Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ico!rcd From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix Subject: Re: suggestions for future conferences Summary: but we don't need more people! Message-ID: <15210@ico.ISC.COM> Date: 22 Feb 89 05:43:19 GMT References: <8902090223.AA01916@decwrl.dec.com> <1989Feb9.210123.19047@utzoo.uucp> <717@helios.toronto.edu> Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO Lines: 60 > Why not open USENIX up for more than the very-specialised, very-advanced > topics that seem to make up the sessions now? I'm sure there are lots of > people out there, sysadmins for instance, who might have something > to say that would help make other people better informed about UNIX... There's a problem with this suggestion: Although it might increase the number of submissions, it wouldn't increase the number of submissions of the type which interest most of the people who attend now. What it would do is increase the number of people who want to attend...and I think there is already a far-more-than-optimal number of people attending. I would also disagree that the set of topics is very specialized or advanced... > I understand that USENIX is a *technical* conference,... ...which is just the point. The criteria that Henry indicated for papers seem to have been generously applied. When the topics are sufficiently advanced to be of interest to people of moderate sophistication, they have to be somewhat specialized--you cannot examine anything very large in detail in 20 minutes. >...and I like that, but > speaking as a first-time USENIX attendee at San Diego, there were an awful > lot of the sessions that held neither the faintest interest nor relevance for > me or for my work... I won't try to dispute your experience, but I found a lot of papers which, while not relevant to my work or my particular areas of interest, were nevertheless both interesting and understandable. I think there were 34 papers presented if I count correctly; there were about 5 or 6 that, even with hindsight, I would have skipped. >...(and the room was never again as full as it was for the > keynote)... Sure, but you expect a general decline in attendance across the sessions, as people meet other people and get diverted to matters of particular interest. (The presentations are NOT the only thing going on.) Besides, I think a lot of people go to keynote addresses to see "who is this guy, any- way???" Certainly that's the case with someone in charge of such a big chunk of AT&T. I made sure I was there because I wanted to find out whether he would explain the behavior of AT&T in the past year or so that could only with considerable charity be described as "egregiously unusual" and managed to bring IBM and DEC together in OSF. (Alas, I was disappointed; O'Shea was altogether too sharp to explain any of it...but I digress, and #include anyway...) > I don't intend this as criticism, just a suggestion that accepting more > general topics *as*well*as* the papers that you accept now might be beneficial > to everyone involved with USENIX, UNIX and other related things. I disagree that the technical sessions should be so redirected, but I do think there's something else here for USENIX to think about. There's a tremendous demand for education on UNIX-related topics, and USENIX is in a good position to capitalize on it because it has some built-in filtering of the high-level bogosity that comes in a lot of traveling mistrel-and-$600- seminar shows. -- Dick Dunn UUCP: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Just say no to mindless dogma.