Randomly Generated Paper Accepted to Conference

emknecht writes: “Having trouble finishing that research study? These MIT grad students just might be able to help.” A bogus paper created by their Automatic Computer Science Paper Generator was submitted to and accepted by the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics. It’s interesting that even the natural sciences have become so compartmentalized that a hoax reminiscent of the Social Text affair can be pulled off. At least librarians are never incoherent.

April 16, 2005 by Uncategorized 2

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2 Responses

  1. Walt says:
    April 16, 2005 at 9:48 pm

    Incoherent or purely commercial?
    The point the MIT students were trying to make wasn’t that computer science had become incoherent, but that some conferences (presumably including this one) were basically ways for the hosting organizations to get registration fees, with no particular scholarly rigor.

    Very few library conferences pretend to be primarily scholarly–and librarians don’t have enough spare change to cough up $1,500 registrations for questionable conferences, thus reducing the temptation to proliferate even more specialized conferences. (I covered the prank at Walt at Random yesterday.)

    Reply
  2. lislemck says:
    April 17, 2005 at 9:06 am

    Never incoherent?
    Try me along about day 4 of ALA, especially if I’ve been trying to “do” the exhibits in under one hour between sessions.

    Oh, there might be some other times, too. Let me know if you’d like a demo. 😉

    Reply

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