Dear
Everybody,
The quality of papers in conferences is often
discussed, with single-track high-rejection rate conferences priding themselves
for the moral high ground. The issue is sometimes discussed within the ranks of
IAPR with respect to ICPR acceptance rates. It is all very well to insist on
high standards and high rejection rates, (as long it is not your paper that is
rejected), but who can choose the thresholds in our classification task? Who
will train the network and take care of the outliers? Who can read the future
and harden the fuzzy boundaries? And who could say with confidence what may or
may not lead to what? Could Einstein have produced his work on his own? Didn't
he need the armies of researchers like you and me who tried hundreds of things
and failed before him? Can you grow a tree with a single root and a single
branch that will bear the golden apple one day?
Of course, not every student who fails at
the University becomes an Einstein and not everybody who is rejected by his
fellow scientists and commits suicide is a Boltzmann. But for me, there is
nothing more inspirational than sitting in a conference venue hearing a
seemingly uninteresting paper. It gives me the chance to relax and wonder. It
is impossible to say which paths the thought takes when it is occasionally
prompted by the right words as the mind wakes up to listen from time to time. A
paper which lacks scientific professionalism, is not necessarily void of ideas.
A new idea, buried in an otherwise unprofessionally written paper may be the
seed of the hundreds of ideas of tomorrow. A conference that brings together
people from a diversity of interests is bound to be big and multi-track but it
is also the place where cross fertilisation of ideas may take place. Why then
so much enthusiasm for single track conferences with 20% acceptance rate? Do
their organisers feel that they have nothing to learn from the plebeian 80%? Do
they really think that only their piers can trigger the magic button in their
heads that will set in motion the gears of inspiration that will produce the
golden apple at the end?
Maria
Petrou
PS That was a broad hint to the organisers of
the 14th ICPR so that they do not reject my paper!