Anyone who publishes in conferences knows the pain of making sacrifices to meet a deadline, only to find at the last moment that it has been extended. Â Year after year of these extensions and people come to expect them, making them all the more inevitable. Â This reminds me of people who set their clocks fast to be late less, only to adjust themselves again to be late and have to move their clocks ever earlier. Â At what point do conference deadlines lose their credibility?
I’d be interested to know how many people believe a conference’s deadline, as an effect of how often that conference extends its deadlines. Â I imagine that younger researcher are more credulous, but that it’s simply because they lack the knowledge of all the extensions.
Are there data available on deadline extensions? If not, why not collect it? Each time a deadline is extended, there is surely at least one person who is frustrated. Â What if there were a place they could go and vent their frustration by adding the occurrence to some listing/database? Â Well here is the place:
To add your data, or vent depending on how you see it, just fill out this form:
I hope this helps. I just added AERA, which had been due today.
Good idea, I have been annoyed by this more than once, and almost ALL conferences do this! CSCL, ICLS and more.
Oh no! I never hand in on time, and my career relies on this phenomena, being supported by people like you 🙂 Sorry for that. But I wish you were just happy to have handed in yourself. Compare it to the will to pay taxes: Being a healthy person who can work, I gladly pay taxes for benefits to people who for some reason cannot work. Most people still work. I am sure those who hand in on time will continue doing so even though they stop believing the deadlines. Yes, my clock is a few minutes early and I am still always late, but my friends do not start being late too. If too many people stop working, start handing in late and start coming later and later, the system would crash. But it doesn't? Just keep handing in on time! And don't bother about the extended deadline, what difference does it make?
Can I register some conferences where the deadline was *not* extended? To avoid a crash of the system I rely on..? They will be real, I promise 🙂
Please do add any conferences where the deadline was not extended!
Funny analogy to taxes, but I don't think it's applicable. A more apt analogy would be buying some product for $100 and then finding out that it was reduced to $90 right after you bought it. To make a deadline, because I am a (reforming) procrastinator, I often have to make sacrifices. When I do and then meet the deadline, I am chagrined to learn that I didn't have to make that sacrifice. If I had waited, the cost would be lower.
I'm about to add the CHI 2010 conference since it was delayed this year. Each our they stretched it back one more, until 4 or 5 hours after the original deadline. That is nice of them, but it also sets an expectation, which is a slippery slope. Some friends argued that they have to do that since the system gets overloaded at the deadline time. A more fair solution to that, in my opinion, would be to randomly assign different deadlines to different submitters. E.g. same date but different hour deadlines. My friends pointed out though that would lessen then camaraderie and compulsion to join together for a pint after.
Please do add any conferences where the deadline was not extended!
Funny analogy to taxes, but I don't think it's applicable. A more apt analogy would be buying some product for $100 and then finding out that it was reduced to $90 right after you bought it. To make a deadline, because I am a (reforming) procrastinator, I often have to make sacrifices. When I do and then meet the deadline, I am chagrined to learn that I didn't have to make that sacrifice. If I had waited, the cost would be lower.
I'm about to add the CHI 2010 conference since it was delayed this year. Each hour they stretched it back one more, until 4 or 5 hours after the original deadline. That is nice of them, but it also sets an expectation, which is a slippery slope. Some friends argued that they have to do that since the system gets overloaded at the deadline time. A more fair solution to that, in my opinion, would be to randomly assign different deadlines to different submitters. E.g. same date but different hour deadlines. My friends pointed out though that would lessen then camaraderie and compulsion to join together for a pint after.