Proceed with caution

Abstract

I work in an expanding field. One sign of this is that international conferences in my area are proliferating. By and large, conferences are a Good Thing. When a discipline is expanding rapidly there are lots of new people to meet, and conferences are the easiest way of catching up with them. However, there's a price to be paid: inevitably there will be Proceedings. These are weighty, multi-volumed publications, because current practice in my field dictates that they contain a condensed version of every talk or poster presentation at the conference. These Proceedings are not a Good Thing; in fact they're actively harmful in a number of ways.