Quick question. ASA’s session organizer site appears non-functional. First no response, then administrator’s login where it has never heard of me. Anybody know what is going on? ASA isn’t answering email; I did not try calling. (I’m almost done, just need to forward 1 paper to round tables if it gets released by its first choice. I can see why people don’t remember to do this.)
Author: olderwoman
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Sociological Confessions 
Don’t know what is going on but it’s not just you — I tried to login to track a paper and it can’t figure out who I am either.
same here. can’t track my paper.
I tried to log in to renew my membership and it didn’t work; I think their website is just having issues.
it’s said for at least a day that it would be down 9-3 pst today; but nonetheless i was in until 1 pm est with no problems before it wouldn’t reload for me. i think it’s a little practical joke they’re playing to see who organized their sessions early and who’s down to the wire (ahem). speaking of which, for those of us who are doing this for the first time – some better explanations of terms, process, instructions would be peachy keen. i’m mostly just hoping my best guess will be right.
@4 “some better explanation”: Indeed. I had a number of questions which I sent by email and were never answered.
Ha! Just tried it again and it worked. DONE! But I re-second the gripe about instructions. I THINK I’m done, but I’m not sure how to tell whether my session really exists.
ditto the gripe about instructions. after I forwarded the papers I did not accept, I had hoped to email the authors and let them know, but they are now completely gone from my queue. And, when I tried to use the “send bulk email” button to write to those whose paper I did accept, I learned that it does not *send* email. Instead, folks must go to the ASA site to check on their paper to see my “email.” And, after moving the accepted papers into my session, the authors’ emails were no longer visible to me (??!!) so I had to google them to find their emails so that I could let them know I had accepted their paper. I would prefer to send email from the ASA site, but if they are not going to make this happen they really should change the name of the “send bulk email” button to “write something here and hope authors will log on and read it.”
“I’m almost done, just need to forward 1 paper to round tables if it gets released by its first choice. I can see why people don’t remember to do this.”
My paper has gotten stuck with the organizer of my first choice session two years in a row. I had to email the organizer both times, only to get a “oops, sorry” email. At that point, my second choice was full, as were most of the relevant roundtables, meaning I got shuffled off to a misc roundtable. Yes, I was pissed.
And now, the day before the notification date, my paper is still listed as “under review” with the organizer of my first choice.
This is a terrible system.
terrible, terrible, i agree. i have to say that i’m way better equipped to apply next time now that i’ve been on the other side of the desk and seen how really chaotic and random it is. advice for students submitting to the student forum: put us as your second choice so at least we can get you on a roundtable rather than giving you up to another session where you’re less likely to be accepted.
holy flying spaghetti monster, i just called ASA and talked to a real person who gave me real help with the system. go kendra.
Yup, it’s a stupid system.
Unfortunately, alternatives are bad as well. For example, another national conference I attend just made the reviews of papers available. First of all, papers are reviewed by all sorts of others in the discipline, many of whom probably have papers under review themselves competing for the same exact slots. How is that for an incentive structure for honest reviews? Second, people score papers on numerous dimenions and the scores get averaged. Yup, one reviewer with an issue and you can kiss your chances good-bye. It would make sense to pitch the lowest and highest scores (there are four reviews for each paper), but that would make too much sense, I guess. At least with ASA, a person is requested to organize a session for a reason, presumably people trust that person’s judgement. At this other conference, some completely random person with a really bad record could oust your paper anonymously. Not so good.