A Backward-Compatible Protocol Upgrade for HotNets

2026-06-24

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenges ACM HotNets faces in effectively supporting agenda-setting research, community discourse, and innovation in scholarly evaluation. To this end, it proposes a systematic reform that, for the first time, explicitly incorporates position papers and community-oriented contributions into the submission scope, distinguishes review criteria for technical versus opinion-based submissions, introduces a collaborative reviewing mechanism, and reimagines conference presentation formats. Furthermore, it explores the responsible use of generative AI to assist peer review and disseminate research outcomes. By doing so, this initiative not only strengthens HotNets’ capacity to foster forward-looking and non-traditional research but also positions the venue as a reusable experimental platform for innovating scholarly evaluation and communication paradigms in the networking community.

Abstract

This document outlines the changes adopted for ACM HotNets 2026, spanning its scope, review process, and program structure. Rather than isolated adjustments, these changes form a coherent effort to clarify and extend HotNets' role as a venue for agenda-setting research, community discussion, and experimentation with how the networking community evaluates, disseminates, and discusses research. In particular, HotNets 2026 broadens its scope to include perspective and community-facing contributions, introduces distinct evaluation criteria for technical and perspective papers, adopts a more collaborative and discussion-oriented review process, rethinks how accepted work is presented and discussed at the workshop, and explores responsible uses of generative AI (GenAI) in reviewing and research dissemination. We believe these changes will help HotNets continue to serve as a home for ambitious, unconventional, and thought-provoking ideas, while also positioning it as a venue for experimenting with new approaches and formats that larger conferences, e.g., SIGCOMM or NSDI, might later adopt. We use this document to solicit feedback from the community, both on these changes and on how HotNets can best serve the networking community in the future. We plan to collect feedback during and after the event and to prepare a follow-up report summarizing the community's reactions and lessons learned.

Problem

• HotNets
• research evaluation
• community discussion
• generative AI
• conference format

Innovation

• collaborative reviewing
• perspective papers
• generative AI in peer review
• conference innovation
• community-facing research