Lisp & FP conference siting

[Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>]

    Date: Wed 25 Jun 86 15:49:59-PDT
    From: Christopher Schmidt <SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>

	    Who made the decision to locate the ACM Lisp & FP conference
    away from AAAI?  

I didn't make the decision, nor do I have any official position at this
year's conference; but I was program chairman for the 1984 conference,
and local arrangements chairman for the 1982 conference, so I can speak
from experience.

		     I doubt I'm the only would-be attendee who rates only
    one conference per year and benefited from co-location.  I don't
    imagine there were a lot of people that had problems with the overlap
    with the AAAI tutorials.

Co-location caused a minor headache in 1982, namely that AAAI, being the
larger conference and planned further ahead, tended to use up resources
in the host city.  It was difficult to find lecture halls and hotel
space.  It was also necesssary to pick a banquet activity different from
the activities planned by AAAI.

Co-location caused a major headache in 1984.  Overlap with tutorials was
not a problem, but despite our best efforts to coordinate, paper
sessions of the two conferences overlapped, because AAAI became larger
that year (3 full days instead of 2 1/2).  This resulted in decreased
attendance.

I happen to be a sub-area chairman for AAAI this year, and so know
something about how it is organized as well.  This year AAAI is running
five full days of paper sessions, for the most part with four or five
parallel tracks!  Even if in the same city, the only way to avoid
conflict would have been to schedule the Lisp conference for the
preceding or following week.  Furthermore, the facilities in
Philadelphia are not ideal, being spread out; AAAI by itself is going to
have to use shuttle buses.

I am in sympathy with your complaint; it's going to be hard for me, too,
to attend both of them.  However, given that they have to be in separate
weeks, it's not that bad to zoom between Boston and Philadelphia over
the weekend.  (Admittedly, that's easy for me to say, here in Boston.)

	    I joined the ACM in large part because I hoped I would find
    out about this sort of thing in advance or (god forbid) vote on this
    sort of issue.  I attended both the '82 and '84 conferences and I
    STILL haven't received any kind of announcement of this year's conference.
    The exchanges in the Common-Lisp DL were the first I heard of it.

The call for papers appeared in the December 1985 SIGPLAN Notices; this
call indicated the conference site (MIT).  The conference has been
listed in the Calendar of Events in the Communications of the ACM since
last November.  Note that AAAI is not an ACM function.  There was also a
mailing, which you should have received if you belong to one of the
relevant SIGs.

	    Are the location and timing for '88 decided yet?  If the Lisp
    & FP conference can't be held in conjunction with AAAI, it would better
    be displaced by 6 months than 1 week in my opinion.  Back-to-back
    conferences require too much time away from work in one block.
    --Christopher

I don't have the information to respond to this.  I'm sure the
conference organizers are interested in feedback such as this.  Some
questions of interest are: if both conferences are to be held in August
after all, should they be back-to-back or separated by a week or two?
Is it better to hold them on the same side of, say, Nebraska or on
different sides?

	    P.S. I apologize in advance for sending this to the Common-Lisp
    list, but I couldn't think of a more appropriate forum.
    -------

[Dick, I hate to do this to you, but...]  I would say it is reasonable to
raise the issue on this mailing list, but please let's not have a hundred
flames follow on the same subject.  It would be better to send comments
directly to this year's general chairman for the conference, who is:
	Richard P. Gabriel
	Lucid, Inc.
	707 Laurel St.
	Menlo Park, CA  94025

--Guy