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Is there any interest to meet up at the JSM 2014 in Boston? I asked this before for 2013 here and there, but nothing came to fruition. I am bringing this up to your attention again, as the time period to submit requests for business meetings runs through February and March. If there's enough interested comments, I will develop this question to outline more about what may be doable there.

Note that I don't have any particularly good strategies to make CV more visible in the academic and professional community. There's obviously demand for experts (given that the questions are being asked on CV, and few if any of them have more than a couple of answers), but the academic and professional community is not interested in responding. If the ASA President were to give the address focused on CV this may change, but somehow I think there are bigger items on their agenda.

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  • $\begingroup$ Just curious - but why choose having than more than two answers rather than having an answer as a benchmark? Many answers are good enough that another would be redundant. $\endgroup$
    – Scortchi Mod
    Commented Feb 7, 2014 at 10:23
  • $\begingroup$ @Scortchi indeed - often I see an answer and think "well, the points I'd have made look to be covered already, nothing to do but upvote" $\endgroup$
    – Glen_b
    Commented Feb 9, 2014 at 2:36
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @Glen_b There has been a steady downward trend in the answer:question ratio in the last several years. It started at 2:1 in fall 2010 when we "graduated" from beta. 15 months ago it dropped below 1:1. It is now near 0.8:1. That is one worrying sign that StasK may be correct that there is (unmet) "demand for experts" here. $\endgroup$
    – whuber Mod
    Commented Feb 9, 2014 at 22:58
  • $\begingroup$ @whuber my comment relates to Scortchi's point about the number of answers not being much of a benchmark about whether a question has been well-answered - I often see questions answered fully even when there are only 1 or two answers. That's not to suggest that the underlying point of needing more questions with good answers was wrong. $\endgroup$
    – Glen_b
    Commented Feb 9, 2014 at 23:03
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Glen_b Understood. However, once the ratio drops below 1 it is evident there is a dearth of answers: The ideal toward which we aim is that every (unclosed) question ought to have at least one good answer. $\endgroup$
    – whuber Mod
    Commented Feb 9, 2014 at 23:07
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, that's understood, and something it would be nice to improve on.. $\endgroup$
    – Glen_b
    Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 0:26
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ The conversation steered away from the JSM, but I see that there is interest (if that's what the upvotes of the question indicate). I will (1) set up a doodle poll for the best time, and (2) make a request with ASA organizing committee for a small room. I don't think we are ready to make a presentation to the ASA at large about CV (at least I am not; if Peter Flom or whuber are, that would be terrific), and the time to submit one is way past due, but I think we can organize a round-table next year within the consulting or the education section. We can discuss on Meta or in person at the JSM. $\endgroup$
    – StasK
    Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 3:48
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    $\begingroup$ Sorry; it was just idle curiosity, & I didn't mean to distract anyone from the question. Even if every question had 10 good answers it would still be worth publicizing CV among academic & professional statisticians for their own benefit. $\endgroup$
    – Scortchi Mod
    Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 11:09
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    $\begingroup$ It would be interesting to see analyses of how far initially energetic users have dropped out (some notable examples above 10k rep) and conversely how far new active users have joined more recently. But the major issue seems to me that the scope for good general questions seems likely to diminish over time as the forum matures and the fraction of less interesting questions geared to specific datasets or research problems seems likely to drift upwards. Too many users see CV as a help line. $\endgroup$
    – Nick Cox
    Commented Feb 12, 2014 at 11:25
  • $\begingroup$ Quick query on JSM -- what's the mix of applied vs. theoretical content? I'm finding it very hard to tell from the 2014 website at present. $\endgroup$
    – James Stanley
    Commented Feb 12, 2014 at 20:01
  • $\begingroup$ @JamesStanley, it is pretty much entirely up to you. You can make it theoretical and only go to the invited sessions by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. You can make it applied, take a short course or two, and go to the talks in your specific area of interest. You might want to look at the 2013 website; the conference has so much inertia in terms of the makeup of the topics and participants that the mix of applied and theoretical content will hardly shift around in the next 5 or so years. The 2014 program only has the invited sessions fixed up, which are probably more theoretical. $\endgroup$
    – StasK
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 4:27
  • $\begingroup$ @StasK Thanks for that advice -- sounds like a good plan, I'll check the 2013 programme (and I'm very much interested in the applied side of things, rather than theoretical: I'd also seen some of the previous short courses which looked good.) $\endgroup$
    – James Stanley
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 4:29
  • $\begingroup$ I taught a JSM short course once... and I am organizing an (applied) invited session in 2014. The biostat program at JSM is of course huge, and there are also side tracks on mental health, medical devices, imaging, and may be some other stuff. The conference is organized through the section sponsors -- when you submit an abstract (which is too late by now), you indicate which section it should go to, so each (contributed) talk goes through a particular broad area of statistics or two. Auckland has a huge presence, obviously, so you may want to talk to @Thomas Lumley to find out more. $\endgroup$
    – StasK
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 4:34
  • $\begingroup$ @StasK Thanks, I'll drop Thomas a line. $\endgroup$
    – James Stanley
    Commented Feb 17, 2014 at 20:04

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