> But I agree with you, more conferences is nice. More opportunities for sharing knowledge and making connections with more people.

So you’re saying that 927 wasn’t relevant at all.

(Par for the course with 927 references anyway.)

I wrote the 927 reference, not the commenter you're replying to. I agree with you both, though the joke wrote itself! Of course conferences don't "compete," no more than journals "compete," especially in a world where peer review is increasingly becoming open sourced; but that's what makes (made?) the joke slightly more amusing.

Perhaps the more substantive discussion is, when you increase access to publication, does quality increase? decrease? stay the same?

> Perhaps the more substantive discussion is, when you increase access to publication, does quality increase? decrease? stay the same?

An analogy would be with sellers and buyers in a market. If you make it easier to sell without decreasing the cost to the buyer of reliable information about the seller and product, what happens?

Examining Amazon might give us some clues. My belief is that it greatly shifts transaction costs onto the buyer, by forcing each buyer to do a great deal of research and credential-checking, rather than having that done by relatively few and relatively knowledgeable curators.

Someone (JWZ?) said "Linux is only free if you don't value your time". The same might be said about proliferating conferences.

My bad.

927 isn’t a joke at this point any more; it’s just middlebrow dismissal.