>Double-blind paper preparation and reviewing is not "for free," and we >are already asking for significant effort to manage the yearly UAI >conference.
As someone who has served as program and general chair, let me tell you, managing UAI is a *major* effort. AUAI doesn't charge dues and our conference fees are quite modest -- which means that we run to a large degree on volunteer effort and donated time and money from our corporate sponsors. When I was chair, I investigated what it would cost to have the conference professionally managed. We would have had to about double registration fees, assuming (obviously incorrectly) that registration wouldn't decline as a result of doubling the fees. Having done the program chair job before Microsoft's conference management system was up and running (THANK YOU, Microsoft!!!), and having participated in more than one major overhaul of organizational processes for organizations that didn't have formal processes or know how to overhaul organizational processes, let me *strongly* second Bob's assessment of the cost and effort involved in any major change to our processes. >Unless someone can propose an enormous payoff to double-blind >reviewing (and with all due respect to the previous posters, I haven't >heard one yet), I prefer that we forego the nuisance. Let me put it another way. 1. How much are the people who support double-blind reviewing willing to pay for it, either in the form of dues to join AUAI or in the cost of registering for the conference? 2. Can the people who support double-blind reviewing propose processes and mechanisms that would not be unduly burdensome, and show us how the processes and mechanisms they propose could be smoothly integrated into how AUAI currently does business? Kathy
