The next AISTATS conference is taking place in Florida, Fort Lauderdale, on April 20-22. (The website keeps the same address one conference after another, which means all my links to the AISTATS 2016 conference in Cadiz are no longer valid. And that the above sunset from Florida is named… cadiz.jpg!) The deadline for paper submission is October 13 and there are two novel features:

1. Fast-track for Electronic Journal of Statistics: Authors of a small number of accepted papers will be invited to submit an extended version for fast-track publication in a special issue of the Electronic Journal of Statistics (EJS) after the AISTATS decisions are out. Details on how to prepare such extended journal paper submission will be announced after the AISTATS decisions.
2. Review-sharing with NIPS: Papers previously submitted to NIPS 2016 are required to declare their previous NIPS paper ID, and optionally supply a one-page letter of revision (similar to a revision letter to journal editors; anonymized) in supplemental materials. AISTATS reviewers will have access to the previous anonymous NIPS reviews. Other than this, all submissions will be treated equally.

I find both initiatives worth applauding and replicating in other machine-learning conferences. Particularly in regard with the recent debate we had at Annals of Statistics.