Hello all, 

Thanks again for all of your work getting us to this point in the conference planning process. I know it's intense.

In addition to Richard’s observation about wide-ranging review scores, I’d like to offer a statistical perspective. My calculations could be off, but based on the number of submissions received in ConfTool and the cutoff proposed, the rate of acceptance appears to look like this:

Long presentations: 78 out of 234 (33%)

Short presentations: 100 out of 292 (34%)

Panels: 14 out of 43 (32.5%)

Workshops: 15 out of 33 (45%)

By comparison, an average of acceptance rates from the 2015-2019 conferences looks like this:

Long presentations: 42%

Short presentations: 46%

Panels: 76% 

Workshops: 64%

Note that in some ways these acceptance rates are complicated because of the location and venue size of each conference and the options for submission types (in some cases ‘panels’ included other formats, like ‘forums’). Certainly it is the prerogative of the PC to set the standard for the academic program, and that is a very complex calculus. It is worth considering, though, that there is a direct connection between conference acceptance and conference attendance (especially now, with funding so scarce). In the bid that Georg and Walter submitted, I believe there was room for 8 parallel sessions. Is that still the case? Is there room to expand the number of concurrent sessions, or is the maximum number of available rooms now 6? I ask to better understand if the cap on parallel sessions is a logistical one.

Thanks again for all that you are doing! and best wishes,

Diane