I have found that what mathematicians call a "conference" is similar to what computer scientists usually call a "workshop" - almost everybody who submits an on-topic abstract can talk, modulo basic sanity checks, and sometimes on a first-come-first-served basis. What computer scientists call a "conference" often involves fairly careful refereeing (by multiple referees) and doesn't seem to exist in mathematics. The refereeing is often to check for originality, timeliness, and interest, rather than correctness. What mathematicians call a "workshop" is often an affair where the organizers invite their friends to give talks. Sometimes a few short contributed talks may be accepted if there are empty slots, but usually there is no (or only a token) public call for contributions. This type of workshop also exists in computer science, although it is less common. And some mathematics workshops follow the first pattern above. -- Peter Michael Barr wrote:
A propos what Vaughan says, conferences in math are not seriously refereed, often not refereed at all. This makes conference proceedings useless for promotions and also for research grants. Like it or not, this is one of the main reasons mathematicians tend to ignore conference proceedings. But CS conferences are generally carefully refereed with the results Vaughan mentioned.
There are a number of reasons for this, I suppose but the overwhelming one is how hard it is to get read a paper in math, with a concomitant difficulty in getting serious refereeing. I note that CS journals usually want two and sometimes three referees to recommend a paper. With rare exceptions (Wiles, the Hales's paper on the Kepler conjecture, Perlman, should he choose to publish) that is almost unheard of in math. I was on the committee that chose the papers for last summers conference in Nova Scotia and only a couple papers were turned down and they were jokes.
How about a journal called J. Topology. The owners of Topology cannot object to that.
Yes, Cahiers is a good choice. And while many thanks must go to Andree for keeping it going all these many years, first we have to thank Charles Ehresmann for starting it.
Michael