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Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

arunraghavan.net

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#141

Post by pc86 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #138
pc86 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not his duty to do anything, and he's explicitly saying people have accepted speaking slots then not shown up so your doubts are unfounded. Have you never attended a conference where there is a last-minute change in a speaker or talk? Theirs is not the first time I've heard of that happening, either.

Have you never attended a conference where a speaker was not from a developing country but didn't bother to show up anyway? I had I say charge more, take higher deposits if needed but be more hands on with all speakers (not discriminating against "global south"): get their precise arrival info, always be in touch about their status, meet at the airport, organize their accommodation, etc. So they have no chance to esc…

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#142

Post by 2143 »

tooltower wrote: post #47
ido wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this depend on? I (Israeli citizen) always got 10 year visas to the US (now on my 3rd one).

Visa type is also a factor. F1 and H1B frequently get capped to just 1 year.

I had a 5-year F1 visa for what would normally be a 2-year graduate course.

I was under the impression that 5 years was the norm, considering a lot of undergrad courses (in engineering especially) take about that long to complete.

Grad schools too can take that long if you're aiming for a PhD.

(Although, when you graduate your F1 expires even if there's still time left on it; so you can't continue staying in the US after graduating without obtaining an OPT, or a different type of visa, PR or whatever).

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#143

Post by 2143 »

mhitza wrote: post #111
ido wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought EU citizens no longer need a visa to the US ahead of time at all[0]? [0] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...

> I thought EU citizens no longer need a visa Overwhelming majority yes, exceptions are citizens of: Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus.

What's different about those three countries?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#144

Post by ghaff »

throwaway290 wrote: post #138
pc86 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not his duty to do anything, and he's explicitly saying people have accepted speaking slots then not shown up so your doubts are unfounded. Have you never attended a conference where there is a last-minute change in a speaker or talk? Theirs is not the first time I've heard of that happening, either.

Have you never attended a conference where a speaker was not from a developing country but didn't bother to show up anyway? I had I say charge more, take higher deposits if needed but be more hands on with all speakers (not discriminating against "global south"): get their precise arrival info, always be in touch about their status, meet at the airport, organize their accommodation, etc. So they have no chance to esc…

A large tech conference may have 100+ speakers. They're not all getting the white glove treatment.

Life does happen in any case--especially in these days when people are acutely aware that they can't show up at conferences with an illness. I've also filled in for a speaker who just totally forgot they had a session at the conference and were double-booked elsewhere. It happens. Might seem odd but it can happen when you might have a a dozen speaking slots a year and many more proposals in flight.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#145

Post by rbanffy »

vient wrote: post #16

There is also a specific subset of this problem named "USA conferences on themes from Technology Alert List" with common examples being information security conferences like DEFCON or BlackHat. Just mentioning such conference during visa application may already give you headache, and usually you work in this field if you go to such conference - working in critical field automatically gets you an administrative proces…

> getting US visa is the worst by a wide margin compared with EU or UK.

Indeed. I’m a Brazilian/Hungarian living in Ireland and Hungary did a number by telling the US that Hungarians born abroad can’t use the ESTA system and need to apply through the “normal” channels.

I had my interview scheduled for next week, but since I had to travel for a family emergency, I had it rescheduled to the next available slot… in mid-November. And all seems done through a for-profit third party and feels really, really scammy. Why would a government that has a very large embassy need a third party to manage scheduling visa interviews?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#146

Post by throwaway290 »

pc86 wrote: post #141
throwaway290 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never attended a conference where a speaker was not from a developing country but didn't bother to show up anyway? I had I say charge more, take higher deposits if needed but be more hands on with all speakers (not discriminating against "global south"): get their precise arrival info, always be in touch about their status, meet at the airport, organize their accommodation, etc. So they have no chance to esc…

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#147

Post by distant_hat »

nirbheek wrote: post #78
i_no_can_eat wrote: post #25

There is another side to this. Whenever I have organized conferences, I end up receiving lots of requests for invitation letters, typically from researchers in India, for Visa purposes. I absolutely understand this, and I have always done my best to accommodate these requests. But this is time-consuming, and it is very annoying when those researchers (who are sometimes also scheduled to speak) never show up, and neve…

Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for tourism than to attend a conference or for business. You need to supply fewer documents for a tourist visa, there's lesser scrutiny, and in many countries you're more likely to get a longer-duration visa (6 months rather than exact duration) for tourism than f…

This is not always true and depends on things like other visas on your passport, how often do you travel abroad and so on. For people who are traveling for the first time outside India compared to those who have other first world country stamps things can be very different. The first time I visited Germany from India (with an invite from a university there), I got an exactly 6 day multiple entry visa which might have landed me in trouble even if my flight was delayed by over 3 hours. The next time when I visited the consulate with a B1 visa for US and a visa for UK, they were apologetic about asking me to come to the consulate and returned the visa fees saying you are our guest and gave a 3 month visa.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#148

Post by rbanffy »

sofixa wrote: post #75
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The four designated State Sponsors of Terrorism are Cuba, Out of curiosity what's the latest terrorist attack sponsored by the Cuban state?

Operation Northwoods? Oh wait.. (Proposed false flag operation where the US joint chiefs of staff wanted to commit terrorist acts in the US and blame them on Cuba as a pretext for invading the island; it got up to the bloody president who shot it down, so it was a very serious plan)

Were the joint chiefs replaced because of that?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#149

Post by azangru »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #115
azangru wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about just give up and quit your job? It would have the same effect. If by "it would have the same effect" you mean that it will be ignored, then maybe. But if you are saying that not attending international conferences is the same as not getting a job as a researcher in the first place, then I find this an exaggeration. Especially considering that one can participate in the scientific process by submitting the…

Have you ever participated in a research community? You’re going to be at a severe disadvantage compared to peers in the US if you’re unable to promote your work to, and network with, the leaders in your field (the majority of whom are based in the global North). Also, many of the top publishing venues in CS are conferences, and it is not uncommon for them to require in-person presentations as a condition for accepta…

> Have you ever participated in a research community?

Yes. A little bit. Though not in CS.

> You’re going to be at a severe disadvantage compared to peers in the US

> ...

> if you want to have a scientific career

What does having a scientific career mean to you? Are there universities outside of the global North? Do people hold positions in those universities? Is there any research work happening there? Can someone get a place there without travelling around the world? If the answer to these questions is yes, then how is it not a scientific career?

(I am not trying to compare the salary of a professor in a US university with one from a university in global South. I am simply curious about the blank statements "How about just give up and quit your job" or "if you want to have a scientific career").

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#150

Post by rbanffy »

Nextgrid wrote: post #94
light_hue_1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a building with a research reactor for years. In my office I had other students from China. A student from Iran worked on the reactor. We all went in tours together. This is not a federal rule. No one was required to be any distance away from the reactor based on their nationality. No one checked passports at the entrance to our building. The doors were just open. That's why you can't find this rule onlin…

> No one was required to be any distance away from the reactor based on their nationality. No one checked passports at the entrance to our building. Just because nobody enforces the rule doesn't mean it doesn't exist? It could be that the people who were supposed to enforce it correctly determined that the whole idea is BS and decided to save time. It doesn't mean the rule doesn't exist and it can come back at anytim…

Discretionary enforcement is the absolute worst.
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