Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Bogosity

I recently got the following email.
I sent to papers to a conference TMFCS08 (Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science) and got accepted, however, they ask me to pay the registration fee twice, one for each paper (2x$550), is that normal?
  1. I emailed her that this IS normal for bogus conferences that are complete ripoffs, but not normal otherwise.
  2. I'm surprised anyone falls for this kind of thing. Then again, it may be that the school that the prof is at also does not know the difference, so it does help the resume.
  3. I looked on the web for more info on this conference and could not find anything saying it was bogus (By contrast you can find stuff about WSEAS being bogus). Anyone have any more information?

9 comments:

  1. This proves nothing, but I had never heard of this conference.

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  2. The (apparently new) conference lists Mike Sipser as a co-chair. Why not to ask him directly?

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  3. This was also the case at CIKM 2006. I believe that after complains the chairs revised the rule from "at least one registration per paper" to "at least one author per paper."

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  4. Hi, Bill. One of the conference PC co-chairs is in your department.

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  5. TMFCS is part of the "2008 multi-conference (MULTICONF 2008) in computer science, information technology, computer engineering, control and automation technology".

    "Multi-conference" seems to be a pretty good bogosity indicator. See also WORLDCOMP, WSEAS, WMSCI,....

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  6. what's your definition of a "bogus" conference? Just anything with a low quality standard? But then how low is the bar?

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  7. I can't believe Mike Sipser is involved in what appears to be an absolutely worthless conference (and attempt to extract money out of people desperate for a publication). It's really shocking. At first I wondered whether the conference was better than I had thought, but nothing else on the web site inspires any confidence at all.

    I can guess how it happened. Like many other people, I periodically get requests to join the editorial boards of abysmal new journals published by tiny, unknown publishers, conference program committees for scam conferences, etc. I guess one of these slipped by Mike's defenses and he agreed to participate. He may never have heard about it again, but his acceptance e-mail led to his being mentioned on the web site.

    what's your definition of a "bogus" conference? Just anything with a low quality standard? But then how low is the bar?

    Some of these conferences have a bar so low that they will publish totally bogus papers with no apparent review.

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  8. If you didn't know already, WORLDCOMP is the world's biggest fake conference (ie., bogus conference) in computer science : http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.com/2012/02/fake-conference-worldcomp.html . The next WORLDCOMP, the 2012 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing (consists of more than twenty different conferences), July 16-19, 2012, USA, is organized by Prof. Hamid Arabnia from the University of Georgia, USA. He has been running this fake conference business (registration fee collection is the primary goal) for over a decade by accepting almost all submitted papers without any review.

    If the previous link didn't work for any reason, please visit http://sites.google.com/site/worlddump1 .

    A very brief version of FCS'11 (it is part of WORLDCOMP) is at http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/11-01-119 . This link has also information about telephone threats to the person who investigated and revealed the fakeness of WORLDCOMP.

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    Replies
    1. It has come to our attention that an individual using various email addresses is sending false allegations regarding WORLDCOMP and its coordinators to various listservs. Please be advised that any emails that are sent about WORLDCOMP, other than those ending with @world-comp.org or @kkwtlaw.com, are not in any manner associated with WORLDCOMP or its representatives, and in fact, are believed to be from the same individual using various email addresses and contains allegations that are false in their entirety. As such, please disregard any and all emails that you receive regarding WORLDCOMP that do not end with @world-comp.org or @kkwtlaw.com.

      On behalf of the attorneys and law firms representing WORLDCOMP and its coordinators,

      Stephanie
      Legal Assistant

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