[Corpora-List] corpora-list: publishing lists of accepted and rejected papers

[John F. Sowa]

On 10/15/2011 5:54 AM, Charlotte Taylor wrote:
>> "John F. Sowa" <sowa at bestweb.net> 15/10/11 6:25 AM >
>> Some people, especially women and younger researchers, may be
>> rather timid about submitting a paper to a prestigious conference
>> or journal for the very first time.
>
> May I timidly point out that I find that offensive?

I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I know many women who take charge
and defend themselves very well.  But I have also known some who
were reluctant to compete, even when their ideas were very good.

For that matter, I was thinking of myself in my younger days.
There were several papers I published as internal IBM reports,
which I should have submitted for external publication.  My
manager at the time did not encourage the publication because
my ideas were, so to speak, "counterstrategic".

After I had enough experience to know better, I became a champion
of "counterstrategic" thinking.  But I still wish that I had had
a suitable mentor in the early years.  (See footnote below.)

> there are already places where job applicants are ranked in order
> of how well they did in the selection processes and that information
> is made publicly available.

I consider that practice so counterproductive that it is positively
foolish.  After observing enough examples of various rankings
(art, publications, employees, students, grant proposals, etc.),
I realize that they are *extremely* unreliable.  They tend to punish
innovation and reward mediocrity that preserves the status quo.

Just one example:  Some Stanford graduate students submitted a clever
algorithm for ranking the relevance of web pages.  And it was rejected.
But they used it anyway for a company with the childish name Google.

On 10/15/2011 11:51 AM, Anil Singh wrote:
> I am concerned that the overall PC gagging order does not
> even allow his type of stating a possibility anymore ...

Thanks for the note of support.  I really enjoyed Bill Mahrer's
program "Politically Incorrect", which was eventually canceled
because he was too incorrect.

John

* For the definition of "counter-strategic", see the dictionary
of IBM Jargon:  http://www.comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf

My preferred definition of 'strategic' was expunged:  "supported
by managers who have reached their level of incompetence."

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