Policies

Double-Blind Review

AlignSys follows a strict double-blind review process. Authors must take reasonable steps to prevent reviewers from inferring their identity. Reviewers are instructed not to attempt to discover author identities.

Author anonymity requirements

• Do not include author names, affiliations, or acknowledgements in the submitted PDF.
• Write self-citations in the third person (e.g., “Prior work showed…”, not “In our prior work…”).
• Avoid identity-revealing URLs (personal websites, lab pages, company-internal docs, named GitHub repos).
• Remove identifying metadata from PDFs (including PDF author fields).
• If artifacts are needed, use anonymized links as described below.

Code and artifacts

If code, data, or additional artifacts are required for evaluation, authors must use an anonymous repository.

• Authors should submit code using https://anonymous.4open.science/ .
• Include the anonymous repository link directly in the submitted paper.
• Repositories must not contain author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, or identity-revealing metadata.
• Public (non-anonymous) repositories should only be shared after acceptance.

AlignSys expects good-faith anonymization. Review quality depends on it.

Review Process

Submissions to AlignSys are reviewed using a double-blind process. Each paper is evaluated by multiple reviewers with relevant expertise.

Reviewers assess submissions based on:

• technical quality and clarity,
• relevance to alignment and systems,
• soundness of assumptions and methodology, and
• potential impact on research or practice.

Final acceptance decisions are made by the program chairs based on reviewer feedback and overall program balance.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers and organizers must avoid conflicts of interest. A conflict exists if a reviewer has a close professional or personal relationship with the authors.

• current or recent collaborators,
• current or former advisors or advisees,
• members of the same organization or group.

Reviewers with conflicts will not be assigned to the paper.

arXiv and Preprints

AlignSys explicitly allows submissions that have been posted as preprints (for example, on arXiv).

• Posting a paper on arXiv does not disqualify submission.
• During the review period, authors should avoid actions that intentionally break anonymity.
• Authors should not use social posts or updates to direct reviewers to an identity-revealing version.
• After acceptance, camera-ready versions may be posted to arXiv.

Reviewers are asked to judge submissions solely on content, regardless of preprint availability.

Independent Proceedings

AlignSys is an independent, community-governed conference and is not affiliated with IEEE, ACM, Springer, or any commercial publisher.

Accepted papers will be published as open proceedings. Authors retain copyright.

Accepted papers will be hosted on the AlignSys website and associated with the conference through OpenReview. Additional archiving options may be announced later.

Registration Policy

AlignSys charges no submission or publication fees. Registration fees are used solely to cover conference operations.

• Registration fee: USD 250 per attendee.
• Attendance: Registration is required to attend the conference.
• Authors: At least one author of each accepted paper is expected to register and present.
• Transfers: Registration transfers may be allowed; details will be posted closer to the event.
• Refunds: Refund/cancellation policies will be announced when registration opens.

Questions: hello@alignsys.org