I just received not one but two invitations to present at an upcoming conference, or even to organise a special session, should I so desire. The catch? It’s the 2006 edition of the scam conference that accepted a randomly-generated paper in 2005.

So I guess maybe the personal opening and “We are emphasizing the area of Mathematical Methods and Optimization in Problem Solving Systems which is related to your specific area” doesn’t really mean I’m an invited speaker (funnily enough, the second invitation was emphasising a different area: Computing Technologies, which certainly sounds worth emphasising). Also notable is that this particular invitation comes via my old Otago student address, which dates back to the days when I didn’t have a “specific area”.

Problem is, now I’m afraid to mark it as spam — not knowing how gmail is working its magic, I’m worried about punishing other more legitimate calls for submissions. Instead, here’s a little link love: Anthony Lieken describes this WMSCI as a “fake conference”, the [I just received not one but two invitations to present at an upcoming conference, or even to organise a special session, should I so desire. The catch? It’s the 2006 edition of the scam conference that accepted a randomly-generated paper in 2005.

So I guess maybe the personal opening and “We are emphasizing the area of Mathematical Methods and Optimization in Problem Solving Systems which is related to your specific area” doesn’t really mean I’m an invited speaker (funnily enough, the second invitation was emphasising a different area: Computing Technologies, which certainly sounds worth emphasising). Also notable is that this particular invitation comes via my old Otago student address, which dates back to the days when I didn’t have a “specific area”.

Problem is, now I’m afraid to mark it as spam — not knowing how gmail is working its magic, I’m worried about punishing other more legitimate calls for submissions. Instead, here’s a little link love: Anthony Lieken describes this WMSCI as a “fake conference”, the](http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/blog/) it (WMSCI) a “spamference”. You’re welcome to make up your own minds, although this blog posting might dissuade you: the poster –then an undergraduate, if I read his later stuff correctly– paid $400 registration after having his paper accepted by “a huge conference having something to do with computing”. Wonder if it was worth it?

(Excuse the ugly phrasing in the links, I’m going for a particular poetic effect. I heartily encourage all seven readers of this blog to emulate me.)