A typical question in every workshop I co-organize is whether we (the organizers) are allowed to submit papers to the workshop.
I almost never do it but I have no problem with other co-organizers doing it (I’m assuming we are talking about real workshops, not about conferences disguised as workshops) with just one pragmatic condition: I don’t want this to add any extra work to my organization duties. By this I mean that I’m not going to manage papers from organizers outside EasyChair (or any other conference management system) to ensure the anonymity of the reviewers. This is not only a pain in the ass for me but also for the affected reviewers and the whole PC.
So, do you want to submit a paper to the workshop you’re organizing? Fine with me but then I´ll just trust that you’ll look the other way when your reviews start coming.
(comment posted on behalf of Alfonso Pierantonio): I am not in favor of organizers in submitting papers to their own workshop, although a workshop is something completely different than a conference or a special issue, where the community is much stricter. I might understand this can be allowed for the sake of having better discussions or material to be debated. Said that, I understand your point .. in my opinion the name of the reviewers for workshops at least should be disclosed, it would be beneficial for the quality of the process and would revitalize the discussions
I actually think it’s a *good* idea for organisers to submit to their own workshops – where, by workshop, I mean something that’s for discussion of new and evolving ideas, position statements, etc. The workshop organiser is a facilitator – they put in the leg work to get the event running, and obviously they have ideas to share. It would seem to be doing the community a disservice for them to not submit their ideas. But if it’s a conference masquerading as a workshop (e.g., some of the ICSE workshops) then I wouldn’t want to submit.