Information about Electronic Submissions for SOCG '07

Written originally by Samuel A. Rebelsky and updated by Christian Scheideler.
Last modified November 09, 2006 by Jeff Erickson

Contact information

The contact person for this conference is

You may contact this person with questions about the electronic submissions process when other avenues fail. This person is a volunteer, so please only contact him/her for problems not handled by the submissions server or this document.

Please do not ask the contact person to help you with system-specific problems, such as those with LaTeX, PostScript, PDF, or your mailer. Such questions are best addressed to your system administrator or support staff.

Caveats

This is a working document describing the electronic submission procedure for SOCG '07. The procedures and policies described herein may change slightly as we encounter problems or develop new solutions. (Yes, the software has been used for a number of prior conferences, but it's gone through several recent updates, and it's maintained informally by unpaid, overworked researchers.)

Make sure that you only send emails in plain text format. Emails in HTML or other formats will confuse the submission system. Many email programs are configured by default to send email in HTML (or "rich text") format; please check your email configuration carefully!

We recommend that you use the system at least one week in advance of the conference so that we can notify you of any problems/changes. There is no penalty for registering a submission that you do not send, nor for submitting and then withdrawing.

Contents

Summary of Steps

The basic steps in electronic mail submission are as follows. These steps are discussed further in the section entitled Submitting via email.

  1. Generate a PostScript or PDF version of your paper formatted for US Letter paper (8.5 x 11 inches).
  2. Send a REGISTER message to the server. The server returns a name to use for your submission.
  3. Send a SUBMIT message with your PostScript or PDF submission attached. The server returns information about the success of the submission.
  4. In order to revise your submission, just send another SUBMIT message with the revised version. (This must be done before the submission deadline.) The server returns information about the success of the revision. There is no limit on the number of revisions.

Details about the commands can be found below, in the section entitled Submitting via Email.

Recent Changes and Notes

Many of you have used a variant of this server for past conferences (FOCS, STOC, SODA, etc.). However, we've recently made some changes that you might want to note.

Introduction

SIGACT has appointed an Electronic Publishing Board to investigate and develop guidelines and mechanisms for electronic submission and dissemination of STOC and FOCS proceedings and other SIGACT and theoretical publications.

The electronic submission process is an experiment and, as such, is not expected to work perfectly (yes, even after several years). While the current policies, as detailed in the following paragraphs, are relatively finalized, we expect to make some further changes. If you have comments on the policies, feel free to send electronic mail to epubs-sigact@sigact.acm.org (the SIGACT Electronic Publishing board). Questions about electronic submissions to SOCG '07 should be directed to jeffe+socg@cs.uiuc.edu.

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Basic Policies

For this year, we will accept papers in PostScript and PDF format via electronic mail. We will not accept submissions via ftp. All electronic submissions must be in printable PostScript or PDF form and arrive by December 04, 2006, 23:59 Hawaii Standard Time. This is the same as the hardcopy deadline.

Unprintable and late submissions will be rejected. Submissions formatted for paper size other than 8.5 x 11 inch paper (US Letter), or with pages in nonascending order, also risk rejection without consideration of their merits. The committee accepts no responsibility for errors due to problems with the system, although we will do our best to make sure that no such problems occur. We request that you submit your paper as early as possible.

You may revise or withdraw your paper after submitting it. However, only revisions received by the deadline will be considered. Withdrawals before the deadline can be done using the electronic submissions system. To withdraw a paper after the deadline, contact the program committee chair, Jeff Erickson.

Because of copyright restrictions, we request that authors only use standard PostScript fonts (e.g., Times, Helvetica, Symbol) or public domain fonts (e.g., the Computer Modern Fonts) in their preliminary submissions.

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Submitting via Electronic Mail

To submit via electronic mail, send electronic mail to socg07@sigact.acm.org with one of the following subjects. The submission server will send you a reply indicating the disposition of your request. If you do not receive an automatic reply within 24 hours, please notify Jeff Erickson.

Due to recent changes to the server, the server may return slightly different messages for some of these commands.

HELP

Request help on the electronic submission process. You will receive this document (or a variant) in response.

REGISTER

Inform the server that you plan to submit a paper electronically. This is only used for electronic submissions; you do not need to register if you are submitting printed copies of your papers.

The body of a REGISTER message should take the form 

authors: "and"-separated list of authors
title: title of document
contact: e-mail address
notes: additional info for the program committee
abstract: place your abstract here

You may use the "notes" field to include a URL for any supporting materials, such as videos, source code, or full papers, that you wish to make available to the program committee. Supporting materials will not be regarded as part of the actual submission and will be considered only at the discretion of the program committee.

Please include a plain-text abstract in your registration message to simplify the job of assigning submissions to appropriate program committee members for review. Don't worry if the abstract of your final submission deviates from the abstract you submitted when you registered. Your registration abstract will not be used later in the review process. In an emergency, you can still withdraw your paper and reregister it.

For example, 

% mail socg07@sigact.acm.org
Subject: REGISTER
authors: Theorist T. Theoretician
title: Random Sampling
contact: theorist@theory.edu
notes: Flash demo and full paper at http://theory.edu/~theorist/sampling.html
abstract:
This paper is about random sampling.
^D

The server will return a name to use to refer to your submission (called the filename or key in the sections below). 

From: socg07@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep  8 19:18:41 1994
To: theorist@theory.edu
Subject: REGISTER

You should use the file name "theorist.1234.ps" for submitting the
following paper:
  authors: Theorist T. Theoretician
  title: Random Sampling
  contact: theorist@theory.edu
  notes: Flash demo and full paper at http://theory.edu/~theorist/sampling.html
  abstract:
  
This paper is about random sampling.

If the automatic reply message is missing most of the information you submitted about your paper (such as the title and abstract), your REGISTER email message was probably in HTML format instead of plain text. Many email programs are configured by default to send HTML (or "rich text") messages. Please check your email configuration carefully and re-REGISTER via plain-text email.

SUBMIT filename

Submit (or revise) a paper. PostScript submissions can be submitted either as the body of the message or as an attachment to an otherwise blank message; PDF submissions must be in the form of an attachment. The server will acknowledge the submission. The acknowledgement will include an MD5-generated receipt for the submission, as well as basic information on the file so that you can verify that it arrived "safely". The basic information includes sizes (in bytes), checksum, first and last ten lines of the file.

The subject of your email must include the exact filename provided in response to your earlier registration. Specifically, even if you are submitting a PDF file, the filename in the subject of your email should end in ".ps".

For example, 

% mail socg07@sigact.acm.org
Subject: SUBMIT theorist.1234.ps
insert postscript file into main body of message
^D



From: socg07@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep  8 19:18:41 1994
To: theorist@theory.edu
Subject: Submission of theorist.1234.ps received.

Your paper with key theorist.1234.ps was received on Sep  8 19:27.
  It is 404918 bytes long.  
  Its checksum is 23036.
  The receipt is: abcba4232hgada43232323
  
It does not seem to generate any PostScript(tm) errors.

The first ten lines of your file are:
...

The last ten lines of your file are:
...

WITHDRAW filename

Withdraw a previously submitted paper. The server will confirm this withdrawal with the contact person for the paper.

For example, 

% mail socg07@sigact.acm.org
Subject: WITHDRAW theorist.1234.ps
^D



From: socg07@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep  8 19:18:41 1994
To: theorist@theory.edu
Subject: theorist.1234.ps withdrawn.

Your SOCG '07 submission with key
  theorist.1234.ps
was withdrawn on
  Thu Sep  8 19:43:33 EDT 1994

Please send electronic mail to jeffe+socg@cs.uiuc.edu if you
did not withdraw your paper.

STATUS filename

Check on the status of an electronic submission. This status refers only to its existence and printability, not to its status in the refereeing process.

For example, 

% mail socg07@sigact.acm.org
Subject: STATUS theorist.1234.ps
^D



From: socg07@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep  8 19:18:41 1994
To: theorist@theory.edu
Subject: STATUS theorist.1234.ps

Information on paper with
  key: theorist.1234.ps
  authors: Theorist T. Theoretician
  title: Random Sampling
  contact: theorist@theory.edu
  notes: Flash demo and full paper at http://theory.edu/~theorist/sampling.html
  receipt: abcba4232hgada43232323
  
  It is 404918 bytes long.  
  Its checksum is 23036.
  
It does not seem to generate any PostScript(tm) errors.

The first ten lines of your file are:
...

The last ten lines of your file are:
...

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Security and Encryption

As with the hardcopy submission process, copies of electronically-submitted papers will only be read by members of the program committee and selected reviewers.

We do not plan to include a mechanism for encryption/decryption of submissions to SOCG '07. The primary reason for this decision is that the SIGACT community is honorable. Additionally, it is unlikely that we can provide sufficiently general cross-platform software that will not hinder the refereeing process.

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Final Submissions

All authors (both those who initially submit printed copies and those who submit electronically) will be asked to submit electronic copies of the final versions of their papers in the standard ACM proceedings format. LaTeX style files will be provided to authors of accepted papers.

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The SIGACT Electronic Publishing Board

Committee Membership

More Information

The board maintains a web page and can be contacted via e-mail at epubs-sigact@sigact.acm.org.

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PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.