Overcoming Challenges of Maturity

In 2008, the systems and networks research communities find themselves victims of their own successes. This white paper reviews some of the evidence that the two areas are under enormous stress, and suggests that the situation is only going to get worse. Yet there are a number of simple steps we can take to reduce stresses if we start by asking ourselves what motivates the various parties involved. By fine-tuning the system, we can make life easier for ourselves, improve the level of satisfaction for typical researchers, open the door to innovative younger people who are thinking “out of the box”, and reduce the risk of abuses stemming from frustration. 1. Creaking at the Seams The research community in systems and networks is showing increasing evidence of a dangerous form of stress. A vast boom in information technologies has already transformed the world, and yet is seemingly still in its early days. As this boom continues, participants will want to publish on their ideas. Visionary concepts such as NSF’s GENI initiative make it plausible that we’ll soon be reinventing the Internet, securing critical infrastructure and building applications capable of scaling to previously inconceivable degrees. One can easily anticipate that these developments will inspire all sorts of novel approaches to genuinely important questions. A tsunami of papers will surely result – overwhelming a conference system that is already creaking at the seams. Meanwhile, our community holds just a handful of topranked conferences annually, and those have finite capacity for papers: finite in terms not just of the number that can be published annually, but also in terms of our ability to review submissions. Adding conferences can’t be the solution: by definition, they won’t be considered to be first-rate, and submissions still need to be reviewed. Yet if we don’t add more conferences, how in the world will all of these great ideas become known? The most frightening aspect, for those of us who maintain a high quality standard, is the prospect of needing to weed out an ever increasing number of papers that may be good, ok, mediocre or outright bad, but at any rate don’t rise to the threshold for acceptance