FOCS 2013 is over, and as predicted here it was very successful. I am happy to have taken part in its success (though all of the credit goes of course to the authors). I also predicted that "A significant fraction of the community will think the PC messed up badly." Naturally, most of the people with … Continue reading FOCS 2013 is over

FOCS 2013 registration is open  with an early registration deadline of October 4th 2013. In a few days, I hope, the program would be posted as well, but as the list of accepted papers indicates - its going to be very interesting!

I promised to blog regarding the FOCS work and I did it to some extent. But not as much as I thought I would. Turns out that chairing was not conducive to blogging (or to much of the other things I planned on doing). Feel free to ask me questions here, and I’ll do my … Continue reading Some Reflections on the FOCS PC Work

While there is a long tail of tasks ahead of us, the FOCS 2013 PC have completed its main task – selecting the program. The list of accepted papers is appended to this post, and I think it is a great collection of papers! We have unfortunately rejected many good papers, either because the presentation … Continue reading FOCS 2013 – Accepted Papers

As discussed here, the FOCS 2013 PC did not impose page limit on submissions. As this was an experiment, it is important to try and assess its success. Clearly, no page limit in itself makes it easier on the authors, but we tried to make the CFP more demanding on authors in terms of presentation. … Continue reading Away with Page Limits on Submissions (II)

I promised to post from time to time about the FOCS 2013 PC work (to demystify the process). So here is a quick update: We got 280 submission (well, 281 submissions but one was just a bad joke). This is up (by more than  %10) from FOCS 2012 but on the other hand our PC … Continue reading On the Importance and Risks in Using Sub-Reviewers

The FOCS 2013 submission server is open, the main site is up and submission deadline is in two weeks! Please read the call for papers before submitting your paper especially as it has changed since last year. In essence, we are experimenting with less regulation on our part (as far as formatting) and more responsibility on … Continue reading FOCS 2013 – Submission Server is Open

The FOCS 2013 main site is up, and the CFP is coppied below too. --- CALL FOR PAPERS 54th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2013) Berkeley, California, October 27-29, 2013. The 54th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2013), sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Mathematical Foundations … Continue reading FOCS 2013 – CFP

The FOCS 2013 PC is currently working on the call for papers (cfp). Our basis is the FOCS 2012 cfp. The main change we are contemplating is getting rid of the page limit for submissions. In fact, FOCS 2012 and previous conferences already took a step in this direction. For example FOCS 2012 cfp says: “There … Continue reading Away with Page Limits on Submissions

I was honored and, at the same time, penalized to be invited to serve as the program chair of FOCS 2013 (to be held in Berkeley, October 27-29, 2013). Reading blog discussions in the past about FOCS/STOC (and conferences in general), I realize that there is a lot of misunderstanding and mystification regarding the program committee (PC) … Continue reading FOCS 2013 – The Beginning