Re: So what are the rules about SVP and publishing? Or talking about present...

[MKIRKALDY@aol.com]

True, but for 99.9% of the presentations from the past years, I could have  
written them in the sky before the meeting and there would have been no  
impact.  Dan Brown could do a book on SVP and its rules :-).  The  abstracts 
and presentations are "secrets" shared by thousands of people.  
 
It seems to me too that SVP would serve itself better if it did seek  more 
publicity.  Can anyone who wasn't at the meeting name the other  recipients 
of the Lanzendorf awards?  (Thanks to Tess, we know  that she and Bob won 
one for their Carnegie mural.)  What  publicity from the meeting would inspire 
a person to attend a future  meeting?  What publicity was there at all?
 
Mary

In a message dated 10/20/2009 6:39:06 P.M. Eastern Daylight  Time, 
afarke@gmail.com writes:
On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 2:53 PM, B tH  <soylentgreenistrex@yahoo.com> wrote:
> As a total neophyte on this  subject,
> I'm curious as to why the 'secrecy' is necessary?

To  answer the question in the subject line, here's a direct quote from
the SVP  abstract book of this year: "Observers are reminded that the
technical  content of the SVP sessions is not to be reported in any
medium (print,  electronic, or Internet) without the prior permission
of the  authors."

And to follow up on Mike's response. . .

1) The  threat/perceived threat of being scooped by other scientists.
2) Abstracts  (and presentations) are only preliminary. Many a
discussion on the DML about  an abstract or presentation has been later
revealed to be hopelessly  premature, with rampant speculation on a
topic for which there is little  supporting information. Hence the
frequent reminder to "wait for the paper."  The primary investigators
should be able to complete their work without 50  people who haven't
seen the specimen telling them how wrong the  interpretations are.
3) High profile science glam magz have rather stringent  criteria for
acceptance of articles. If it is perceived that a find has  been
already publicized (hence hurting the journal's chance to be  the
exclusive first outlet for the research), the paper may be  rejected.
Because (rightly or wrongly) a paper in Science or Nature can  have
huge impacts on a scientist's career (tenure, promotion, hiring,  grant
funding), many folks (quite rightly, in my opinion) get a  little
touchy about unauthorized discussion of unpublished results.  Whether
or not anyone has *actually* been hurt by a DML posting is  another
issue altogether, but perception is important.

Just my three  cents,

Andy
--