The 2nd Annual SODA Business Meeting Drinking Game

This worked well last year, so what the hell, let's do it again! Let's hope they have lots of beer Monday night.

Standard Rules: Take a drink the first time each of the following events occurs.

• Anyone claps.
  
• Anyone voices a standard complaint about the conference proper (one drink each): high registration fees, parallel sessions, overlaps beginning of classes, overlaps weekend, overlaps NFL playoffs
  
• Anyone voices a standard complaint about the conference hotel (one drink each): expensive, bad location, bad meals, bad informal food (eg, coffee breaks, continental breakfasts, reception), under construction, no stairs, generally sleazy
  
• Anyone voices a standard complaint about SIAM (one drink each): full-time registration staff, unnecessary publicity, poor-quality proceedings [but see Proceedings Bonus Round below], rude registration emails, difficult web pages, incompetence, greed. If anyone suggests getting rid of SIAM altogether, finish your beer.
  
• Anyone makes a standard suggestion for “improving” the conference format (one drink each): removing the 10-page limit, imposing a smaller page limit, adding shorter talks, making all talks shorter, adding another day (one drink per additional day), adding more parallel sessions (one drink per additional session), adding paper-free talks, adding a poster session.
  
• Anyone uses the phrase "discrete mathematics community" or equivalent.
  
• Anyone in the audience uses the phrase "computational geometry".
  
• Anyone complains that conference papers aren't supposeed to be archival.
  
• Anyone makes a joke involving the phrase "train wreck".
  
• Anyone asks why SODA 2007 is in New Orleans and not in Monterrey.
  

Statistics Bonus Round:

• Take one drink for each slide of statistics displayed by the PC chair.
  
• If your name appears on the PC chair's slides for any reason, finish your beer.
  

Location Bonus Round:

• Drink once for each serious proposal except San Francisco and Baltimore/DC.
  
• Drink twice for each facetious proposal (eg, Havana, Maui, Sydney). In light of last year's vote, Monterrey is not a facetious suggestion.
  
• Drink once for each previous time the winning location has hosted SODA. (Orlando, Austin, Atlanta, Vancouver, Miami: 1 each; New Orleans: 3; Baltimore/DC: 4; San Francisco: 6)
  

Voting Bonus Round:

• If anyone asks if we can vote for more than one option, take a drink.
  
• If any vote is repeated beause of voter confusion, take a drink.
  
• If any vote ends in a tie, take two drinks.
  
• If anyone suggests that David Johnson is attempting to manipulate the vote, take two drinks.
  
• If anyone suggests that David Johnson is attempting to manipulate the outcome of the drinking game, take three drinks.
  
• If David Johnson makes either suggestion, finish your beer.
  

Proceedings Bonus Round:

• This bonus round begins when someone suggests electronic proceedings. Take a drink.
  
• If anyone suggests eliminating paper proceedings, take a drink.
  
• Take a drink each time any of the following words are used: copyright, ArXiv, ISBN, web, PDF, library, tenure, promotion, ship/shipping, heavy, Amazon, profit/money
  
• Take one drink for each suggested electronic medium (CD-ROM, USB key, etc.)
  

Sudden Death:

• If anyone suggests resurrecting short papers, throw your beer bottle at them.

Update 22 Jan 06: Both David and Suresh are starting the complaining drinking early this year!

And to answer David's (spoken) question, no, I'm not expecting the business meeting to be nastier than usual. Just drunker.