--- name: sigir-workflow description: Use when planning a SIGIR project calendar — backward-planning from the January-pattern abstract/paper deadlines to the July conference, sequencing evidence freeze, significance testing, and anonymization, coordinating multi-track decisions, and wiring the SIGIR/ECIR/CIKM/WSDM/SIGIR-AP fallback calendar into one pipeline. --- # SIGIR Workflow SIGIR is an annual single-cycle venue with a distinctive rhythm: recent editions put the full-paper deadline in mid-January (2025: abstract Jan 16, paper Jan 23; 2026 trackers reported Jan 15/22 — exact dates 待核实 on the current Key Dates page), notification in early spring, camera-ready in late April (Apr 29, 2026 verified for Resources/LRE), and the conference in July (2026: July 20-24, Melbourne). Secondary tracks stagger a few weeks behind the full-paper dates. Plan backward from the dates you verify, and treat every date in this file as a pattern anchor, not a promise. SIGIR is a conference run by ACM SIGIR (the special interest group): there is no standing editor-in-chief — program leadership rotates per edition — and no journal-style APC; costs arrive as registration and travel, with ACM Open status determining any publication-fee exposure per institution (待核实). ## The annual shape | Phase (pattern) | Months (recent cycles) | Owner's job | |---|---|---| | Track decision + scoping | Aug-Oct | Pick full/short/resource/repro target; freeze claim | | Evidence build | Oct-Dec | Collections, baselines, runs, ablations | | Writing + audits | Dec-Jan | Style, related-work, submission audits | | Abstract → paper deadlines | mid-Jan | Metadata frozen a week early; PDF last | | Review window | Feb-Mar | Response prep if a channel opens; next-venue scouting | | Notification → camera-ready | Mar-Apr | TAPS pipeline, artifacts public | | Conference | Jul | Presentation, community work | ## Backward plan from the paper deadline | Weeks out | Milestone for a ranking/retrieval paper | |---|---| | 10+ | Claim frozen; collection lineup chosen against the claim's scope | | 8 | Baselines reproduced at current strength, tuning protocol logged | | 6 | Main results stable across seeds; ablation matrix running | | 4 | Full draft in `sigconf`; significance script wired to run files | | 3 | Internal mock review by an evaluation-minded reader | | 2 | Repository mirror anonymized; PAPER_MAP written | | 1 | Submission audit (`sigir-submission`); PC nominee confirmed; buffer | | 0 | Abstract by its deadline, PDF by its deadline, both AoE | The two-stage deadline is a real gate: the abstract registers title, authors, and track, and late abstracts close the door regardless of PDF readiness. Freeze the author list before the abstract — ACM authorship policy makes later changes painful. ## Multi-track coordination Groups often have several irons: a full paper, a short paper from a side finding, a resource from the data work. SIGIR's cross-track double-submission ban makes this a planning problem, not just an ethics one: - Assign each *contribution* to exactly one track before the abstract deadline. - Stagger risk: if the full paper is rejected, which parts return as a short paper or resource paper next cycle? Write the modular repo accordingly. - The Resources track's own calendar (2026: abstract Feb 5, notify Apr 2, camera Apr 29) runs weeks behind full papers — a rejected-dataset-chapter salvage plan is sometimes executable *in the same year*. Verify each cycle. ## The fallback calendar IR has a dense venue ring, so a SIGIR reject waits weeks, not a year: ```text Typical resubmission ring (verify each venue's current dates): SIGIR (Jan deadline, Jul conf) -> CIKM (~May/Jun deadline, Nov conf) broader IR+KM+DB scope -> SIGIR-AP (~Jul deadline, Dec conf) regional; has advertised an R&R route -> WSDM (~Aug deadline, Feb/Mar conf) web search + data mining angle -> ECIR (~Sep/Oct deadline, Mar/Apr conf) European IR, full+repro tracks -> back to SIGIR (Jan) Journal exits: TOIS / TOIS-adjacent for work that outgrew 9 pages. ``` Each hop costs a re-framing pass, not just a re-upload: CIKM wants the knowledge/ data-management angle sharpened, WSDM the web/user-data angle, ECIR welcomes reproducibility framing. Budget one week per hop for venue-fit revision. ## Ownership map Deadline collapses at SIGIR are usually ownership failures, not effort failures. Assign by name, once, in the scoping phase: | Deliverable | Single owner's duty | |---|---| | Run files + significance script | One person regenerates every table end-to-end | | Baseline tuning log | Proves symmetry claims during review | | Anonymization sweep | Names, logs, leaderboards, metadata, repo history | | OpenReview metadata + PC nominee | Abstract-deadline gate; nominee agreed in advance | | Camera-ready/TAPS | Starts the week of notification, not the week of the deadline | Shared ownership of the anonymization sweep is the classic failure: everyone assumes someone else checked the PDF metadata. ## Failure modes by phase - **Claim still moving at week 6** → the collection lineup no longer matches the claim; scope-narrow now rather than during reviews. - **Baselines start in week 4** → tuning symmetry becomes unprovable; this is the most-cited fatal review at this venue. - **Anonymization at week 0** → leaderboard rows, repo history, and system names leak under deadline pressure (see `sigir-submission`). - **Response window opens and nobody owns run files** → coordinate-based replies become impossible; archive the exact submitted PDF + runs at upload time. - **Camera-ready collides with teaching/travel in April** → TAPS proofs get rubber-stamped; schedule the proof check like a review, not a formality. ## Output format ```text [Current phase] scoping / evidence / writing / submitted / responding / camera-ready [Verified dates] [Backward plan] next three milestones with owners [Track map] contribution -> track, cross-track conflicts: none / [Fallback route] [Risk register] ```