ICDM Submission

Run this audit twice: once when the abstract is registered and once before the full-paper deadline about a week later (2026: abstract May 30, paper June 6, AoE). ICDM runs a single deadline, not KDD-style cycles, so there is no next window this year — the paper you upload in June is the paper that gets reviewed. Reopen the current track call first; Research and Applied now differ on anonymity.

Track and anonymity regime first

• Research Track is triple-blind; the 2026 Applied Track is single-blind; the Blue Sky Track (CCC-sponsored) is a separate visionary lane. Pick the track before formatting, because it decides whether the paper must hide author identity at all.
• One paper, one track: do not submit the same work to Research and Applied at once.
• If the contribution is a deployed system with measured real-world impact, the Applied Track may fit better and its single-blind regime removes the anonymization burden — but confirm the current call's Applied scope before switching.

The triple-blind sweep (Research Track)

ICDM's triple-blind tradition (since 2011) is stricter than double-blind: author and referee identities are hidden, known only to the PC Co-Chairs, and author names are revealed only after acceptance is finalized. Your obligation is to conceal identity throughout the whole paper, not just the title block.

• No author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, funding/grant numbers, or ORCIDs.
• No "in our previous work [X], we..." phrasing that de-anonymizes by self-reference; cite your own prior papers in the third person.
• No identifying system names, internal dataset names, institutional URLs, or repository links that resolve to a named account.
• Scrub figures, plots, PDF metadata, and any embedded file paths.

The 10-page all-inclusive cap

The single hardest ICDM formatting fact: 10 pages in IEEE two-column format, including the bibliography and any appendices. There is no separate reference budget and no separate appendix budget. Over-length papers are rejected without review.

% ICDM IEEE two-column setting (verify against the current track call)
\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}
% Everything below counts toward the 10-page cap: body, references, appendix.
% Do NOT shrink margins, fonts, or \baselineskip to reclaim space; IEEE
% proceedings checks and chairs detect a modified template.
% Plan the appendix as a first-class competitor for the same 10 pages as the body.

• Content, references, and appendix together must end by page 10; if it does not fit, cut scope or move detail to an external anonymized repository, never squeeze the template.
• Reference the code/data repository inside the PDF, anonymized: because ICDM traditionally offers no rebuttal, a repository not cited at submission is invisible to reviewers for the whole cycle.

Desk-level and severity table

Final-week sequence

1. Freeze the track choice and confirm the anonymity regime it implies.
2. Rebuild the PDF from a clean IEEEtran checkout; measure to the bottom of page 10 with references and appendix included.
3. Run the triple-blind sweep against the list above (Research Track): names, self-cites, system names, metadata, repo account.
4. Export a fresh anonymized repository with no git history and no institutional paths; cite it in the body.
5. Register the abstract early in the week; upload the paper with hours, not minutes, of AoE margin.

Vignette: a paper that lost a page to its own bibliography

A graph-mining team writes a tight 9.5-page body and adds a two-page appendix of proofs, forgetting that at ICDM the references (1.5 pages) and the appendix both live inside the 10-page cap. The compiled PDF is 12 pages — an automatic no-review reject. The fix is not cosmetic: they promote one proof sketch to the body, move the full proof and extra tables to the cited anonymized repository, and trim the related-work prose. The lesson: at ICDM, budget the appendix and references against the body from the first outline, because there is no separate allowance to grow into.

Output format

[ICDM readiness] Ready / Needs fixes / Not ready
[Track x anonymity] Research(triple-blind) | Applied(single-blind) | Blue Sky
[Page check] <= 10 pages incl. refs + appendix: pass / fail
[Anonymity] triple-blind sweep clean / leaks found (Research only)
[Artifact visibility] repo cited in PDF: yes / no
[Fix order] <ordered fixes before the AoE deadline>