Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!gatech!mcnc!spl From: spl@mcnc.org (Steve Lamont) Newsgroups: comp.graphics Subject: Re: SIGGRAPH pet peeves Message-ID: <5179@alvin.mcnc.org> Date: 25 Aug 89 12:45:47 GMT References: <4400038@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Reply-To: spl@mcnc.org.UUCP (Steve Lamont) Organization: North Carolina Supercomputing Center Lines: 100 In article <4400038@m.cs.uiuc.edu> shirley@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >I have some peeves with some minor points of the (generally excellent) >SIGGRAPH conferences. They follow in random order. Am I being unreasonable? > > [comments about reception bundling and course luncheon "quality" elided] > >3. The courses too often include material being presented verbatim from the > technical session. This is a waste of time and money for the course > attendants. How about having half day courses? I'd > say most of the courses I've taken have a half day of 'non-filler'. > I'd much rather take four of these than two full day courses, though > it could lead to an organizational nightmare. Actually, my complaint is that many of the courses are verbatim repetitions of many of the prior year's papers. Frequently one begins to feel that one has been trapped in a time loop -- you hear the same talk several years in a row. As far as half day courses go, I think I'd rather have a full day of *new* material (of course, that's subjective -- what's new to me may be old hat to you -- however, I'd at least hope to see some new viewgraphs/slides). >4. The conference proceedings has had a fairly constant number of papers > and pages for all the years I've seen ('78-'89). Is graphics > really not growing? SIGGRAPH attendance says otherwise. Why not have > parallel conference sessions? If cost is the problem why not break the > proceedings into volumes and unbundle their cost as well? Please, NO! It is bad enough having to choose between panels and technical sessions. I have attended a number of conferences that have parallel sessions, as you suggest, and I have found it quite distracting to have people constantly leaving and entering because they want to hear paper X in session 1A and paper Y in session 1B. Now, if SIGGRAPH wanted to add another DAY or two to the technical sessions (making the conference a full week)... they might have to eliminate the tutorials to do so or compress them into one day, but it is a thought. >5. How about REAL poster sessions, like many conferences have? This would > help combat the trend away from technical interaction the conference > is now experiencing. BRAVO! Excellent suggestion. I heartily concur! Let's turn SIGGRAPH back into a *scientific* conference, rather than the tawdry trade exhibition it is turning into. On that subject, I guess that there is no possiblility of separating the trade show aspect of SIGGRAPH from the scientific conference aspect. I don't know how much money SIGGRAPH makes off the trade show part (I expect that it is considerable), but I am getting the feeling that this segment of the conference is beginning to overwhelm the actual technical part and that the conference is becoming more NCGA-like (please do not take this as a slight against NCGA -- SIGGRAPH and NCGA are different organizations and serve different purposes). Am I alone in this perception? Personally, my favorite day of the conference is Friday, since all of the three piece suits have packed up their Guccis and headed for the great sales meeting in the sky, and just us technoweenies are left to commune around the bit bucket. :-) >6. Does the tee shirt have to be ugly as sin? :-( ... and I wore my SIGGRAPH polo shirt today, too :-). >7. Do we really have to wait in line for the film show? Why can't they > just open the autitorium 2 hours early? There are probably security reasons for that. My complaint about the film show is that it has become such a big bloody deal. I suppose that there is no way of reversing the trend, but it just seems to me that it was much more *informal* in the past... people went to it when they wanted, rather than when they had tickets. Yes, I *do* understand the problems associated with dealing with *that* many people and the ill feeling that might be generated by turning people away when the auditorium fills up. I wish there were a better way :-(. >On the good side the are several improvements under way: the film show is >getting better and better, survey and short papers are being accepted (short >as of ninety), and the AV support amazingly continues to get better. Actually, this year I thought that the AV support was terrible. In at least two of the technical sessions there were long pauses while the AV people dealt with slide problems that, in one case at least, could have been easily preventable. Having slide projectors that could be remotely controlled to go in reverse, as well as forward, would have helped tremendously. I also understand from a collegue who exhibited in the art show that there were tremendous hassles with technical support in setup and preparation. There was also a case of dueling volume controls between two of the art show exhibitors that could have been avoided had someone in the art show committee not nearly juxtaposed two pieces which both required amplified sound. A final comment. I realize that hind sight is 20-20 and that the committee does the best that it can. It is perhaps remarkable that there as few screwups as there apparently are and that the program comes off as well as it does. My compliments to the committee and, no, I am not a candidate for office :-). -- spl Steve Lamont, sciViGuy EMail: spl@ncsc.org North Carolina Supercomputing Center Phone: (919) 248-1120 Box 12732/RTP, NC 27709