GECCO 2007 - Personal Summaries (Updated)
Our old blog friend, Julian Togelius, has written a personal summary upon the GECCO 2007 event, see here. The same was done by Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, who also attended the event, see here. There is also the nice report by David, see here.
Togelius emphasizes the lack of suitable room and the relative "long distance" among the places where presentations were being held. Let alone the comparison he does between the previous IEEE evolutionary computation/A.I. events and GECCO 2007. By the way, he says that he does not want to lose contact with both sides of conferences.
Merelo Guervós points to some drawbacks he had while in London to attend the event and the lack of organization on basic issues, such as lunch place, small space to put posters, and unsuitable computer facilities. He does a bitter conclusion upon the subject.
David report is a mix of, let's say, tour, gastronomic gathering and... scientific expedition! His summary is a tour around so many subjects on GECCO 2007, from evolutionary art to naval evolutionary optimization - which is his own research issue. He accomplishes his posting comparing his high schoool days and the nowadays conference in which he is involved. It's a nice summary!
By the way, as I do not appreciate bairrismos (bairrismo is a kind of a tacky insider atitude), and as those two summaries are not the only ones, I would suggest the reader to see the previous posting upon the same subject, please, follow the link below:
GECCO 2007 Blogging
Togelius emphasizes the lack of suitable room and the relative "long distance" among the places where presentations were being held. Let alone the comparison he does between the previous IEEE evolutionary computation/A.I. events and GECCO 2007. By the way, he says that he does not want to lose contact with both sides of conferences.
Merelo Guervós points to some drawbacks he had while in London to attend the event and the lack of organization on basic issues, such as lunch place, small space to put posters, and unsuitable computer facilities. He does a bitter conclusion upon the subject.
David report is a mix of, let's say, tour, gastronomic gathering and... scientific expedition! His summary is a tour around so many subjects on GECCO 2007, from evolutionary art to naval evolutionary optimization - which is his own research issue. He accomplishes his posting comparing his high schoool days and the nowadays conference in which he is involved. It's a nice summary!
By the way, as I do not appreciate bairrismos (bairrismo is a kind of a tacky insider atitude), and as those two summaries are not the only ones, I would suggest the reader to see the previous posting upon the same subject, please, follow the link below:
GECCO 2007 Blogging
Labels: Bairrismo, Blogging, Conception, Evolutionary Computation, GECCO, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Togelius
posted by Marcelo at 3:39 AM
9 Comments:
Here is my trip report, which includes a section about GECCO 2007:
http://oranchak.com/?p=353
Thanks for the link; I don't know if my report qualifies for "bairrista", since I'm not an insider... when all is said and done, a conference is an event like any other, so it's open to criticism. But, above all, any report reflects a person's opinion, so it's as valid as the next one.
Hi, Friends! :)
Thank you, David, for the link to your view on the same subject. I am going to include it just after I prepare some stuffs here in my "spacecraft" (a.k.a., bedroom!).
JJ, sure not your report qualifies as "bairrista" - I do not know if this word in Spanish has the same meaning as in Portuguese language. Remember, a "bairrista" is not only an insider, but, also, a tacky one! :)
By the way, I agree with your points and Togelius' too. I guess that when a key researcher in the field comes publicly to spread the (mis?)conception that GECCO is the best EC conference and situations like those reported by you two happen, it's a moment to do some reflections and review those same (mis?)conceptions which have been spread, since the conference should be that way (that is, the crème de la crème of EC) everywhere.
And not to lose one's thread, let me show you what would be a tacky person, see the image below:
Image
Até Mais! :)
Marcelo
Please note that I don't comment on the overall quality of papers. I possitively know it's very difficult to get a paper accepted into GECCO, so I guess it's quite high...
In any case, I don't think it's an issue to create an A-list of conferences, or say which one is the best; organizers vary from each edition to the next, and maybe the next GECCO is the best ever.
Hi, Juan! :)
Surely, Juan, that I did not put your comments as being the real truth upon the whole conference and I did not do any commentary related to the GECCO paper quality. Reading on the blogs which reported GECCO 2007, it seems that the papers covered a very wide classes of issues, such as evolutionary art, robotics, EDAs, etc.
I consider that no one should judge all the GECCO effort since 1999 just taking into account those last not so much pleasant situations. If so, it would be an unfair way to evaluate the conference.
Maybe all those problems which had happened are just related to the place itself and/or lack of organization rather than to the conference per se.
Yes, again, I agree with you. It would be uninteresting to create a list of grade-A-conferences and so on. I only reported what I once read on a blog maintained by a key researcher in the EC field and, as claimed by the researcher, if such a conference is the best, then it should keep its level anywhere, be that level about paper quality, providing suitable computer facilities, lunch place, etc.
I hope that the next GECCO can be much better than this last one. It will be held again in USA. :)
By the way, thank you for your comments and I am sorry if in any moment I seemed a little impolite. :)
Até Mais!
Marcelo
Not at all, Marcelo...
You are right, most problems are related to the local arrangements, more than to the conference or series or conferences, which can't be judged by a single instance, but at the end of the day, every year you have to decide in which baskets to put your eggs, and GECCO is usually expensive _and_ in the US, which adds even more to the expense. So, if I have to decide next year among PPSN, CEC, EuroGP and GECCO, and take just three, I'll most definitely leave GECCO out.
BTW, isn't Atlanta that place where scholars with Spanish-sounding names attending conferences are arrested and beaten for jaywalking?
:-)
Hi, Juan!! :)
It's nice that we have those conferences to choose. I have not known so far that GECCO is expensive, without considering the additional fee someone from outside of USA would need to pay, such as travel, housing, lunch, etc.
I have some curiosities, if you permit me, I would like to ask them to you:
01. What do you have to say, in general, about CEC, PPSN, and EuroGP? If you could give a summary upon each one, I would be very grateful. If I could choose, I would prefer the PPSN event. :)
02. Do you consider that there is some kind of bias toward EDAs and GP in GECCO?
03. Why would you prefer CEC, PPSN, and EuroGP rather than GECCO? Fee considerations only? The later two I could even suppose that, as you live in Europe, and those two events are in Europe, then, it would be more plausible and sensible to you attend them. But, what about CEC? It is frequently in USA soil, as GECCO also is.
04. What do you have to say upon the paper acceptance level of each one? Which of those conferences is more difficult to get a paper accepted?
05. What do you have to say, in general, on the IEEE support to CEC?
By the way, I would like very much to attend a PPSN event! It would be great to meet Professor Hans-Paul Schwefel. He seems a nice person and even sent me some papers from Germany. :)
Auf Wiedersehen!
Marcelo
P.S: I read the news you pointed. It's weird! Here in Brazil, jaywalking is so common and persons often do no use of crosswalks! Maybe, that is one of the reasons that qualifies Brazilian car traffic as one of the most dangerous in whole world. It produces per year more corpses than the Vietnam War did! Thank you for sharing that news, friend! :)
I'll try to answer all questions...
1. Never been to CEC. I've attended at least 1 EuroGP, and all PPSNs since 2000. Highest lever at PPSN, but there's good environment in both. Both are mostly european, but there's a good participation from outside Europe.
2. I don't think so. There are papers on EDAs there alright.
3. All conferences I mentioned are cheaper to attend, have a very good scientific level and are better organized. I've never been to CEC, but I might try next year.
4. I would say that, by degree of difficulty, GECCO, PPSN, EuroGP and CEC. But I'm not really sure...
5. I have no idea, really. I've never attended, and submitted papers only recently.. I do review papers for them, but I can't say much about it...
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