--- name: sigir-submission description: Use when auditing a SIGIR full or short paper before the deadline — the 9-page vs 4-page budgets with appendices counted inside, ACM sigconf anonymization, per-track OpenReview groups, the PC-member nomination duty, cross-track double-submission bans, AI-use disclosure, and desk-reject triage for the ACM SIGIR conference. --- # SIGIR Submission Run this audit before anything is uploaded to a SIGIR OpenReview group. SIGIR is a multi-track venue where the same manuscript can be legal in one track and desk-rejectable in another, so the audit starts with "which track is this PDF for?" and only then checks format. Reopen the current edition's track page — every number below is a 2026-cycle anchor (verified 2026-07-08, exact deadlines 待核实), not a rule. ## The two-format trap SIGIR's full and short formats are not a long and a short version of the same bar. A 4-page short paper is a complete argument about one focused finding; a 9-page full paper is expected to carry a rounded evidence program (multiple collections, ablations, significance tests, efficiency notes). The most common self-inflicted wound is submitting a compressed full paper as a short paper — reviewers see missing evidence, not admirable focus. | Check | Full papers | Short papers | |---|---|---| | Page budget (2026) | ≤ 9 pages, references excluded | ≤ 4 pages, references excluded | | Appendices | Count **inside** the budget (2025 wording: everything except references) | Same — no appendix escape hatch | | Template | ACM Primary Article Template, LaTeX `sigconf` / Word Interim | Same | | Review | Double-blind, fully anonymized | Double-blind, fully anonymized | | OpenReview group | Main conference group | Separate Short Papers Track group | | PC duty | One author nominated as PC member per submission | Confirm on the current track page | The appendix rule is the sharpest edge on this table: unlike NeurIPS-style venues, SIGIR gives you no unlimited appendix after the references. Proofs, prompt listings, extra tables — either they fit in the budget or they move to the cited repository. ## Anonymization for IR papers specifically Generic double-blind advice misses the leaks IR papers actually have: - **The system name.** If your ranker is already public under the same name (arXiv, a leaderboard, a plugin for Anserini/PyTerrier), the name itself de-anonymizes. Rename for review or argue from the current policy page that preprints are allowed. - **Leaderboard submissions.** MS MARCO / TREC-style leaderboards show team names and dates. Do not cite your own leaderboard row in a way that only the submitting team could. - **Proprietary query logs.** "Queries sampled from our commercial search engine's logs in country X" can identify the company. Genericize the description, keep the statistics. - **Self-citations** in third person; **repository links** anonymized (e.g., an anonymous.4open.science mirror); **PDF metadata** stripped. ## Policy gates (2026, source: submission-policies page) - **Parallel submission = desk reject**, regardless of how the other venue decides. - **Cross-track double submission inside SIGIR is banned** — e.g., the dataset you submit as a Resource paper cannot also be the novel contribution of your full paper. Decide which track owns each contribution before the abstract deadline. - **Generative-AI use must be disclosed**; AI tools cannot be authors; SIGIR reserves automated compliance checks. Assume your PDF will be machine-screened. - ACM authorship policy applies: the author list is expected to be stable and human. ## Desk-reject triage | Trigger | Severity | Can it be fixed after the deadline? | |---|---|---| | Over budget (appendix counted in) | Desk reject | No | | Wrong track's OpenReview group | Desk reject or forced withdrawal | Usually no | | Identity leak (name, log, leaderboard) | Desk reject | No | | Parallel submission discovered | Desk reject at any time | No | | Same content in two SIGIR tracks | Both at risk | Only by withdrawing one first | | Missing PC-member nomination | Chair follow-up / submission incomplete | Sometimes, briefly | | No significance testing on close results | Review-stage damage | Only before the deadline | ## Final-week sequence for a retrieval paper 1. Freeze runs: regenerate every table from versioned run files (TREC-format `runs/*.trec`) so the PDF, repository, and any leaderboard entry agree. 2. Re-run the significance script last — copy-pasted p-values from stale runs are a classic reviewer catch when the numbers moved. 3. Compress into the page budget by demoting per-query analyses to the repository, not by shrinking floats or tampering with `sigconf` spacing. 4. Anonymity sweep: PDF metadata, acknowledgments, repo URL, system name, log provenance. 5. Upload to the **correct track group**, complete the AI-disclosure and PC-nomination fields, and verify the OpenReview abstract matches the PDF abstract. ```bash # Pre-upload checks that catch the silent killers pdfinfo paper.pdf | grep -iE "author|creator" # metadata identity leak grep -inE "acknowledg|our (system|engine|company)" *.tex # textual leaks grep -c "documentclass\[sigconf" main.tex # right ACM class pdftotext paper.pdf - | grep -icE "p ?[<=] ?0\.05|t-test|significan" # stats present? ``` ## Abstract-deadline gotchas The abstract deadline (a week before the PDF in recent cycles) is a harder gate than teams expect: - Title, author list, and track are effectively frozen there; ACM authorship policy makes later author changes painful and cross-track moves are usually impossible. - The abstract text should be the PDF's abstract, not a placeholder — reviewers bid on it, and a bait-and-switch abstract draws mismatched expertise. - Conflicts-of-interest declarations and the PC-member nominee belong to this stage; chasing a nominee's consent during PDF week is a self-inflicted crisis. ## What this audit does not cover Evidence quality lives in `sigir-experiments`; page-budget writing strategy in `sigir-writing-style` and `sigir-supplementary`; track choice in `sigir-topic-selection`. If the paper is a dataset or a replication, stop here and re-route: Resources and Reproducibility have different budgets, different anonymity regimes (Resources is single-anonymous), and different dates. ## Output format ```text [SIGIR readiness] Ready / Needs fixes / Wrong track / Not ready [Track + group] full / short + OpenReview group id [Budget check] /, appendix-inside-budget confirmed yes-no [Anonymity risks] [Policy gates] parallel-submission, cross-track, AI-disclosure, PC-nomination status [Fix order] [Reopen first] ```