conext-submission

CoNEXT Submission

Run this audit before uploading to the CoNEXT HotCRP site. CoNEXT research papers are published as

journal articles in PACMNET (Proceedings of the ACM on Networking), so the submission is judged

like a journal manuscript that also earns a conference slot. Every number below was read from the

CoNEXT 2026 call and the CoNEXT 2025 CFP on 2026-07-09 via search renderings (see

[../../resources/official-source-map.md](../../resources/official-source-map.md)); treat them as a

one-cycle snapshot and reopen the live call first.

Pick the cycle first

CoNEXT runs two submission cycles a year, and choosing the wrong one costs months:

• The December cycle (for CoNEXT 2026: registration 5 Dec 2025, submission 12 Dec 2025) gives

an earlier notification (31 Mar 2026) and, if you earn a major revision, a spring resubmission

path.

• The June cycle (submission 5 Jun 2026) is the later entry point into the same annual program

and the same rolling PACMNET volume.

Both feed one conference and one journal volume, so the decision is about readiness and calendar,

not prestige — submit to the nearer honest deadline your evidence is actually ready for. See

[conext-workflow](../conext-workflow/SKILL.md) for the full backward plan from each cutoff.

The two-step deadline within a cycle

CoNEXT separates paper registration from paper submission:

• Registration locks in title, abstract, authors, and conflicts a week early (December cycle:

5 December 2025). Miss it and the system will not accept the PDF later.

• Submission uploads the anonymized PDF (December cycle: 12 December 2025).

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 TPC

match.

Format and page budget

• ACM acmart template, unmodified. This is the ACM path — do not carry an IEEE two-column

habit over from a sibling venue's kit.

• Page budget (verify per cycle; 2025 numbers, 待核实 for 2026):
• Long papers: ≤ 16 pages of text and figures, unlimited references, up to **4 pages

of appendices**.

• Short papers: ≤ 10 pages of text and figures, unlimited references, up to **2 pages

of appendices**.

• Appendices are for material that supports but does not decide the paper; nothing a reviewer must

read to accept the paper should live only in an appendix or the artifact (see

[conext-supplementary](../conext-supplementary/SKILL.md)).

Double-anonymous sweep

CoNEXT runs double-anonymous review: authors and reviewers are mutually hidden. Because

networking papers lean on testbeds, deployments, traces, and operator relationships, the leak

surface is wide:

# 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|our (testbed|deployment|university)' | head
unzip -l artifact.zip | grep -Ei '\.git/|\.DS_Store|/home/|/Users/' | head
grep -rniE 'university|@[a-z0-9.]+\.edu|internal hostname|AS[0-9]+ .*our' artifact/ --include='*.md' | head

The networking-specific leaks: a testbed or deployment named after your lab, a topology figure

showing internal hostnames or an AS you operate, a trace whose capture point identifies your

institution, a data-availability link pointing at a personal GitHub, and commit metadata inside a

zipped repository. Re-host artifacts behind an anonymizing service before upload.

Reproducibility opt-in at submission time

The optional ACM reproducibility badges are administered by CoNEXT's reproducibility committee,

and the critical timing trap is here:

• You must opt in for ACM badging before the paper submission deadline — it cannot be added

later.

• Within a week of acceptance you send a one-page artifact description with pointers to code and

other artifacts.

• Even if you skip badging, include a data-availability posture: pinned traces/configs and a

runnable artifact strengthen the review (see [conext-reproducibility](../conext-reproducibility/SKILL.md)).

Desk-risk triage

| Finding at audit time | Severity | Real fix |

|---|---|---|

| Main text over the page budget | Desk-reject-grade | Cut or move to the appendix; references are unlimited but do not absorb body text |

| Template altered (margins, shrunk font, wrong acmart option) | Named desk-reject ground | Recompile clean, recover space editorially |

| Identity leak in PDF, artifact, topology figure, or testbed 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-deadline — calendar it now |

| Wanted a badge but did not opt in before submission | Ineligible for badging | Opt in now, before the cutoff |

| Same study under review at SIGCOMM/NSDI/IMC | Dual-submission exposure | Withdraw one venue; verify the current concurrent-submission wording |

Final-week order of operations

1. Confirm which cycle (December/June) you are targeting and its exact cutoff and time zone.
2. Freeze the body early; references can churn, the argument cannot.
3. Register title/abstract/authors/conflicts well before the registration cutoff.
4. Decide badging and opt in before submission if you want it.
5. Build the anonymized artifact and place its (anonymized) link in the paper.
6. Run the mechanical anonymity checks on the final PDF and the final archive, not drafts.
7. 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.

1. Re-download the uploaded PDF and read it cold to confirm it is the file you meant.

Reverify each cycle

• Both cycles' exact dates and time zones, and which cycle you are entering.
• The page budget and which acmart variant is required.
• Appendix handling, the reproducibility badge set and opt-in deadline, dual-submission wording, and

any AI-disclosure rule — all cycle-volatile; none should be assumed stable.

Output format

[CoNEXT submission status] ready / blocked / needs work
[Cycle] December / June, cutoff date + time zone
[Registration] title/abstract/authors/conflicts locked by the earlier deadline? yes/no
[Format] pages used (body/appendix/refs), acmart compliance
[Anonymity] clean / leaks: <where>
[Reproducibility] badge opt-in done before submission? artifact link present?
[Fix queue] <ordered, with owners and dates before the cutoff>