Xjyuk

I received a very weird email from an international conference commitee, telling that their society (organising the conference) after they accepted the final editing of my conference paper, about 8 months after the end of a 10 days, very expensive conference, was reviewing the content of my paper and finally deciding to exclude it from the publication in the proceedings, since my ideas did not reflect the society ideas and methods. The book they are publishing is not a selection of papers, but the only proceedings record, of the facts and people that where at the conference, therefore I believe that they are acting in an irregular way, since the selection of topic had to be completed at the time of the initial abstract selection and not after an author was accepted, paid over 3000 euros to travel and attend, and spend about 7 months to revise the paper. There were no condition specified at the time of registration, therefore, as for general other international conference, registration, acceptance and oral presentation means being part of the proceedings, if not otherwise explicitly specified. I don't believe that conference organisers can play with people and generate money losses, mostly discriminating between authors based on their society preferences. Also conferences proceedings are formal records of topics discussed and people contributing, and I was there, with all witnesses, and facts cannot be altered.

I find your arguments very compelling and persuasive (except the one about “generating money losses”, which I think is not really the point, and isn’t something I’d advise you to focus on, although it’s understandable that having incurred great expense to attend the conference would add to your sense of outrage). If the conference website, correspondence with the organizers, and other official conference materials led you, and would lead a reasonable person, to believe that your paper will be published in the conference proceedings, then it seems pretty clear-cut that the organizers are guilty of a serious misrepresentation, and, under normal, circumstances, their behavior would be completely unacceptable.

The only explanation I can think of that would make for a legitimate reason to exclude your paper from the proceedings would be if they discovered that your paper is outright fraudulent or involved some serious unethical behavior on your part. Just saying your paper “does not reflect the society ideas and methods” isn’t nearly enough of a justification to make such a drastic move sound acceptable. (But I assume there are additional details that would shed more light on what’s going on here, although they may not change my conclusion.)

As for what you can do, it’s hard to say without more background details about your field, the people involved, what they find wrong with your paper, your professional status, etc. But certainly I think it would be quite reasonable on your part to raise a fuss and complain about this seemingly unfair treatment, and ask for the decision to be changed. Some people you might want to involve could be your department chair, other colleagues you are on friendly terms with, your advisor (if you have one), people you know who attended the conference, the chair of the organizing committee, and the publisher in charge of the proceedings volume. I think it’s quite possible that once this decision is scrutinized by enough reasonable people with some sway, you will see justice done.

Good luck! Hope you get this sorted out.