CIDR is in danger of losing its way: My Advice to Weikum, Hellerstein and Franklin by Michael Stonebraker

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CIDR is in danger of losing its wayMy Advice
to Weikum, Hellerstein and FranklinbyMichael
Stonebraker

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Program Committees in our Field

• Reward scholarship on narrow ideas
• Trash loosy goosey papers
• Trash anything half-baked
• Trash anything that resembles a war story
• Operate by consensus

Net result SIGMOD/VLDB style conferences with
paper sessions full of LPUs, of interest to 10
people in the world
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How Has CIDR Avoided this Fate So Far?

• Slanted selection of PC members
• Specific non-SIGMOD reviewing guidelines
• PC is advisory organizers make actual decisions
• And one of them reads every paper
• And the organizers have not operated by consensus
• E.g. PC reviews sometimes ignored

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CIDR Leadership is Being Passed On

• So how to avoid the SIGMODification of CIDR?
• Answer double-blind reviewing (just kidding)

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My Real Advice to the New Gray Beards

• Put your own mark on the conference
• E.g. might make sense to move to demo-only on
  the theory that you have nothing to say if you
  cant show it
• E.g. might make sense to move to poster-only on
  the theory that this fosters discussion
• YGIGH (your good idea goes here)

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My Real Advice to the New Gray Beards

• Ruthlessly ignore reviewer opinions
• This is really crucial
• Dont leave Asilomar
• Enables a 3 person organizing committee who can
  make decisions quickly and easily
• Figure out some solution to paper overload
• Which is very likely to descend on CIDR