thedixitjain IMC Topic Selection
Decide the venue before measuring. IMC — the ACM Internet Measurement Conference, sponsored by ACM SIGCOMM — is the home for work whose contribution is what it measured about the real Internet and how. A technically strong system whose measurement is a supporting evaluation is respected here and then routed to SIGCOMM or NSDI; a modest technique that reveals something real and new about the deployed network is IMC-shaped.
The measurement-first test
Ask: is the measurement the contribution, or the support?
- If the paper's lasting value is a finding about the Internet, a dataset/platform, or a measurement methodology, it is IMC-shaped.
- If the lasting value is a new system, protocol, or algorithm and the measurement merely evaluates it, it belongs at a systems venue. IMC will read a systems paper wearing a measurement title as out of scope.
The quick check: if you swapped the specific system for another and re-ran the study, would the measurement lesson about the network survive? If yes, it is a measurement paper.
Sibling-venue routing table
| Signal in your project | Better home | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The contribution is a finding, dataset, or methodology about the real Internet | ACM IMC | The measurement flagship; ethics + availability + Replicability culture |
| A new system/protocol/architecture, evaluated with measurement | SIGCOMM / NSDI | Systems and networked-systems design flagships |
| A networked-systems design with a strong experimental component | CoNEXT | Networking systems and experiments |
| Focused active-measurement / methods work, often network-path or topology | PAM | Passive and Active Measurement — a measurement sibling |
| The core is an attack/defense or vulnerability, measurement in support | USENIX Security / CCS / NDSS | Security venues; measurement is a method there |
| The core is Web-platform or online-ecosystem measurement with a Web-community fit | WWW / IMC | Both plausible; choose by community and calendar |
| Study too large/longitudinal for a conference, or a dataset-first artifact | A journal (e.g., ToN, CCR) or a dataset venue | No conference page/scope ceiling; some offer dataset tracks |
Contribution shapes IMC rewards
- Internet-wide measurement of an ecosystem — scanning or platform data revealing how a piece of infrastructure is really deployed and configured (the HTTPS-ecosystem lineage).
- Active measurement of deployed systems — probing real hosts/networks to quantify a property in the wild, done safely (the deployed-TCP-resilience lineage).
- Longitudinal empirical study — vantage-point analysis that changes what the community believes about how the Internet behaves (the email-security lineage).
- Methodology / instrument validity — auditing a measurement input or technique the field relies on (the top-lists lineage) — a distinctly prized IMC mode.
- Dataset / platform contribution — a reusable dataset or measurement platform with honest coverage analysis (the DoS-ecosystem lineage; the Community Contribution Award target).
The ethics-gate check (before you commit)
IMC's mandatory Ethics section and IRB/disclosure expectations are stricter than most systems venues. Before choosing IMC, confirm you can clear the gate:
- If the measurement touches human subjects or user data, can you obtain IRB approval/exemption in time?
- If it is active measurement, can you design it to be safe and provide opt-out?
- If it exposes vulnerabilities, will you commit to responsible disclosure?
A project that cannot clear the ethics gate is not IMC-ready regardless of fit (imc-experiments,
imc-submission).
The two-deadline calendar as a routing input
IMC's two deadlines a year, plus the One-Shot-Revision path, make it unusually forgiving of timing: if your measurement will be ready for cycle 2 but a sibling venue's single deadline has passed, IMC may be the nearest honest fit. Compare the next IMC deadline against SIGCOMM/NSDI/CoNEXT/PAM dates and route to the nearest fit rather than waiting a year.
Cheap reconnaissance before committing
[Scope] scan the last two IMC programs (dblp, sigcomm.org) for your subarea
-> 3+ recent papers = a reviewer pool exists; 0 = opening or mismatch
[Citations] is your bibliography majority measurement venues (IMC/PAM/SIGCOMM-measurement)?
-> majority systems/security => reviewers may read you as a visitor; frame accordingly
[Ethics] can you clear the IRB/safety/disclosure gate before the deadline? -> if not, not IMC-ready
[Calendar] compare the next IMC deadline (two/year) with sibling venues -> nearest honest fit
Decision procedure
[Contribution] finding-about-the-Internet / dataset / methodology / system?
[Measurement-first test] does the network lesson survive swapping the system? -> yes = IMC
[Sibling check] system core -> SIGCOMM/NSDI; attack/defense core -> Security; path/topology -> PAM
[Ethics gate] IRB/safety/disclosure clearable? -> if not, reconsider
[Calendar] nearest honest deadline among IMC's two cycles and siblings
[Verdict] IMC / sibling venue / journal, with a one-line reason
Run this before the writing skills; a wrong venue decision wastes every later step. When the verdict
is IMC, continue with imc-workflow for the calendar and imc-writing-style for the paper shape.
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → IMC-Skills/skills/imc-topic-selection/SKILL.md