International Association
for Cryptologic Research

The problem with radical redesign is that it is hard to understand what change has caused which effect. I suggest that we as a community focus on one problem at a time. If we want to focus on multiple problems, maybe each conference should attack one at a time, so at least each variable can be tested separately. Let\'s start with the problem of low quality reviews. Here is a modest initial proposal based on an economic model: Each review should have two components: (1) technical summary and feedback, and (2) subjective evaluation wholly supported by technical evaluation in (1) The technical summary should be presented to the authors before decisions are made, and the authors will rate reviews based on understanding. So will other PC members (anonymously). The results will be used to rate PC members and reviewers and provide them with tokens. PC members and reviewers will need to spend these tokens to get their papers published at top conferences in the future. The monetary system will need to be worked out, but we can let junior researchers borrow tokens from the central bank at the start of their careers so as not to harm their initial careers. But eventually everyone has to pay in quality reviews for papers that they want to publish. These are initial thoughts and the proposal should certainly be refined to address potential abuses. For example, technical parts of the review should be devoid of all subjective opinions and hidden praise, so that the temptation to flatter the authors for earning tokens can be avoided. Also, probably feedback from authors of papers in the bottom 33% should not be counted towards awarding tokens. Amit From: 2013-18-06 09:28:41 (UTC)