 |
 Personal FAQ |
|
Note that this content was written in 2003, about grievances dating back for several years. If anyone happens to know whether any of these circumstances have since changed, and some probabl have, they're welcome to inform me. I might or might not update this page to mention the fact. But I'm not especially itching to rejoin even if they have. I just don't see the point.
The ACM, for those who don't know, is the Association for Computing Machinery. It's a professional organization that many computer professionals join.
I was once an ACM member. But I long ago renounced my membership and am now happy to have nothing to do with the organization.
Since you’re reading this, I assume you are asking “Why?”
Well, the short answer is this: The ACM made me sign an ethics pledge to become a member, and I felt my obligations under that pledge required me to disassociate myself with ACM itself because I personally feel many of its practices are unethical. This page discusses my reasons.
This is all just my personal opinion.
Sometimes things are not what they seem. I used to think Disneyland was a theme park that happened to sell souvenirs. I now, more cynically, think it's a curio shop with a "hook" to get you to come visit—rides. At least in that case, though, what you see is what you get.
There are some publishing houses that are not that way, however, and ACM is key among them. I no longer view ACM as an organization of scientists who happen to have a way of publishing, but rather as a publishing house that has a clever way of making scientists think they should buy from it... and an even more clever way of generating free content.
It "allows" aspiring authors (who are young, ill-organized, and basically don't know any better) to publish their articles for free. This is a windfall for ACM, which doesn't have to pay for content in the many magazines it sells. Further, in exchange for the "privilege" of not being paid for their work, authors are required to mark their articles as "free for copying". This is absurd. They are lucky to have free content at all—they shouldn't be imposing additional restrictions beyond those necessary to do the publication. Authors who want to, and who have a submission of sufficient value, should be able to charge money for copies in order to offset what ACM didn't pay them for the original article. But the final straw is that ACM then charges authors for a subscription to the journal in question in order to obtain a printed copy of what they wrote.
I wrote a regular column, Parenthetically Speaking in its now-defunct Lisp Pointers magazine, for ACM. I was not paid for that. ACM charged subscribers, but I never saw a dime of it. I even had to subscribe to the magazine in order to see myself in print. Eventually, I decided, enough was enough.
ACM seeks to acquire members against their will by bankrolling conferences and then charging non-members a higher rate. The difference in the rate is sometimes more than the price of becoming a member. That means there is an active tax on being a non-member.
The ACM substantially delayed its entry into the world of e-communication, I think because its primary business is cutting down trees (i.e., publishing). At the time I exited the organization, I had gone years asking for a paperless membership, but was unable to obtain one. (I think they've partly corrected this problem since, although I still think you can't get a CACMless membership.)
I suspect because it makes money advertising and wants to claim a large base, ACM requires subscribing to CACM as part of membership. I didn't want CACM. I didn't read it. I don't like the wasted paper on my behalf. I felt it was both unethical of them to claim me as a subscriber and unreasonable of them to charge me money for the subscription.
ACM used to routinely request certain kinds of "volunteered" contributions and/or subscriptions on my annual invoicing. They would do this by adding the things they wanted me to do (without my requesting it) and make me have to line out the items I didn't want. Anyone not paying careful attention might accidentally pay the higher amount thinking they were just paying for their normal annual load, and not realizing that ACM was continually jacking up their normal contribution. I repeatedly asked that this not be done and but could not seem to affect it.
For all of these reasons, I am proud to no longer be an ACM member. I do not recommend the organization to others.
| Home • Contact • Donate • Legal Notices |
| Copyright © 2008 by Kent M. Pitman. All Rights Reserved. |