--- name: fse-submission description: Use when auditing an ESEC/FSE research-track submission for HotCRP readiness, covering the mandatory paper-registration step, the ACM Primary Article Template page budget, double-anonymous "heavy" anonymity, the open-science Data Availability statement, PACMSE publication, and desk-reject triage before the AoE cutoff. --- # FSE Submission Run this audit before uploading to the FSE HotCRP site. FSE research papers are published as **journal articles in PACMSE** (Proceedings of the ACM on Software Engineering), so the submission is judged like a journal manuscript that also earns a conference slot. Every number below was read from the FSE 2026/2027 research-papers calls on 2026-07-09 via search renderings of the `conf.researchr.org` URLs (see `resources/official-source-map.md`); treat them as a one-cycle snapshot and reopen the live call first. ## The two-step deadline FSE separates **paper registration** from **paper submission**, and both are AoE: - **Registration** locks in title, abstract, authors, and conflicts a week early (FSE 2026: 4 September 2025). Miss it and the system will not accept the PDF later. - **Submission** uploads the anonymized PDF (FSE 2026: 11 September 2025). FSE 2027's single research deadline is 2 October 2026. Register with the *real* title and abstract, not a placeholder — the abstract drives reviewer bidding, and a registered abstract that diverges from the final paper quietly worsens your PC match. ## Format and page budget - **ACM Primary Article Template**, unmodified, in the single-column review format. This is the ACM path, not IEEE — do not carry an IEEEtran habit over from a sibling venue. - **Page budget (verify per cycle):** FSE 2027 posts **≤18 pages** for all text and figures plus **4 pages** for references only. There is no separate unlimited appendix; anything reviewers must read to judge the paper lives inside the budget. - Margins, font size, and spacing are fixed by the template; editorial compression, not template tampering, is how you recover space. ## Double-anonymous "heavy" sweep FSE runs **heavy** double-anonymous review: anonymity is preserved through *all* reviewing and discussion, and even a later Major Revision response letter must stay anonymous. Because SE papers lean on tools, repositories, and mined data, the leak surface is wide: ```bash # Mechanical pass on the submission PDF and any anonymized artifact archive pdfinfo paper.pdf | grep -Ei 'author|creator|producer' pdftotext paper.pdf - | grep -nEi 'github\.com/[a-z0-9-]+|gitlab|zenodo\.org/record|acknowledg|grant' | head unzip -l artifact.zip | grep -Ei '\.git/|\.DS_Store|/home/|/Users/' | head grep -rni 'university\|@[a-z0-9.]*\.edu\|our (tool|group|lab)' artifact/ --include='*.md' | head ``` The SE-specific leaks: a tool named after your lab, a screenshot showing a username, a data- availability link pointing at a personal GitHub, commit metadata inside a zipped repository, and issue-tracker URLs in the evaluation. Re-host artifacts behind an anonymizing service *before* upload. ## Open science at submission time FSE expects sharing by default under an open-science policy. Concretely for the submission: - Provide an **anonymized** artifact link or upload anonymized material, and add a **Data Availability** statement describing what exists and where it will live after acceptance. - If you genuinely cannot share (industrial confidentiality, human-subjects limits), say so and why — a missing availability story reads as a scored weakness, not a neutral choice. - Cache LLM outputs and pin mining provenance now; these cannot be reconstructed at review time. ## Desk-risk triage | Finding at audit time | Severity | Real fix | |---|---|---| | Main text over the page budget | Desk-reject-grade | Cut or move to the artifact; reference pages do not absorb body text | | Template altered (margins, shrunk font) | Named desk-reject ground | Recompile clean, recover space editorially | | Identity leak in PDF, artifact, or tool name | Anonymity violation | Re-anonymize and re-host; scrub PDF metadata | | Abstract/paper not registered by the earlier date | No submission slot exists | Nothing fixes this post-AoE — calendar it now | | No availability statement, no artifact | Scored against the paper | Add the statement + an anonymized package | | Same study under review elsewhere | Dual-submission exposure | Withdraw one venue; verify the current concurrent-submission wording | ## Final-week order of operations 1. Freeze the body early; references can churn, the argument cannot. 2. Register title/abstract/authors/conflicts well before the registration cutoff. 3. Build the anonymized artifact and place its link and Data Availability statement in the paper. 4. Run the mechanical anonymity checks on the *final* PDF and the *final* archive, not drafts. 5. Fill every HotCRP field — topics that match your evidence, conflicts for every coauthor's institution and recent collaborators — a day early; late conflicts are the classic midnight failure. 6. Re-download the uploaded PDF and read it cold to confirm it is the file you meant. ## Reverify each cycle - Whether the year runs one deadline or two (FSE 2024 used two; 2025-2027 post one). - The page budget and which ACM template revision is required. - Supplementary handling, artifact-track timing, dual-submission wording, and any AI-disclosure rule — all cycle-volatile; none should be assumed stable. ## Output format ```text [FSE submission status] ready / blocked / needs work [Registration] title/abstract/authors/conflicts locked by the earlier deadline? yes/no [Format] pages used (body/refs), ACM template compliance [Anonymity] clean / leaks: [Open science] artifact link present? Data Availability statement present? [Fix queue] ```