sosp-submission

SOSP Submission

Run this audit before anything is uploaded to the SOSP HotCRP instance. Every number below is a 2026-cycle anchor verified on 2026-07-08 against the official CFP and author guidelines at sigops.org/s/conferences/sosp/2026/ and the sosp26.hotcrp.com deadlines page. SOSP re-issues these rules each year; treat the current cycle's pages as controlling and this file as the map of what to check.

Two deadlines, one hard gate

SOSP registers abstracts ahead of papers, and the registration is a real gate, not a courtesy: the paper ID assigned at registration replaces the author names on page one of the anonymized PDF, and conflict screening starts from the registered author list.

The six-day window between the two gates is for polishing, not for writing. A paper that does not build cleanly in the official format a week before registration is already late.

Page and format compliance

• At most 12 pages of technical content — all text, figures, and tables count. Bibliographic references are not included in the limit, so never compress the bibliography to save space; compress prose instead.
• 10-point font on 12-point leading, US letter, everything inside a 178 x 229 mm (7 x 9 in) block, two columns separated by 8 mm. Reviewers at this venue have seen every margin trick; a format violation reads as an integrity problem, not a typo.
• Supplementary material goes in a separate document and may cover only items that are not critical to evaluating the paper (formal proofs, extra analyses, methodological detail). If a claim's evidence lives only in the supplement, the claim is unsupported for review purposes — move it into the 12 pages.

Anonymization the SOSP way

SOSP asks for a good-faith anonymization effort, judged pragmatically:

• Page one carries the registered paper ID where the author block would sit.
• No author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, or grant numbers anywhere, including in the supplement and PDF metadata.
• Self-references in third person; do not cite an identifying technical report as "our earlier version."
• De-identify giveaway context: a deployment description that only one company could have written should be generalized ("a large content provider") without falsifying the evidence.

# Leak sweep over the built PDF and the LaTeX tree before upload
pdfinfo main.pdf | grep -iE '^(author|creator|producer)'
pdftotext main.pdf - | grep -inE 'acknowledg|grant no|@[a-z]+\.(edu|com)|github\.com/' | head
grep -rn --include='*.tex' -iE '\\author|university|laboratory|institute' . | grep -v paperid

Conflict declaration is audited

Unlike venues where conflict lists are taken on trust, SOSP's PC chairs review the declared conflicts, may add missing ones, and may remove declared conflicts that have no basis — naming a PC member as a conflict to dodge a tough reviewer is explicitly called out as improper. Papers conflicted with both PC chairs are routed to a designated conflict chair. Practical consequences:

• Build the conflict list from real categories (co-authors, advisors, same institution, recent collaboration), and be able to justify every entry if asked.
• An undeclared genuine conflict discovered late can poison an otherwise-positive review discussion; over-declaration can be reversed by the chairs and damages trust.

Desk-reject triage

Final-ten-days sequence

1. Freeze the evaluation and rebuild all figures from logged data with one command.
2. Compile in the official format and resolve overflow by cutting prose, not leading.
3. Register the abstract with the final author list and a conflict list you can defend.
4. Run the leak sweep above on the paper and the supplementary document.
5. Replace the author block with the assigned paper ID; verify page one.
6. Upload to HotCRP early; re-download the PDF from HotCRP and check it renders page-complete — the submission of record is what HotCRP holds, not your local file.

Output format

[SOSP readiness] Ready / Needs fixes / Not ready
[Gate status] abstract registered? / paper uploaded? / hours to deadline
[Format audit] pages of technical content / geometry / references handling
[Anonymity audit] pass / leaks found: <where>
[Conflict list] defensible? <yes/no + weakest entry>
[Fix order] <ordered actions before upload>