LFG 2008 - First call for papers (revised)

[Josef van Genabith]

Dear all,

I strongly agree with Adams, Martin and Ash that encouraging diversity 
is a good thing.

I don't, however, see LFG conferences as any other "Linguistics 
Conference", especially so if we are to encourage diversity!

 From early on LFG had strong formal underpinnings and computational 
interpretations - in fact they were core motivations for it. So, if we 
are all for diversity we should encourage contributions in

- theoretical linguistics
- applied linguistics
- field linguistics
- formal/mathematical underpinnings
- computational interpretations
- computational applications 
- statistical methods

and what have you. The interaction of this is one thing that makes LFG 
interesting.

So diversity (in a number of dimensions) is a good thing. The question 
is how to achieve it.

If proper peer review based on open competition is the best guarantee 
for quality, then constraining open competition is going to have an 
adverse effect on quality, every time the constraints apply (and no 
matter how well they are intended to be). Compromising quality is not 
going to make LFG conferences more attractive.

Fortunately, we have other mechanisms to support diversity: in addition to

- regular papers

we have

- poster sessions
- student sessions
- panels
- workshops
- tutorials

I think it'd be wise to go back to open and unsconstrained competition 
for  paper submissions  a.s.a.p and  use the  other mechanisms to ensure 
diversity.

Regards,

Josef

A. B. Bodomo wrote:
> Dear all,
> I support this move to have a restriction on the number of papers we 
> submit at LFG conferences. Indeed, this move should have been made 
> long ago. For me the LFG conferences are Linguistics conferences and 
> most Linguistics conferences, like the annual LSA conference, already 
> have this wise idea of restricting the number of submissions. I don't 
> think it would be such a good idea to rely on people restricting 
> themselves the way we expect it. It is natural for people to want to 
> maximise their chances of getting accepted by submitting as many as 
> possible. For me, the restriction should be the standard one at 
> Linguistics conferences: at most one single authored paper and one 
> joint paper, but I am fine with this middle of the road solution by 
> our Executive Committee since I understand Computational Linguistics 
> conferences do something different from General Linguistics conferences.
>  
> I would like to see more diversity in the topics, areas, backgrounds, 
> and languages presented at LFG conferences and this should, of course, 
> not be achieved at the expense of quality, since all papers still have 
> to pass through "anonymous" peer reviews.
>  
> Best,
> Adams
>
> */Martin Forst <mforst at parc.com>/* wrote:
>
>     Dear Josef, dear all,
>     > does anybody know the reason for the new restriction on the
>     number of
>     > submissions (see below) in the revised call for papers for LFG 2008?
>     The Executive Committee introduced this restriction in order to
>     secure
>     diversity in the papers.
>     The rationale behind this goal is that quality is of course
>     crucial for
>     a conference program, but breadth is important, too.
>
>     Although we (i.e. the Program Committee - lfg08 at easychair.org) do not
>     expect the restriction to rule out a lot of potential submissions, we
>     are interested in knowing what people think about it, in
>     particular if
>     they are opposed to it. Please let us know your arguments and,
>     even more
>     importantly, the number of additional abstracts you would have
>     submitted
>     if the restriction did not exist. The Executive Committee will
>     consider
>     these in the decision of whether to keep the restriction for LFG 2009.
>
>     Best regards,
>
>     Martin
>
>