There is no requirement to be affiliated with an institution to publish, or even hold any kind of degree. If the journal or conference is double blind, they will never even know about your credentials.
Of course, credentials do imply some skills and content quality that cause publications to be accepted, but the reverse isn't true.
> If the journal or conference is double blind, they will never even know about your credentials.
That is not necessarily true. The style sheet for the journal may require the author to specify his/her institutional affiliation right under his/her name. Then, before the paper goes to a referee in a double-blind peer review process, it is first examined by the editor or editorial board who decide if it is even a good match for that journal. If the journal staff have had a problem with crank submissions or even just a vague fear of cranks, they may simply decline to handle a paper without a clear institutional source.
I left academia for an outside career but I still publish a paper in my field from time to time. However, I have heard through the grapevine that my submissions are welcome purely because everyone knows I used to be affiliated with one respected university department. Without that established reputation, my papers might have been refused straight away.
Funny you should say that, I just recently registered for a conference where the HTML form could not even be submitted until the "Institution" and "Role at institution" fields were filled in. I don’t know if unknown people who wrote "None" would be filtered out, but it shows the general expectations that the organizers have.
None works. Unaffiliated also works, or you can make something up (e.g. Ministry of Truth if you are Gilad Bracha).
Submission management platforms are pretty generic, no one (in their right mind) rolls their own, so I wouldn't take the way they work as signals of intent.
For this one, the host university did roll their own, on the basis of some form-generating service that Google offers. Note that here I was speaking about a conference registration form, not a paper-submitting form.
Then that's just what they need to print attendance badges. They aren't going to not take your money because you have no proper affiliation. Put something plithy in there and you are sure to make some new friends at the conference.
> They aren't going to not take your money because you have no proper affiliation.
There is no fee for the conference I mentioned, nor for most conferences in my field. I feel sorry for anyone in a field where they have to pay just to visit another university and present a paper.
I will have no problem presenting a paper at that conference because, again, people vaguely know of my past affiliation. However, proposals for papers are screened by an editorial board just like journals before the person’s registration is accepted, and it may well be that someone without any affiliation would find themselves unwelcome.
I would be surprised if your area's leadership was so petty, but I guess it's possible. Double blind works well in this case, nothing else will actually.
Our conferences cost money because...well...ACM. Heck, even when we use university resources, the universities still charge us. You'd be surprised how much a biggish room goes for at ucla, for example.
Of course, credentials do imply some skills and content quality that cause publications to be accepted, but the reverse isn't true.