ACL-2001 GENERAL CHAIR
Bonnie Webber

Since the scope of the General Chair's responsibilities
is still in flux, I start off with a list of what I as
General Chair was involved in doing. Then I list specific
problems that came up that I was called in to help solve,
and finally I list issues on which I believe policy should
be made, so that Chairs in subsequent years can just look
this material up.

I. TASKS

1. Chair appointments: All of these involved finding out from
the previous year's chairs, just what the jobs involved. The
manual currently under development goes some way towards alleviating
this informational need, but it needs revision.
 A. Appoint tutorial chairs (2) - Probably one is sufficient next
    time, given the number of proposed tutorials. Information about tasks
    of tutorial chair(s) should also include what is/is not provided to
    tutorial presenters.
 B. Appoint workshop chair (1) - Expand to two, given the number of
    proposed workshops, the need to negotiate with proposers, and the
    interactions with workshop chairs over deadlines and volume
    publication. 
 C. Appoint student workshop chairs and student workshop advisor -
    The former involves finding out from the previous year's chairs
    who they identified as possible chairs for the current year, as
    the student workshop is supposed to be self-organising.
 D. Appoint publications chair
 E. Appoint demo chair and publicity chairs: I was not successful
    in these tasks. I think the latter didn't make a difference. However,
    there are no scientific demos scheduled as a result of the former
    failure.
 F. Provide feedback to Program Chairs on proposed Program Committee.
 G. Help establish a clear policy on who needs to give what to whom
    when, especially important vis-a-vis Publications Chair.

2. Panels: Work with Donia (as Chair of EACL) and Patrick
   (as local arrangments chair) to organise special panels and
   get funding for one from ELSNET. Topic accepted for latter
   was Language Technology.
3. Call for Papers: Editorial assistance to Program Chairs
4. Workshop Deadlines: Assistance to Workshop Chair to get
   submission dates fixed, and what needs to be sent to Publication
   Chair by when.
5. Proposals to fund Student Workshops: Editorial assistance to
   Workshop Chairs and Workshop advisor. 
6. Direct outside questions/requests to the appropriate person
7. Helped to schedule Student Workshop - special needs regarding
   time, desire not to compete with regular sessions or special events.
8. Dealt with an irate author whose paper arrived too late for
   review, thereby taking the heat off the Program Chairs who were
   busy with more important matters.
9. Assisted Program Chairs in the identification and selection of
   invited speakers.

II. Problems that needed to be sorted out

1. Should there be blind reviewing of both regular papers and student
   workshop papers?

2. What should be the submission dates for ACL, given response dates
   for NAACL and the possibility of allowing rejected papers to be
   revised and resubmitted: Problem if no revision, then little
   difference with multiple submissions.

3. Whether reviewers are called "reviewers" or "program subcommittee
   members", to look better on their CVs.

4. What to charge for workshops: 1-day vs. 2-days. Whether additional
   support given to workshops for receptions (no), invited speakers
   (no).

5. Late paper pre-registration: While this shouldn't be made public to
   authors, policy on this should be made clear to the next set of
   Program Chairs -- i.e., continuing to turn a blind eye, if the
   numbers remain low.

6. Child care and other types of extra-ordinary support for members to
   attend the program committee meeting: it is probably the case that
   a general policy is needed, to avoid people feeling unfairly dealt with.


III. OUTSTANDING PROBLEMS

1. Better record keeping needed. For example, there appeared to be no
   easily obtainable list of previous tutorials and tutorial registrations to
   use in decision making about this year's tutorials. Similarly for
   workshops.

2. Policy regarding under-subscribed tutorials: Should there be
   deadlines by which (a) tutorials that do not have a minimal
   enrollment are encouraged to further advertise, and (b) tutorials
   have to meet this minimal deadline or be cancelled? 

3. Language policy: There is no statement in any call for papers
  (main conference, workshops, student workshop) as to the language
  in which papers may be written. Christian Boitet articulated the
  policy at ACL/Coling, but the question is whether to make whatever
  policy is agreed on public, or leave it tacit (to be rediscovered
  or redecided each year).

4. Registration for invited participants (speakers and panelists).
   I think it is tacky for ACL not to cover this automatically.

5. Student helpers. ACL uses this as a way of enabling students
   to attend ACL who might not otherwise be able to.  This year, Patrick
   did not ``need'' such helpers, but I think it should be a general
   policy to support at least some fixed number of them.

6. Policy on multiple submissions, where one submission is to
   the general meeting and another is to a workshop either for that
   meeting or for the regional meeting. Should there be a policy on
   this, or should it be left each year to the Program Chairs?