Submitting abstracts versus papers to speak at conferences

There is going to be a complex systems conference at Warwick in September.

Instead of just submitting an abstract, one has to submit an entire paper in order to give a talk. The paper is up to 6 pages long if one is trying for a 20-minute talk, and it is up to 15 pages if one is trying a 40-minute talk. (One can submit only an abstract if one is trying for a poster.) This resembles CS (and presumably other engineering) conferences more than what I usually attend, where the longest required document I have seen are 2-page extended abstracts that are only marginally annoying. Although I am very interested in attending this conference, given that (1) I can present my work at equally or more prominent conferences that don't have such stringent (and, more important, time-consuming!) submission requirements and (2) conference proceedings and the like count next to nothing in mathematics, there is really no incentive at all for me to do this. (Note that if I weren't so self-motivated about writing things up anyway or if I wanted to push myself to write something up in a timetable that happened to correspond roughly to the submission deadline, then I would consider doing something like this for that reason.) It would be a waste of my time, and that's before I consider the fact that the conference may well conflict with my Examination duties at Oxford. I considered e-mailing the relevant organizer to mention this, but it's not worth it. (I have e-mailed someone involved with the conference whom I know essentially just to remark that I think it's a very bad policy if one wants to optimize the quality of a conference.) I think that part of the reason for the submission requirement is as a self-selection procedure for people who are willing to go through the major hassle, but frankly I would find it pretty surprising if lots of people aren't turned off by that whole thing. I also expect that this will lead to heavy biases in the backgrounds of the people attending in favor of people from subjects where conferences are usually like this.

If the conference doesn't conflict with Examination duties, I may show up for a bit without giving a presentation (depending, of course, on who is speaking). It's in Warwick, which is an easy train ride away.