SIGCOMM Supplementary

Use this when splitting a SIGCOMM paper across body, references, and appendices. The controlling rule: the 12 single-spaced pages before references must carry the argument on their own; appendices and references sit outside the cap but do not rescue an incomplete body. Reopen the current CFP to confirm this edition's appendix handling.

What goes where

• Body (≤ 12 single-spaced pages, figures and tables included): the measured problem, the design principle, the mechanism, and the decision-critical evaluation. A reviewer must understand and believe the contribution without turning to an appendix.
• References (outside the cap): as many as needed; never trimmed for space or anonymity.
• Appendices (optional, after references, outside the cap): extended measurement sweeps, additional topologies, proofs or derivations, detailed configuration, and workload specifics — support, not substitute.

The appendix-necessity rule changes the calculus

Unlike venues where appendices are a free overflow bin, SIGCOMM's shepherd approves whether each appendix is necessary at camera-ready. Write appendices you can defend as load-bearing, and never park a step the argument depends on where a shepherd might cut it. A safe test: if removing an appendix would make a body claim unverifiable, that content probably belongs in the body or the artifact, not in a droppable appendix.

Placement table

Keep the body self-contained

• Every appendix and artifact item must be cross-referenced from the body at least once; orphaned supplementary material is invisible and, at camera-ready, deletable.
• Order appendix sections to mirror the body's flow so a reader navigates by section, not by hunting.
• State results in the body and defer only the support — a reader who never opens an appendix should still be able to reconstruct why the contribution holds.

Vignette: splitting a congestion-control paper

A submission proposes a new congestion signal with a testbed evaluation and a small stability argument. The body keeps the measured motivation, the signal and its principle, the two decision-critical tail-latency figures, and a one-paragraph stability sketch. The appendix holds the full stability derivation, a switch-buffer sweep, and the fairness-across-flows tables; the artifact carries the driver and logs. Nothing the accept decision depends on lives only in a droppable place.

Output format

[Body self-contained] yes / no (what breaks without an appendix)
[Body budget] within 12 single-spaced pre-reference pages? yes/no
[Placement map] <content -> body / appendix / artifact>
[Appendix necessity] each appendix defensible to a shepherd? yes/no
[Cross-reference gaps] <orphaned supplementary items>