Edward Lee posted on the Sigbed Blog “The Toxic Culture of Rejection in Computer Science” on negativity in CS conference culture, with some interesting observations, some resonating with issues addressed in this blog:
“We have come to value as a quality metric for conferences a low acceptance rate. This feeds a culture of shooting each other down rather than growing and nurturing a community. The goal of a PC has become to destroy rather than to develop. Many of our venues are proud of their 10% acceptance rates. Are such low acceptance rates justified?”
“Our culture of rejection has serious detrimental effects on our community.”
“Our low acceptance rate exacerbates the flood of paper submissions that overwhelms PCs. The “publish or perish” culture of academia is full of strategies to maximize the number of publications rather than the quality.”