HilbertSpace

> I think you misread and/or misinterpreted OP's point

His "point" was not clear: What was more important in the article, that there was a Google+ community discussing some "problems" or the "problems" he listed of concern to that community?

The leading problem listed was difficulty in getting published, and I suggested a way to get published: Do well on "new, correct, and significant" and, in particular, 'mathematize' the field.

Responding to that "problem" was fully appropriate.

In more detail, one of the best ways to mathematize CS is more in probability, especially as it connects with 'information'. It does connect; trust me on that one.

That was a good and helpful suggestion and should have been welcome.

> Later came these repeated and almost manic allegations of some secret cabal of MODs (using your capitalization) who are after you.

There's a LOT of evidence that some MODs are angry with me and for the past month or so have been attacking me personally. For several reasons I've listed on this thread, much of the downvoting had to be from MODs. Apparently HN is a PG PC sandbox, and MODs will downvote anything they feel violates the PC norms of HN and do so without responding.

PG won't respond to deny this.

I would have been a fool to ignore the clear evidence that I was being attacked and a wuss not to defend myself. It's a scandal for HN, and PG has not responded.

On another user ID I was 'hell banned' here at HN.

Today I finally responded in plain terms to defend myself. If by defending myself I get banned from HN, then so be it. But for now the HN community will see that HN attacks some users personally.

I tried to help CS researchers get published. My claim, easy enough to understand, is that the research paradigm of CS is largely bankrupt, and my recommendation is to further mathematize the field. They are in a "wretched mess" if only from their statement of their "problem".

> puerile delusion of grandeur on display was mildly amusing and continues to amuse me

Insulting nonsense. There is no delusion involved. I was quite apparently attacked and have been several times for about a month now. It's personal, not technical or anything else.

> if I may put it in my own words

My own words for my own statement were much more appropriate: To repeat, CS is close to 'information technology', and there 'information' should be taken seriously mathematically. The R-N theorem is one important approach.

The "lack of background" of the Editors in Chief and chaired professors of computer science was surprising and shocking. I used some group theory and probability based on measure theory and got a new family of statistical hypothesis tests both multidimensional and distribution-free and applied them to ASAP detection of anomalies in server farms and networks, a good CS problem, and bluntly too much of the best of the CS community couldn't handle the math.

So, there is a big, huge gap between some of the best of current CS and what it would take to do at all well applying some 'modern probability' to some CS problems. Due to this gap, my suggestion to learn the math is appropriate and should be seen as helpful.

In simple terms, if a student wants a research career in CS, then as an undergraduate it is much more important for them to major in math than CS. And likely similarly at the Master's level. That is a surprising point but potentially quite helpful and should be welcome.

"On other hand if you can show that your favorite Neveu calculus can be proved sound according to some computable logic, that would indeed be helpful."

Nonsense. Neveu is based just on set theory, axiomatic set theory if you wish, the foundations as in Bourbaki if you wish, or P. Suppes, essentially the same as all of math for the past 100 years or so. For the importance of that material, there is nothing anyone should have to "prove". 'Computability' is not directly relevant.

> For example, to follow up on your own example, ... such a submission will just get dropped

I never had a submission dropped in the sense of 'rejected'. For the paper in question, I sent copies to some journals and just asked if they would like a formal submission. Some journal Editors in Chief said that their journal couldn't review the math. With one such I wrote tutorials before he gave up. So, I didn't make a formal submission and, thus, never got rejected or "dropped".

One journal welcomed a formal submission, and we went forward. They had problems getting reviewers who could read the paper, and reluctantly I suggested a qualified friend who did a good review. Eventually the Editor gave up, and for more reviews apparently the Editor in Chief walked the paper around his campus, had the CS guys say the problem was good and had some math guys say the math was good, and the paper was accepted, in an archival journal. I was invited to present the paper at a conference but declined. I just wanted to publish the thing and be done with it; I had no desire to go to a conference.

It's clear: In being mathematized, the CS community is very short on the needed math. I'm sure it's happened before, e.g., Hamming and the start of coding theory based on finite field theory, likely poorly known in the CS community then. For a researcher with the math, there are important CS problems that can be solved fairly easily just sitting there and, thus, are good research opportunities.

E.g., in Feller II is renewal theory, and it has some obvious applications to a lot that goes on in a server farm or network. For more, in Neveu is martingale theory, and there is one of the strongest inequalities in math (knock off the strong law of large numbers in one line) and more, and it's easy to find martingales in nearly any stochastic system. Should be able to get some nice, new, strong inequalities in many algorithms and processes important in CS. There's plenty that can be done with stochastic optimal control. There are the applications of 'machine learning', that is, statistics done very badly, and can solve the problems much better with statistics done well.

For the paper I wrote, there's much more that could be done; one could run off a dozen or so papers as a 'stream' in roughly the same direction by changing some of the assumptions better to fit various real situations.

So, sure, I'm suggesting some 'field crossing', long known to be a good approach to 'innovation'.

Moreover I'm suggesting exploiting some of the best, rock solid math of the last century. So this is a very sound, conservative suggestion.

That the CS community is very short on this math is a big point and a good research direction for anyone wanting to publish in CS.

Indeed, as is painfully obvious, CS has been taking intuitive and heuristic approaches far too seriously and neglecting solid math approaches. This situation makes CS look dumb, but the flip side is a terrific opportunity.

Again, with the right math from the last century, now should be able to knock off important CS problems by the dozens like shooting fish in a barrel.

HN and you don't like this remark. Fine with me.

I tried to offer some help, but you don't want to hear it and want to criticize me for offering. Fine: I won't offer. I've already deleted the post.

With your remark on 'computability', there's no more reason to respond to you.

I wrote a good post. The CS community lost out.

Can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink.

WHAT a MESS.

I wrote:

> The main criteria for research work are "new, correct, and significant". Do well on all three of these and have NO PROBLEMS getting reviewed and published.

So, I said that have to "do well".

So your

> You couldn't be more wrong.

is a bit strong.

I've published maybe a dozen papers, and I've never had a paper rejected or needing significant revision.

I've never been interested in publishing, and maybe the situation has changed a lot in the last few years while I've being doing other things.

Whatever, my original post to help CS profs get published was not wanted, and I've deleted it. The CS profs can struggle on their own.

Because there is a pattern that would not apply to the relatively random users and needs a very persistent user, that is, a MOD. Because the downvotes happen QUICKLY, as if from a MOD. Because the downvotes don't come with replies. Because only a small fraction of users can downvote. Because part of the pattern of what gets downvoted is material that is relatively advanced technically and, really, a challenge to CS.

My original post was a nice contribution to CS people having trouble getting published. But, if people don't like such a contribution, then they won't have it. So, I deleted it. It's gone. The CS profs can continue to struggle to publish without my help.

It's become clear that HN is PG's PC sandbox.

My original post was downvoted within minutes of when I posted it, and there was no reply. This is NOT nearly the first time. There is a pattern, and I'd be a fool not to conclude that one or more HN MODS are personally angry at me.

"schizophrenic"? Total nonsense; look up the meaning of the word, a very specific medical term. Not even paranoid. I'm just defending myself against a pattern over the past few months at HN. There is a pattern of my being attacked, and this one post is just the most recent example.

As far as I can tell, I'm responding to every response that can use a response.

I've more than once asked PG to correct this. We will see what he does. This situation is a scandal at HN.

This is NOT nearly the first time. There is a pattern, and the only reasonable explanation is that one or more HN MODs just do NOT like a lot of my posts and jump to downvote ASAP with anger.

A guess that fits the facts of what they don't like is anything critical of any other media outlet, anything about CS, or anything about venture capital. But it is necessary to guess since the downvoters essentially never respond to the substance of my posts. The situation has clearly become personal for them and, then, me.

The article had, early on:

"I can’t speak for other disciplines, but within computer science, I’ve always felt that these meta discussions were inadequate — in terms of volume, vigor, and format. They happened mostly at conferences were largely limited to more senior/well-connected researchers, and lagged behind some of the serious problems that have accumulated such as restrictive publisher copyrights and very low acceptance rates at journals and conferences."

So, the claim here I noticed was:

"some of the serious problems that have accumulated such as ... very low acceptance rates at journals and conferences."

So, a big topic in that community was a "serious" problem getting published. So, I outlined how to get published. Simple.

In a word, my outline said to 'mathematize' CS. That suggestion is potentially earth shaking, likely not already in the community, and should be a welcome contribution.

"Rant" is an insult.

"Far cry" in what sense? The AAAI IAAI conference was about the best could expect from the AAAI.

I published in JIS because it has a wider audience than, say, another Elsevier journal on 'theoretical computer scince' or some such, which I did consider.

For JOTA, I contend that such applied math is closer to the important future of CS than nearly any journal in CS. If I am correct here, and my theme in my post was that CS needs to 'mathematize', then I have been helpful.

There's no "Big Shot", another insult, involved. I just listed where I got published. From the article, one of the leading topics on the Google+ community was the difficulty of getting CS published, and I indicated that I had essentially been successful even though I wasn't much interested.

For the academic 'pecking order' of the journals, I have never cared since I've never had any academic aspirations.

But for someone having trouble getting published, the journals I listed are a big step up from no publications. So, if they can do what I did, then they would be ahead. So, my advice should have been seen as helpful, which was clearly the intention.

That lament was one of the leading topics in the Google+ community that was the the subject of the article.

Yes, the article was mostly about the community and not the issues of the community. But the article did list some of the leading issues of the community, and I responded to one of them. Uh, the issues of that community are more important than just the existence of the community! So it should have been appropriate for me to have commented on one of the issues of the community.

I was attacked, downvoted, for my main comment, and then defended myself. This is NOT nearly the first time for such. Usually the result of the downvote is to send my comment to the end of the thread where it is effectively lost, which is clearly the intention of the MOD.

Why a MOD? Because only a small fraction of the users can downvote, and users instead of the MOD attacking me personally write rebuttals. So far I have not a single rebuttal to any of the content of my original post. I did a great service to some lost CS profs -- outlined for them how to publish and, then, got attacked by a MOD.

Then I defended myself. You found my defense offensive. It was, but not nearly as much as that of the attack of the MOD.

The attacks are from downvoting, not upvoting. Only a small fraction of HN users can downvote. With so much downvoting, it has to be the MODs who are doing it. It's so consistent that it's a personal attack on me.

That's what PG's HN MODs do also, and then they attack, usually without any comments. It's PERSONAL. It's a SCANDAL.

There is STILL not a single, meaningful comment in rebuttal to anything I wrote. Not a one.

I outlined for CS profs how to get published, and the HN MODs got their bowels in an uproar.

PG: STOP these GD personal MOD attacks on me. STOP IT.