can't agree it's "meaningless" to avoid the more general problem: Academics, bright as many are, border on being irrelevant in terms of the way mankind's most pressing problems are addressed.

You say, "I am an academician, and we are notoriously poor at getting laws passed."

You can be forgiven for forgetting that the U.S. is a democracy. Public debate has become a seamy, contemptible game of propaganda and manipulation. But where is the nation headed if bright, rational people take it for granted that they have no role in "getting laws passed"?

What can't be taken for granted is what the endpoint will be for a powerful "democracy" that doesn't have intelligent public debate. Torture is more or less official policy, somehow unchallengeable though it's clearly illegal. Science is bent to ideological agendas. The administration misleads the people and even Congress. Etc. etc.

I don't expect academics to walk around with picket signs. But what gets my gander is how you apply so much brainpower to *pointless exercises* while, all around you, the liars are successfully deluding the less brilliant masses.

The basic academic mission is to pursue truth. But academics seem to have a marked preference for irrelevant truths, since the relevant truths would bring them into conflict with the liars -- who are tough, aggressive and energetic. This capitulation may spell the end of democracy.

Often, by the way, the liars' arguments are so illogical you don't need expertise; just logic (which most people don't have).

However, you're CS academics, so I raised a CS-related issue -- spam and viruses -- to contrast with whatever damage might be inflicted by that conference you were so hot about. In this case, the "lies" are the widespread idea, apparently unchallenged by anyone, that spam and viruses are an inevitable fact of life in the computer age.

One way for CS academics to engage a bit more with the society they live in would be to sign onto a clear, simple, accessible public declaration pointing out that this stupidity can be stopped, and outlining how.

[Alexander]

Uriel, u seem stupid, obtuse and stubburn. U don't know what ur talkin about. u got no clue. Learn more, so u can make better opinions. I'm also in CS, a graduate.

[Uriel]

Further to the attitude of zero responsibility for political concerns reflected in: "I am an academician, and we are notoriously poor at getting laws passed."

I wonder how Mr. Ed (who I'm guessing is American) would feel if he were held responsible for his government's actions.

That's what's happening to Israeli professors, as Britain's leading higher education union has just voted to boycott two Israeli universities, thus barring faculty members from taking part in academic conferences or joint research with their British colleagues. (An exception is made for academics who declare opposition to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.) See "Professors in Britain Vote to Boycott 2 Israeli Schools," New York Times, May 8, 2005, at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/international/europe/08boycott.html .

[Mr. Ed]

I guess I was misunderstood when I wrote that "I am an academician, and we are notoriously poor at getting laws passed."

I did not mean to imply zero responsibility, nor did I "forget... that the U.S. is a democracy...." I was simply stating what I think is a fact. Let me explain.

If you want a car fixed, you do not go to a plumber. They excel (sp?) at certain things, but generally car mechanics is not one of them. If you want a law changed, sure, everyone should participate, but why do you want academicians to spearhead the idea? They tend to be poor spokesmen. For one thing, they like to argue both sides (in an effort to get to the truth). In the political arena, this is weakness.

When I suggested that Uriel "be engaged in fixing" things, I meant the following. I read some of Uriel's web writing. I believe he has ideas but prefers to criticize others' ideas rather than work his ideas towards fruition. Case in point: his idea on eliminating spam. I do not see how it will work, so I do not support it, per se. But if he thinks it *could* work, he should try to convince people. Try to get a backing. Show his idea to politicians, computer scientists, try to get their support.

We *do* live in a democracy of sorts, but it is not the people with high intellect who should be the movers and the shakers in a democracy. It is the people with good ideas. And yes, intellect helps in creating good ideas, but a doctorate is by no means necessary (or helpful).

I guess what bugs me is people who say ^you have a gift (i.e., intellect), it is your obligation to use it.^ What they are missing is two-fold: 1) the "niches" we analyze are valuable, in the same sense as an artist's paintings, except that ours occasionally revolutionize the world; and 2) the obligation is not just for those with degrees -- EVERYBODY is a democracy is EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE and required to participate. People like Uriel who spend their time criticizing others are merely wasting time and energy they could devote towards something useful.

And I do feel towards those Israeli professors. I do not see the value in this boycott. But if you are implying that I take no responsibility, I would point out that in the last election I volunteered towards my party, helped neutral organizations geared to get out the vote, and wrote editorials to local papers. I support political and environmental causes with money and time. I do not use my position as a professor, because it is against the rules of my job to support political causes on "company time" by using my position.

If nothing else, the fact that my comments were misunderstood should help illustrate my point as to why you don't want academics to spearhead your causes.

[Bono]

Can you people do nothing else than argue on such a pointless matter? I read parts ot Callaos & Callaos articles, and they are bulls$%t. Nothing new. Recycling the same o'l garbage over and over again. If you want to know where this path leads read Isaac Azimov - the series about Foundation.
For one I know that science is not ment to be used this way. Indeed, much have changed, but making money by publishing stuff like this ain't the thing we ougth to see. Read Umberto Eco - Focault's Pendulum (or something like that) about the SP-s (selfpublishing. SelfPrankin I would say). At least there SP-s didn't know they are being robbed. And to think that there are smart people, who have no chance of attending one of 'em MIT-s, just cuz' they are foreigners, but you hear from mathematitians (1st grade, but, seriously?) even there comments like (a/b = (1/b).a - wow, where did the 1 come from?).
No, really, I just cannot accept it. It's my oppinion, and I ain't gonna change it as long as I see things done this way. I hope, no, I deem I'm wrong. For science's sake and ours...

ps http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002080.html
I have seen Articles like these and I know how they are made : photocopy, or, better, scan & process works from 5 authors, a book and a lecture, and you've done it. Wow, ain't you some man. (Sorry ladies.)

[Uriel]

Mr. Ed,

>If you want a car fixed, you do not go to a plumber.... If you want a law changed, sure, everyone should participate, but why do you want academicians to spearhead the idea?

It's curious how alien this idea of mine -- public debate -- appears to be, even to academics.

You persist in thinking I want academics to shake hands and kiss babies and start wearing good suits, when all I've suggested is that they do what should be the most obvious and natural thing in the world for academics: To participate in debate and help shed light on public issues.

Is this notion too radical for you?

You suggest academics are relatively inept at expressing themselves. Seems to me such academics would be unfit teachers.

$Billions per year are wasted by spam and viruses. If you provide credible public information that these problems could feasibly be eliminated, that's more likely to "revolutionize the world" than anything most academics are dealing with.

I assert it, at http://urielw.com/krug2.htm . (I also report related scams by the major anti-virus vendors at that page.) But a CS prof would have more credibility than me. And a group of CS profs speaking jointly would be still more credible.

[Frank]

I was reading through this thread tonight with quite a bit of interest, thinking that Uriel might actually have a valid point. Then I got to that last post...and I made the decision to read the article linked to in that post. Now, I'm not usually one to slam another person because of lack of knowledge, but I'll sure be upfront about pointing out an opinion that's provided with absolutely no research or support to back it up.

In reference to Uriel's linked article, I will simply begin by saying that I was a computer science student. I've been in the business world and out of academia for the past five years, so I know that I may have fallen a little behind in terms of technology. Uriel, can you please, please, please tell me just when somebody finally wrote a full-featured OS that was not targeted by virus-writers? I would have thought this event would have made the evening news and my MS stock would have tanked. If you want an OS that can do more than run a pocket calculator, you have to come to terms with the fact that it will, at some point in its life, be targeted by virus-writers and hackers. It happens...it's the nature of life...if somebody ain't trying to steal it, it ain't worth having, as we used to say in the neighborhood where I grew up.

As far as peer review for CS articles is concerned, I feel that it is a very necessary function, more necessary in some cases than peer review for medical publications. Why? Because standards in CS, CoE, EE, and all the rest of the alphabet soup that comprises technology are changing so frequently that only peer review can ensure that publications are relevant. In comparison, the human body hasn't changed much in the past 2000 years and it isn't likely to undergo any great natural changes in the near future. An unreviewed medical article can be relevant and even timeless while an unreviewed CS article that doesn't talk about tomorrow's standards is relatively useless in the industry.

Oh...and Uriel...the whole idea about passing new laws it eliminate spam...it's been tried...about two or three years ago...it doesn't work. Now I get twice as much spam. The only difference is that half of it has a disclaimer telling me that it is somehow legal. Before you think about suggesting that we charge a fee to send e-mail, let me remind you that it doesn't work to eliminate postal spam yet. ;-)

I don't want to come off sounding like I'm committing my own ad hominem attack here. That's certainly not my goal. Uriel, I'm not trying to pick on you specifically. I actually admire what you're attempting to do here. Frankly, it's just obvious that you don't understand much about the industry, and that has stood out in your rebuttals. CS is a constantly evolving and highly competitive field. Many people in the field are absolutely desperate to get published as frequently as possible because publication is often the only way to get a job in the industry or to avoid having your own job taken away from you and given to a recent graduate. If you're a CS professor, not jumping on an opportunity to be published is career suicide. Unethical people have been finding ways to act on this desperation and scam the desperate among us for years. Finding methods by which to force these unethical organizations to publicly demonstrate just how unethical they are is a noble effort in the CS industry and should be applauded.

In fact, as a taxpayer, I'm very happy that people are attempting to shine some light into the shadows and let us see what is lurking in the darkness. I live up the street (quite literally) from the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. I know how much public money goes into funding CMU's CS programs and research. I know what percentage of that money ends up going to people like Callaos who have no right to it. I would love to see people like Callaos put out of business so that all of that wasted money can be invested in real, useful, beneficial research and development.

BTW, can you provide any credible public information that spam and/or computer viruses can be reliably eliminated? I would be entertained by a short list of credible references demonstrating this assertion. Bear in mind, the problems caused by spam and viruses are, at their essence, problems caused by people. Given that, if you can provide a list of psychology references demonstrating that the people who write spam and viruses are not a self-centered, greed-motivated, opportunistic animals, I will be quite satisfied.

[Andy]

"Uriel, u seem stupid, obtuse and stubburn. U don't know what ur talkin about. u got no clue. Learn more, so u can make better opinions. I'm also in CS, a graduate."

A graduate? Oh dear! Standards have REALLY declined when even in CS someone can graduate and yet demonstrate such an apalling violation of the English language.

["gunner"]

"Finally, it's the drunken, vulgar masses who do matter, and for the most part, make the decisions. That mob elects the government officials who dole out scarce grant money to CS researchers. That mob, you and I included, are the people most likely to be fooled by conferences with no concern for academic integrity, and are the people that most need the protection that Jeff and others provide.
Keep up the good work."
------------------------
From the drunken, vulgar, (even teeming) masses, thank you for the kind thought. Though we do not always see academia as revelevant in our day to day affairs the money to support it does come, ultimately, from our beer money. We don't mind the money all that much but it is nice to know that someone does think of us, and cares enough to try to weed out the poseurs and outright frauds within the ivyed halls. As quoted above, "keep up the good work".

[Uriel]

Carnegie Mellon?! I did grad studies there for 3 years. Lived on Shady Ave.

>please, please, please tell me just when somebody finally wrote a full-featured OS that was not targeted by virus-writers?

OK, I'll answer since you said please .......

I don't know.

But "targeted" isn't really the issue. Vulnerability is the problem.

>my MS stock would have tanked.

I don't think so. The "applications" barrier to entry by rivals protects MS. A new OS has no apps so no one wants it.

MS belatedly panicked in the early web days on realizing that Netscape threatened to blow that up with apps running off the web. That's why they had to kill Netscape.

>the whole idea about passing new laws it eliminate spam...it's been tried...about two or three years ago...it doesn't work.

Sorry but that argument is not very potent. The Wright Bros.' first crash didn't prove flight was impossible. (Am taking poetic license there for illustrative purposes. Did they crash? I don't know.)

>can you provide any credible public information that spam and/or computer viruses can be reliably eliminated?

Gosh, I sure hope it's out there. Can one of the CS academics here help out? I'm just an ex-corporate computer worker myself (my tales from corporate America at http://urielw.com/corp/ ). The only ref I can provide is my own common sense explanation re spam at http://urielw.com/ratat3.htm .

>the problems caused by spam and viruses are, at their essence, problems caused by people. Given that, if you can provide a list of psychology references demonstrating that the people who write spam and viruses are not a self-centered, greed-motivated, opportunistic animals, I will be quite satisfied.

Hmm. So (by same reasoning) ... it's pointless to try keeping lions behind bars at the zoo?

Scary world. Resistance is futile.

>"Uriel, u seem stupid, obtuse and stubburn."

The "u" is chatroom shorthand -- I understand that's how all the kids are writing these days, even after moving on from school to workplace. I think the "stubburn" though was a genuine error (or maybe the "u" was easier to reach than the "o").

>it is nice to know that someone does think of us, and cares enough to try to weed out the poseurs and outright frauds within the ivyed halls.

Yes, that's very wonderful. As long as they don't forget to "occasionally revolutionize the world" as well.

[Harley Cudney]

My colleague at my company told me about the paper generator at MIT, but I find this discussion of the "spamference" more interesting by far.
Yes, it's a scam. Clear as day.
I left a tenured faculty position (Virginia Tech, Mech. Engrg)in part because the conference proceedings (I have >80 conference proceedings papers) I was beginning to feel were so much toilet paper.
There is some excellent research being done in academia, but it is too easy to be successful and mediocre--with one's own real contribution being one's teaching.
Either make a real contribution, or admit you are simply a teacher (very useful and needed!, but don't kid yourself otherwise), or join the economic system and leave the academic safety net.

[Jerry]

Loki bless you, Harley Cudney. I ditched a doctoral program and took my master's degree and ran for the hills after realizing so much of academia, the conferences, papers and jockeying for 'position' was just so much mental masturbation. I too am now a happily contributing member of the economic system and am eternally grateful I left the academic safety net. Kudos to you, Harley.

My age being > (2m+z), where m=Stribling's age &
Z > = m, I came out with this thinking order:
[1] WMSCI attendants are 90% non-US persons.
[2] Almost all of them think, MIT means Norbert(1894-1964)or Claude (1916-2001); Norbert got his Ph.D. at the age 18 from Harvard, and Claude got his Ph.D. at age 24 from MIT.
[3] In fame, both these two people became legendarily famous in their early part of life.
[4] Have you become famous? Yes, yes, you have become very famous in early part of life. Your name goes with WMSCI.
[5] One of our teacher’s, SC, became a full professor at Harvard, probably when he was 24 years old. He has a paper tilted, “The Fate of False Vacuum.” He has his photo posted with the Harvard faculty listings.
[6] Surprising! He looks like one of you.
[7] And, I am (2m+z) years old, and amazed with my own thinking style.

[Shivakumar]

The DAY is not too far to generate papers based on Key Words of research and area/region of any field of research.
This high time Paper publications should not be treated as only yardstick to assess anybody!
There may be experts really writes a technical papers based on keywords of paper and get published on XYZ names!
With this one should very careful in downloading papers from commercial sites and refering them!

[HL]

So...

- WMSCI accepted a randomly generated paper. The concern is that WMSCI papers are largely unreviewed, and if you want to pad out your CV this venue delivers. In many settings, academic or otherwise, trading money for a credential constitutes fraud. (With apologies to those who have done valuable work, and sought publication in a venue beneath them.)

- Uriel seems to think that this is so much Sophistry, wants to criticize people's polemics, and thinks that we'd all be better off voting Dub'yah out of office because, after all, Callaos is small potatoes. Further it sounds like he wants academics to drop our various lines of research and do something that "matters." His writing conjures up images of charity work, Habitat for Humanity, peace marches, and the like.

Oh, or we could completely replace Windows with something that's virus-proof if we don't want to become legislators. Funny how managers often seem to want the "real" but often vague problems "solved," see easy solutions to everything, and are mysteriously oblivious to technical obstacles.

If anyone thought that the original "excoriation" of Callaos's whopping rationalization wasn't terribly convincing, great, but it bewilders me how irrelevant Uriel's contributions are. Either put forth evidence that WMSCI is a *good* venue, or argue that unreviewed papers *should* have a venue, but try to understand what people are saying before you start complaining about how they said it.

Incidentally go install POPFile if you want a lot less spam. You know, until the real problem is solved---don't worry, I'll get right on it.

h

Inside sources from God's Random Human Generator indicate that Nagib Callaos himself is a randomly generated string of nonsensical NDA.

[GuestC]

I can't believe you people are taking Uriel even half-seriously. Have you *read* the pages that Uriel links? Holy cow, endless ravings of attention-starved Internet crank ahoy.

FYI legislators and computer scientists have been working on the spam problem for years; it is, in fact, brutally difficult to solve, between jurisdictional issues, underfunded Federal law enforcement, a huge installed base of software, and a host of other gnarly issues. Oh, but forget all that; Uriel *knows* that spam could be ELIMINATED! And if academics fail to implement his solution --- by which he means, wave their magical Wand of Congressional Command and make the "right" laws pop into existence overnight, and then wave their magical Wand of End-User Command and force them all to upgrade their software --- then profs are worthless, peer review is worthless, and their opinions on peer review are worthless! Ha ha!

On the other hand, I agree entirely that publications are a stupid performance metric, because they can be spoofed. Along similar lines, it's also stupid to use little pieces of paper called "money" to account for value, because people can spoof the system by making *fake* pieces of paper! The Secret Service wants to put so-called "counterfeiters" in jail, but they're really just a bunch of spoilsports who want to ruin the simple pleasure that people take in possessing these fake little pieces of paper.

[Age(2m+Z)]

1. Ernie’s 3D pancakes. 3D pancakes? This grad student must be remaining hungry always!
2. Sokal ? [Sokalizing?]. Is the word Skolem [Skolemizing] ? Thoralf Skolem.
3. And, SCIgen is not civilized. You know why? Because SCIgen does not deliver any fertilizer; it picks up already canned texts, and it packages bundles of ASCII blocks.
But, 80% of the WMSCI-submitted papers are created by people who deliver mainly fertilizers a lot, and create text blocks on-the-fly, not from canned items.
4. Professor Nagib Callaos is a real decent person. His WMSCI was frantically looking for some help to operate on existing pathologies. Some grad students volunteered and used SCIgen.
5. If you are young (say, below age 40) you may have to think seriously whether to go to the WMSCI. If you went, you may lose a large part of your creative momentum.
6. The word is not “artificial stupidity” of the SCIGEN decree.
7. The word is “rational numskull” of the 80% WMSCI fertilizing authors’ trait.
8. Most of the visible people in the world are rational numskulls, only one is a Galileo.
9. And, I never understand why Galileo always protects Stribling-and-friends-and Ernie-types! Most probably, he has a few unmarried daughters.
( But Senor Galilei, still these boys believe that, their projectiles will always move in straight lines! )

[David]

2. Sokal ? [Sokalizing?]. Is the word Skolem [Skolemizing] ?

It pretty definitely is not.

[oh dear]

uriels arguments confuse me.. I can see no value in letting unscrutinzed works be presented as it does open the possibility of having utter cack presented (which i believe to be the very moral being demonstrated). in which case the conference holds no to little value for it's attendees.. so what is the point of it then.. the fees hold the cue to that. (as mentioned in a previous post this practice is very similar to vanity publishing in the literary world) a very silly idea this is even in the world of fiction.. now replace "fiction" with the word "science" and very with the word ......

[oh dear]

I also believe that uriel is/was just being a troll.. rolf omg harris bbq

and for those of you with no imagination a good fill in for the above would be "really rather"

Nagib Callaos would have been far better off issuing a public apology. Something like "every year, we receive thousands of submissions and though we try to be comprehensive in our review process, the occasional bad egg slips through - on behalf of the conference committee I sincerely apologise for this oversignt on our part and pledge to do all in my power to prevent its reoccurence." - case closed with minimal red-face-factor.

[Mathias Uslar]

http://www.mwise.de/blog/index.php/2005/12/29/scigen-for-scientific-research-a-case-study/

I have another fake paper story posted with an IPSI conference- it clearly shows that there was no review at all- perhaps this is even worse compared to the WMSCII story.

[Eric Haines]

One more for the archives: http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/~wp/videa.html - this VIDEA conference was the first "we'll accept anything" conferences I ever heard of, in 1995. Werner Purgathofer is a well-respected professor in the field of computer graphics, and he submitted 4 ridiculous abstracts for papers, all of which were accepted by VIDEA.

That said, with the low-hanging fruit in our field pretty much gone, and with the explosion in the number of students, one of the fake abstracts submitted, at http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/~wp/videa-abstract-1.html, sounds almost reasonable today: it attacks the problem of generating scuff marks from shoes on walls. Another abstract, the one about rendering a scene in which there are no sources of light, http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/~wp/videa-abstract-2.html, would have been weeded out if anyone was half-awake. The last two abstracts were totally absurd: one repeated VIDEA's call for papers intro as an abstract, the other was random nonsense.

[markov]

I guess Uriel is dead...