Among the presentations in a major conference, I attended one where the author cited a paper (of theirs) under review in another major conference. Not only cited it, but showed some of its results.
I have the impression that it should not be possible, since there's the potential risk of influencing reviewers who could also be in the room during the presentation. Or is it only "good practice" not to do so?
Answer
After thinking about the answers provided so far and the discussion in comments, it seems to me that the point of view favouring dissemination of research results unrestricted by the double-blind peer-review process needs a stronger case. I believe that the answer can be derived from higher-level, rather philosophical, principles.
... Or is it only "good practice" not to do so [to present results under review]?
What is the purpose of developing and disseminating research results?
I am an idealist in these things and argue, that it is first and foremost the advancement of human knowledge and ultimately improvement of the conditions of the human society, as well as the world around us -- regardless of what exactly "improvement" means, I have in mind something like a wider social consensus that the change has a positive vector.
Given this stance, unless there are other considerations in the game, there is no reason which could obstruct our advancement of human knowledge, which ultimately rests on dissemination of quality results to the wider public. Of course, we should be careful and act in a good faith so as to be cautious about validity, significance and originality of our results. Peer-review process is only an auxiliary mechanism helping us to filter out ideas/results in violation of these principles, i.e., helps us to recognize and fix our own misjudgements and mistakes, as well as (in the worse case) dissemination of results not advancing knowledge of humankind, but produced for other primary purposes. After all, the ultimate metrics for the results of scientific research is not the outcome of the peer-review process, but rather the long-term impact on the society and the world around us. That is, whether other people will learn something from the results and whether it eventually helps them to build something beneficial to the society.
Unfortunately, thanks to the recent proliferation of the publish-or-perish attitude and its intertwining with the need to advance human knowledge, as well as interactions of these two conflicting forces, gradually peer-review becomes primarily a mechanism to filter bad-faith products - think plagiarism, results falsification and all sorts of other scientific misconduct. Yet, I maintain, the process of filtering should not gain a higher importance than the objective of our pursuit itself. To conclude, if executed with caution, restrictions imposed by double-blind review process should not restrict our ability to disseminate our results.
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