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April 21, 2007

Comments

Shripad Thite

"What makes the situation unhealthy is the continued belief in the STOC/FOCS community that STOC and FOCS represent all of theoretical computer science, or even the best of theoretical computer science. They don't."

In response to the above quote, do you think there would be interest in an annual Best of Theory Conference? Authors of the best theory papers from the previous year (judged by best paper awards and/or by a program committee) could be invited to give a longer exposition of their result.
It would present a nice overview of significant recent developments in theory, their applications, and their (immediate) impact. Such a conference would probably fit best as part of FCRC but could also be held in conjunction with a major conference (not necessarily a theory conference). It could be a great venue to encourage collaborations between researchers in different sub-fields of theory and to encourage non-theoreticians to attend.

Shripad Thite

"What makes the situation unhealthy is the continued belief in the STOC/FOCS community that STOC and FOCS represent all of theoretical computer science, or even the best of theoretical computer science. They don't."

In response to the above quote, do you think there would be interest in an annual Best of Theory Conference? Authors of the best theory papers from the previous year (judged by best paper awards and/or by a program committee) could be invited to give a longer exposition of their result. It would present a nice overview of significant recent developments in theory, their applications, and their (immediate) impact. Such a conference would probably fit best as part of FCRC but could also be held in conjunction with a major conference (not necessarily a theory conference). It could be a great venue to encourage collaborations between researchers in different sub-fields of theory and to encourage non-theoreticians to attend.

A

Ernie - really, very good comments - I agree (say, in 99%)

Shripad - to create "Best of Theory Conference" you would need to convince these best people to attend it and with their very busy schedule I find it unlikely. In fact, you have it now - STOC and FOCS are still "Best of Theory Conferences" - they are held every half a year - so why do we need another venue?
If you want such a conference to present theory to other areas of CS then I'm not sure you need an annual conference - something like the recent NSF initiatives (Princeton and Caltech workshops) would do.

A

JeffE

"In fact, you have it now - STOC and FOCS are still "Best of Theory Conferences" - they are held every half a year - so why do we need another venue?"

Um... apparently that's the 1% where we disagree. STOC and FOCS are at their best "Best of STOC/FOCS-theory conferences." But the best of computational geometry, the best of data structures, the best of learning theory, et cetera rarely if ever appear at STOC or FOCS. And most of the "best of" results at STOC and FOCS will have absolutely *no* impact on the other theory commmunities.

To answer Shripad's question... No, I don't think so. Theory is too big and too diverse for a single "best of" conference, especially when the biggest and oldest subcommunity still thinks it already has one.

Piotr

Hi Ernie,

Nice post ! I mostly agree with your answers. One point that I would differ on is:

"What makes the situation unhealthy is the continued belief in the STOC/FOCS community that STOC and FOCS represent all of theoretical computer science, or even the best of theoretical computer science."

I think that you don't give enough credit to S/F folks in the above. I would say that most of the "S/F regulars" that I know are very much aware of the fact that there is wonderful, high-impact theory papers that has not been published in S/F. For some examples, take, e.g., Boneh-Franklin paper on IBE; or a few Godel-prize winning papers, by Freund-Schapire, Senizergues, or, strictly speaking, even Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena.

Piotr

...and pardon the grammar in my previous post.

D. Eppstein

Piotr: the FOCS/STOC community are likely aware that some good papers appear elsewhere, but I think many of them are under the impression that the papers that get into FOCS and STOC represent the pinnacle of their areas, that a paper that gets into STOC and FOCS would necessarily be one of the best papers at whatever other theory conference it might be sent to. And they also seem to think that if a paper does represent the best of its area, that it should get into FOCS/STOC, that the purposes of STOC/FOCS are to be representative of the best of theory generally. I don't think either is true; the differences between the papers ones sees in, on the one hand FOCS and STOC, and on the other hand SODA and SoCG seem to be much more ones of emphasis of area than of selectivity by quality.

The biggest change I would like to see in the FOCS/STOC submission process is to make hard page limits (and margin limits, and font size limits) and to firmly enforce them. The formatting may be different than for the proceedings (I'd like single column and 11pt font rather than double column 10pt) but the limits should be set as much as possible to match the total amount of content one can get in the proceedings. I'm tired of seeing papers where the authors arbitrarily decided to put a section break 1/3 of the way through, calling the first 10 pages the submission and the remaining 20 pages an appendix. They're going to have to work harder than that at condensing their results at proceedings preparation time, if they want their paper to be readable for the conference attendees; why not make them put that work in for the pc as well?

Piotr

Hi David,

As probably intended, our two posts do not contradict each other. I am sure that there are people who believe that S/F papers are by default the best papers in their areas. Then again, I do think that most "S/F regulars" are aware of the fact that the intention of attracting best papers is realized better in some areas and worse in others.

William Gasarch

THANKS for intelligent response to my FOCS/STOC meta questions
post.

One thing- you say that `Most important results in Comp Geom,
Data Structures, Machine Learning, Comp Bio, Logic and Aut.
Theory, Complexity theory' are published in their own
conferences. That seems to cover most of theory-- whats
left to be classified as `FOCS/STOC'?

Natrix

Bill-

I am sure you would agree that most CCC publishers consider sending their stronger results to STOC/FOCS unless:

(a) the result is strong but so specialized that a non-complexity-heavy PC might turn it down

or

(b) there are time pressures and nobody wants to wait until the STOC deadline some six months after the CCC deadline

The effect this has had is that CCC gets viewed as a "little brother" conference to STOC/FOCS. This is a function of both the FOCS/STOC tastes and the considerations of the authors (time constraints and surety of acceptance versus somewhat better hiring/promotion value).

piotr

I guess that the "Most important results..." statement is more true for some areas than others. I would conjecture that if you sort the list of areas in the decreasing order of probability that top result appears in a specialized conference, you would get something like:

logic & automata, comp bio, machine learning, comp geom, data structures,
complexity theory

This is mainly in response to David's comments.
Statistically speaking, the quality of papers in STOC/FOCS is higher than
those in SODA, and I would even venture to some extent SoCG. This is of course
a subjective opinion. People confuse the amount of technical detail and difficulty
with quality. The papers in STOC/FOCS tend to have more interesting theorem
statements and/or new technical ideas to solve open problems. Also, because the
conferences are less specialized than others, new connections between areas are
made which tend to have a lot of value. Consequently they
tend to have more impact (again statistically). And yes, STOC/FOCS wants to have
the best of theory papers from all areas. Why isn't such an ambition important
and useful for any conference, let alone conferences which want to be the premier
pan-theory conferences? Some people in the community might be arrogant but
that doesn't mean that every one is - there are plenty of wise people too and
many work in overlapping areas and submit papers to other conferences etc.
Many people who are highly respected in the STOC/FOCS community
do not actively publish there on a regular basis or even think of themselves
as STOC/FOCS people. The conference system has its quirks and STOC/FOCS is
not immune from it and cannot be but it seems strange to me that all the
ills are ascribed to the "community" as if it is a monolithic entity.

The point about page margins etc applies to other theory conferences
including SODA, SoCG etc etc. One can safely ignore the appendix if one
wants to. I don't see how the rigidity can help judge the quality of the
papers.

:::: People confuse the amount of technical detail and difficulty with quality.

True and this afflicts STOC/FOCS even more than other conferences.

:::: Consequently they tend to have more impact (again statistically).

Sorry, but the available data does not back up your claim.

http://www.cs-conference-ranking.org/conferencerankings/topicsiv.html

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/impact.html

JeffE

"Statistically speaking, the quality of papers in STOC/FOCS is higher than those in SODA, and I would even venture to some extent SoCG."

I have to agree with you. But there is a vast difference between having a higher average quality and having the best papers in every area.


"The papers in STOC/FOCS tend to have more interesting theorem statements and/or new technical ideas to solve open problems."

Says you. I honestly couldn't care less about most of what STOC and FOCS publishes. (I recognize that most of the work is good; I just don't care about the topics. Just say no to PCP.) For my money, or at least for the travel lines in my grant budgets, the contents of SODA and SOCG are much more interesting, and just as full of new ideas.


"STOC/FOCS wants to have the best of theory papers from all areas. Why isn't such an ambition important and useful for any conference, let alone conferences which want to be the premier pan-theory conferences?"

There's nothing wrong with WANTING to have the best theory papers from all areas. Ambition IS important and useful for any conference. But wishing doesn't make it so. It's equally important to recognize that this goal is a goal, not a description of the current state of affairs.

As 'satellite' theory communities continue to mature and evolve, STOC and FOCS move further *away* from the goal of including the bets of every subfield.


"Some people in the community might be arrogant but
that doesn't mean that every one is - there are plenty of wise people too and many work in overlapping areas and submit papers to other conferences etc."

I never said otherwise. Unfortunately, those people seem to be in the minority.


"...it seems strange to me that all the ills are ascribed to the 'community' as if it is a monolithic entity."

I'd blame you personally if that would make you fee better, but you weren't brave enough to sign your comment. Wimp.

Conferences inherit their problems (and their strengths) from the people that make them happen—the community. Obviously. If STOC and FOCS have problems, they lie squarely at the feet of the STOC/FOCS community. I don't mean that any individual STOC/FOCS people are to blame for the problems, but I do mean that they (we?) are responsible for recognizing and addressing them. Yes, you, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous Commenter, whichever is appropriate. You.

"I would conjecture that if you sort the list of areas in the decreasing order of probability that top result appears in a specialized conference, you would get something like:

logic & automata, comp bio, machine learning, comp geom, data structures, complexity theory"

You can add cryptography very near the top of the list (ahead of comp geom).

"Important details should be omitted from talks. No, I like Vijay's suggestions because it would force people to think about how they present their work when they are forced to omit all the details"

Isn't it also true for the introduction of a paper? I mean, details should be omitted from the introduction and only important ideas/results should be given.

Of course, not all introductions are written this way, but this is also true for the talks.

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