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name: podc-workflow description: Use when planning an ACM PODC campaign end to end — running the single annual cycle backward from the February deadline through abstract registration, lightweight double-blind review, the late-April notification, the May camera-ready, and the arXiv full version — and coordinating the regular-paper-vs-Brief-Announcement decision along the way.

PODC Workflow

Plan the year backward from the deadline. PODC runs a single annual cycle with a straightforward accept/reject decision and no journal-style revision round, so unlike a multi-cycle or major-revision venue, you get one shot per year — the leverage is all in what you submit, not in a second read. Dates below are the PODC 2026 cycle (read 2026-07-09 via renderings; see resources/official-source-map.md); reopen the live Important Dates page each year.

The PODC 2026 calendar (one cycle)

Milestone	Date (23:59 AoE)	What it gates
Abstract registration	11 February 2026	Title/abstract/authors/conflicts locked; no PDF accepted later without it
Full-paper submission	16 February 2026	The anonymized PDF (regular or Brief Announcement)
Notification	29 April 2026	Accept / reject
Camera-ready	20 May 2026	Final ACM proceedings PDF + rights forms
Conference	6-10 July 2026	In-person presentation at Royal Holloway, University of London

Running the year backward

[Jul 2026]        present in person at Royal Holloway (co-located with SPAA); a paid registration
                  by one author is required
[May 20]          camera-ready: de-anonymize, compress to <=10 proceedings pages, ACM rights
[Apr 29 -> May]   notification -> if accepted, camera-ready + post the full version to arXiv
[Feb 16]          full-paper submission (regular or Brief Announcement), double-blind
[Feb 11]          abstract registration (hard prerequisite)
[Dec-Jan]         finish proofs; run podc-writing-style + podc-experiments; decide the track
[Sep-Nov]         prove the result; fix the model; run podc-topic-selection to confirm PODC vs DISC/SPAA

The scarce resource is proof-closing time before mid-February. A result that is "almost proved" in January is a Brief Announcement in February, not a regular paper — plan the proof timeline, not just the writing timeline.

Where the leverage is (and is not)

• Largest lever — the topic/abstract at registration. A precise abstract and the right topic tags route your paper to reviewers who work in your model. A mismatched abstract sends a shared-memory paper to message-passing reviewers.
• Second lever — the regular-vs-Brief-Announcement choice. If the proof will not close by 16 February, a Brief Announcement timestamps the result now and keeps a full paper open for a later venue; forcing an unfinished result into a regular paper spends the slot on a rejection.
• No revision lever. PODC gives accept/reject; there is no Major Revision to rescue a borderline paper. Everything that would have gone into a revision must be in the initial submission.
• Possible rebuttal lever (待核实). Whether the cycle runs an author-response phase varies — confirm on the call; if it exists, see podc-author-response.

Coordinating the co-located venues

PODC 2026 is co-located with SPAA 2026 at the same venue and dates. If your result straddles distributed and parallel computing, decide the target before the February deadline (SPAA and PODC have separate submission processes and committees) using podc-topic-selection — do not assume one submission reaches both.

The full-version / arXiv track (parallel to the whole cycle)

• You may post the full version (with all proofs) on arXiv at any time — before, during, or after review. PODC does not treat a preprint as dual submission.
• During double-blind review, an arXiv link that de-anonymizes you is a risk; either post without pointing the submission at it, or rely on the community norm and keep the submission PDF self-contained. Confirm the cycle's exact expectation.
• After acceptance, the arXiv full version is where the proofs the 10 proceedings pages cannot hold actually live; keep it in sync with the camera-ready.

Common calendar mistakes

• Missing abstract registration (11 Feb) and discovering on 16 Feb that no PDF slot exists.
• Treating notification as the finish line — camera-ready (20 May) has its own ACM rights and compression work; block time for it.
• Assuming a revision round exists — it does not; budget the proof to be done at submission.
• Projecting last year's dates — the split abstract/paper deadlines and the double-blind wording are decided per edition.

Output format

[Cycle] PODC <year>; key dates (registration / submission / notification / camera-ready / conference)
[Track plan] regular paper / brief announcement, with the proof-completion date that justifies it
[Backward plan] milestone -> owner -> date, from conference back to today
[Leverage] topic/abstract routing; track choice; (rebuttal if the cycle has one)
[arXiv] full-version posting plan and its double-blind implications
[Risks] proof not closing by Feb; missed registration; wrong sibling venue