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TYPES submission guidelines (FYI)



Dear TYPES readers,

Over the past few years, the Types list has grown substantially: there
are now over 1200 subscribers.  At the same time, the world seems to have
gotten very much busier, and everyone seems to want to announce their
event on all the mailing lists as they can find the names of.

In order to keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible -- and the
absolute volume of messages tolerable -- in the face of this deluge, I've
gradually increased the strictness of the submission guidelines for
Types, to the point where I now reject or query over 80% of the
submissions I receive.  For example, I don't distribute second (or
third!) announcements of events unless there are changes in important
particulars such as deadlines.  I do distribute some announcements of
events in 'adjacent' areas, but only if their authors are willing to take
the trouble to write a short prolog explaining why a significant numbers
of Types readers might be interested.  Etc.

Since these new guidelines represent a significant change from what some
people may expect (especially old-timers, who started reading Types in
its early glory days under the leadership of Albert Meyer or Philip
Wadler), it seems worth circulating them.  If you're interested, read
on...

Regards,

        Benjamin Pierce
        (TYPES moderator)

                         ----------------------

   TYPES is a moderated e-mail forum focusing on Type Theory in Computer
   Science, with a broad view of the subject encompassing semantical,
   categorical, operational, and proof theoretical topics, as well as
   algorithmic issues and applications. Typical topics include:
   
     Typed, untyped, or polymorphic lambda calculus; type checking,
     inference, and reconstruction; subtyping, dependent types, calculus
     of constructions, the lambda cube; linear logic, the Curry-Howard
     correspondence; recursive types; adequate and fully abstract
     models; domain theory; category theory; term reduction,
     normalization, confluence; abstract data types; type systems for
     object-oriented, concurrent, distributed, and mobile programming.
     
   Comments and criticisms of results in the literature, open problems,
   and research queries are encouraged. Announcements of relevant
   meetings, publications, and abstracts of papers are also welcome.
   
   Announcements of a general nature should not be sent to the Types
   Forum. The usual criterion for deciding relevance is that the
   announcement should mention one or more subjects in the list above. If
   an announcement does not obviously meet this criterion but would still
   be of interest to many Types readers, it may be prefaced with a brief
   note explaining its relevance.
   
   Normally, only one announcement of a given event will be accepted for
   distribution. Exceptions will be made for second announcements where
   there have been important changes in information such as submission
   dates, provided these changes are mentioned prominently at the top of
   the message.
   
   Submission instructions:
     * Send submissions to types@cis.upenn.edu. Submissions must
       literally include the address types@cis.upenn.edu in their To: or
       Cc: headers. Mailing to a blind To: or Cc: list that happens to
       include types@cis.upenn.edu may result in your message being
       silently ignored.
     * Submissions should be in plain ASCII format -- please, no embedded
       HTML, document attachments, or MIME-encodings.
     * Please include an informative subject line with your message. To
       announce a paper, the subject line should state the subject of the
       paper rather than just `New paper.' To announce a conference,
       please put the conference's name in the subject line, rather than
       just 'Call for papers.'
     * Please don't begin your message with an apology for sending it to
       multiple lists -- this is just a further waste of readers'
       attention. (Many announcements these days are cross-posted, for
       reasons that people generally accept as valid. But if you truly
       feel bad about it, a better solution might be not to post to so
       many lists!)