[physPop]

Yes, this kind of momentum is certainly a factor.

Another issue is that "best paper" competitions tend to attract younger scientists who don't have the same "star power" to generate citations.

Star power in science is nothing to scoff at either. If Einstein was still about and writing papers you can be sure everyone and their grandmother would cite them, even if the papers were useless. Now, while that is an extreme example, many fields have their own "stars" that are credited with making significant gains in a particular area.

[raphman]

> Another issue is that "best paper" competitions tend to attract younger scientists who don't have the same "star power" to generate citations.

At all CS conferences I know of, 'best papers' are selected from all accepted submissions without the authors having a say.