--- name: imc-supplementary description: Use when deciding what belongs in an ACM IMC paper body versus its appendix and released artifact, covering the acmart page limits, the rule that decision-critical evidence and the Ethics discussion stay in the reviewed pages, double-blind supplementary material, and how to split a measurement paper between body, appendix, and dataset. --- # IMC Supplementary Use this when assembling IMC supplementary material. IMC's `acmart` format gives an **unlimited appendix**, which tempts authors to offload the argument — but the governing rule is strict: **the page-limited body must be self-contained and decision-complete.** Reviewers read the appendix and the artifact at their discretion; anything the decision depends on lives in the body. ## What goes where | Content | Body (within page limit) | Appendix / released artifact | |---|---|---| | The measurement question and the headline finding | Yes | — | | Vantage-point summary + coverage/representativeness argument | Yes | Full per-vantage-point table | | Methodology sufficient to judge soundness | Yes | Full configs, seed/target lists | | Key results, confidence intervals, and their limitations | Yes | Secondary plots, full result tables | | **The Ethics discussion** | **Yes (section; details may extend to appendix)** | IRB form, extended safety analysis | | Raw/large datasets, logs, scripts | — | Yes (released artifact) | | Reproduction instructions | A pointer | The README and run scripts | If a reviewer would need to open the appendix or artifact to know whether to accept, the paper is mis-partitioned — move that evidence into the body. ## The unlimited-appendix trap IMC's appendix is unlimited but **may not be used to abuse the page limit**. Consequences: - Keep the finding, the vantage-point justification, the core methodology, the headline results, and the limitations **in the body** — they are decision-critical. - Per-vantage-point tables, full parameter grids, extra target lists, and additional analyses go to the appendix with explicit forward references. - Do **not** smuggle a load-bearing result into the appendix because the body is full — an argument that only closes with appendix material reads as unreviewable, and reviewers are entitled to stop at the body. ## The Ethics section is not optional supplementary Unlike ordinary appendix material, the **Ethics** treatment is required and must be a clearly marked section (details may spill to an appendix). Do not relegate the entire ethics argument to an optional appendix the reviewer might skip — a paper without a visible Ethics section may be rejected (`imc-submission`). ## Double-blind supplementary rules ```text [No identity] no authors, affiliations, acknowledgements, grants, testbed names, AS/probe IDs, or lab-domain links anywhere in the appendix or artifact [Anonymized links] the dataset/tool link points at an anonymizing host, not a personal/lab repo [Clean archive] no .git history, credentials, API keys, cluster paths, or huge irrelevant captures [Opens clean] the archive unzips and the README orients a reader in a minute on a fresh machine [Provenance] vantage-point and timing metadata present but scrubbed of identity ``` ## Appendix architecture - Order appendix sections to mirror the paper's structure (per measurement/RQ), so reviewers navigate by topic, not page number. - Reference each appendix section from the body at least once — orphaned material is invisible under discretionary review. - Keep the released dataset's schema documentation with the artifact, not buried in the appendix. ## Vignette: splitting a multi-vantage-point study A paper measuring a protocol from many vantage points over months: the body keeps the question, a summarized vantage-point table with the coverage-bias argument, the core method, the headline findings with confidence intervals, the limitations, and the Ethics section; the appendix holds the full per-vantage-point breakdown, the complete target lists with capture dates, and secondary analyses; the released artifact holds the time-stamped dataset, the schema, and the analysis scripts. Nothing decision-critical lives only outside the body. ## Output format ```text [Supplement status] ready / needs fixes / not ready [Partition check] anything decision-critical outside the body? [Ethics visibility] Ethics section present in the body? yes/no [Page limit] body self-contained within limit? appendix not abused? yes/no [Anonymity] appendix/artifact clean of identity + infrastructure? passed/issues [Body dependency] ```