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I'm one of the organizing committee members of FSTTCS. Since CS Theory is not so popular in India, it would be a great venue to promote the site. We are expecting about 220 attendees.

I would like to know if Stack Exchange can be one of the sponsors. Can someone guide me on how to get in touch with the people responsible?

The conference is on Dec 12-14; I hope it is not too late.

Update: I just got a reply from SE saying they have too little time to sponsor anything this year. So I guess we have to drop the promotion idea.. I'll see what can be done even without the sponsorship.

Thanks @suresh and others for offering to help.

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    $\begingroup$ another idea would be to persuade someone (yourself) to do a conference report from FSTTCS: this can be posted on the cstheory blog (cstheory.blogoverflow.com) $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Nov 29, 2011 at 20:26
  • $\begingroup$ Sure. I can do that. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Nov 30, 2011 at 9:45
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    $\begingroup$ Is this the latest version of 'best questions' booklet: cs.utah.edu/~suresh/example.pdf ?. Do we have any promotional video/ad..something that can be inserted to the video of each invited talk? $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Nov 30, 2011 at 9:51
  • $\begingroup$ Sadly, this is the most recent one. it's pretty old as well. There have been many interesting questions since. We don't have a promotional video (what a great idea!) or any advertising, but we could maybe crowdsource something in print if you have ideas on what they should be $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Nov 30, 2011 at 17:10
  • $\begingroup$ did you see the new community promotion ad campaign at meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/… ? Maybe a logo for FSTTCS ? $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 23:05
  • $\begingroup$ that's too bad: but maybe next time :) $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 18:18
  • $\begingroup$ @suresh I had a request to make. I've sent you a mail at your cs.utah address. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Dec 7, 2011 at 20:09
  • $\begingroup$ Are there any updates on this? As far as I know there has been no reference to cstheory.SE at FSTTCS. $\endgroup$
    – Prateek
    Commented Dec 13, 2011 at 10:41
  • $\begingroup$ The conference ended yesterday. Most of us students are off for vacation now. After we come back we'll make a conference report that can be posted on cstheory blog. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Dec 17, 2011 at 12:49

6 Answers 6

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You've come to the right place. Please read the blog post:

Supporting Community Conferences

It applies to simple sponsorships and promotion as well as sending participant to larger conferences. The process is outlined at the bottom of the post:

How do we Get Started?

It’s not enough to just drop a “We should send someone to a conference” post into meta and wait around for someone else to organize it. We’ve had some tremendously successful conference sponsorships, but most ideas don’t go much beyond the suggestion stage. Here’s what we recommend:

  1. A meta post is the first step. It’s up to you to raise a discussion on meta to determine which conferences, seminars, conventions, events, or meetups appeal to your community and would be a good way to publicize how great your community is to people who love this stuff as much as you do, but have probably never heard of your site. Or Stack Exchange.
  2. Do some research. What is this conference about? When is it? How many people? What are the costs involved? What are your opportunities for speaking, giving away swag, or otherwise raising awareness of your site?
  3. Rally support. Bring your ideas to the community. Explain why “this is a good idea, we should do this!” Be really specific and persuasive, and make sure you encourage feedback and ideas. We’ll be looking to this meta thread when deciding which conferences and activities are worthwhile.
  4. Bring it to our attention. If the idea has merit and community support, ping us with the details and participants to [email protected]. It’s up to you to sell us on your best ideas. The more details you have, the more likely we’ll be able to sponsor your community and provide whatever support you need to make this event a great success.
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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks! I'll discuss with Supratik(Chair) and give you a complete picture. But I just need a clarification, when you say sponsoring 'community leaders' do you mean someone who is well known in the TCS community or TCS.SE community (or both)? We have some giants in TCS as invited speakers--but they are not active on Stack Exchange. [See fsttcs.org/programme.php ] $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Nov 29, 2011 at 16:49
  • $\begingroup$ Sometimes we will sponsor a member of the Stack Exchange community to attend and/or speak at conferences. That probably would not be a preferred way to support a smaller conference like this, unless there is a strong case which warrants the time and expense of that sort of "sponsorship." $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Nov 30, 2011 at 14:28
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FSTTCS is the main theory conference in India, and it would be fantastic to get cstheory involvement there. We have a reasonable number of users who are students (or researchers) in TCS in India. I'd do more, but I'm nursing my wounds from my paper rejection at FSTTCS this year (just kidding :))

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  • $\begingroup$ Do you know anyone who is active on TCS.SE and has a paper in FSTTCS(or attending)? $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Nov 29, 2011 at 17:54
  • $\begingroup$ Not from the accepted list. But maybe @v-vinay is attending ? he's very active in cstheory. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Nov 29, 2011 at 17:59
  • $\begingroup$ I don't see his name in the registrants list. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Nov 30, 2011 at 9:43
  • $\begingroup$ Let me ping him $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Nov 30, 2011 at 17:11
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    $\begingroup$ Ramprasad has agreed to give an intro talk--he is also active in cstheory. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 6:41
  • $\begingroup$ Excellent. I'm happy to help with material etc. For example, it wouldn't be too hard to generate an updated version of the list of questions $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 17:22
  • $\begingroup$ A couple of questions would be nice, esp. if they are related to formal languages/automata theory. But can this be done before Dec 5? otherwise we won't have enough time. We'll make an 8-page A5 size pamphlet and distribute it with the registration kit. Also, please make the tex files available. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 18:49
  • $\begingroup$ I have a TeX file with appropriate macros, so if someone can provide a list of questions (even just the question numbers) I can create a new version of the slides in the same format (I'm working towards a paper deadline right now so I can't do anything till Saturday). $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 18:59
  • $\begingroup$ It's fine, don't bother then. The file has good questions already. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 19:18
  • $\begingroup$ No I don't mind doing it. as long as I have a short list. For example, the one about shuffling a string $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 20:44
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    $\begingroup$ I've just seen this discussion. I'll be presenting a paper at FSTTCS next week. If I can be of any help to promote cstheory.SE, let me know. And I'll be happy to meet some people I know by name (or nickname) only! $\endgroup$
    – Bruno
    Commented Dec 9, 2011 at 14:25
  • $\begingroup$ too bad we didn´t meet, but I hope you had a nice conference :) $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Dec 19, 2011 at 9:44
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I've made a small promotional ad. Comments?

http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~mitra/cstheoryad.vob

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  • $\begingroup$ looks good. We wont be able to add it to the videos as I suggested earlier. We can show it during the intro talk. $\endgroup$
    – Jagadish
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 15:05
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    $\begingroup$ Sadly, not all questions about theory get answered here, even if they are research level. If you look at the most-upvoted questions, many of them are still open. Perhaps just "Questions Answered. In theory." $\endgroup$
    – Aaron Sterling
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 16:14
  • $\begingroup$ I've made that change. $\endgroup$
    – Soumitra
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 17:03
  • $\begingroup$ I couldn't hear the sound :(. what's the voice over (if any) ? $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 18:39
  • $\begingroup$ The video does not have any audio. If I can find a suitable audio file in the public domain then I will add that. $\endgroup$
    – Soumitra
    Commented Dec 2, 2011 at 5:18
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Introducing CSTheory to students via Algorithmic Contest

In order to make the event more interesting for students, we are organizing an Online Algorithmic Contest as part of FSTTCS.

The format of the contest is as follows:

1.Three problems will be posed on the first day of the conference on Algo Muse website.

  1. The students can answer them at their leisure and submit in two days. The contest is open to anyone, so we are expecting around 100-150 participants. Top performers will get some prizes.

  2. After the contest, we will publish an editorial which will contain solutions to the problems along with some additional references. (Brief history: We have been conducting some internal contests in IIT Bombay for a while now).

How CSTheory can be promoted

One problem will be designed such that the editorial will contain links to the following CSTheory posts as a natural extension to the solution:

Problems to reduce from to prove an $\Omega(n\log n)$ lower bound

Problems that can be used to show polynomial-time hardness results

This would be a gentle way of getting students interested about CSTheory site.

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  • $\begingroup$ Maybe our SE overlords can provide a prize for this competition ? $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 23:06
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This doesn't address the issue of sponsorship, but this list of original proofs generated on cstheory.SE might help in promoting it.

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  • $\begingroup$ That's an excellent idea. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat Mod
    Commented Dec 2, 2011 at 16:25
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You can check this meta discussion for one thing: SE offers pizza as a sponsoring. It works outside of the US. There are also people you can contact directly, people that might not read every meta discussion on every site :).

Sponsored discussion groups

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