[truly]

In CS, another sin is that you have to "justify" the significance of the results even in theory conferences.

Hence many papers contain exaggerated claims with respect to practicality, importance and so on.

Another sin is that the results need to be "difficult" and "surprising" in order to publish. Hence, if you present your story in a simple-to-understand fashion, you run a high risk of rejection. Better not simplify your results before publishing -- keep all original notation, even if you figured out you do not need that many indices.

This has become a dogma and there is little chance of all this nonsense stopping anytime soon.

It is refreshing to read old papers that merely get to the point and are significant while being nice to read.

[IggleSniggle]

As someone with a background in music within the Academy, where acoustics is an undeniable physical foundation for the making of meaning, and semantics are frequently well established, but the application, usage and interpretation is entirely up to humans...I have (good/bad?) news for computer science:

(from my relatively uninformed perspective)

As an academic discipline, it seems that computer science is quickly returning to its roots in philosophy of logic, now with a strong connection to sociology.

In journalism, if it bleeds, it leads.

In academia, if it begins as an inscrutable mess but unlocks to a "Eureka! It's so simple!" moment in the audience, it's a sure hit. If you've found it, expound it?

Like in journalism, a lot of academia chases its own tail. Publish the bleed/Eureka moment regardless of its inherent value, as long as it produces the desired consumption by the audience.

"The fool looks at the guru who points at the moon" and all that. Lots of focus on how to go about pointing, often too little focus on the searching.