Communications of the ACM
The discipline of computer science has historically made effective use of peer-reviewed conference publications as an important mechanism for disseminating timely and impactful research results. Recent attempts to "game" the reviewing system could undermine this mechanism, damaging our ability to share research effectively.
I want to alert the community to a growing problem that attacks the fundamental assumptions that the review process has depended upon. My hope is that exposing the behavior of a community of unethical individuals will encourage others to exert social pressure that will help bring colluders into line, invite a broader set of people to engage in problem solving, and provide some encouragement for people trapped into collusion by more senior researchers to extricate themselves and make common cause with the rest of the community. My motivation for writing this Viewpoint is because I became aware of an example in the computer-architecture community where a junior researcher may have taken his own life instead of continuing to engage in a possible collusion ring.a
Collusion rings extend far beyond the field of computer architecture. I will share another data point, from artificial intelligence and machine learning. I will keep some of the details (like the identity of the specific conference) vague because I think naming names could do more harm than good. Since my goal is to raise awareness of the issue and help people understand how widespread it is, I do not think such details are essential.
