ACM MM Submission

Use this to run a pre-deadline audit of an ACM Multimedia paper. Reopen the current Call for Technical Papers, the Topics of Interest page, each relevant track call, and the OpenReview group before giving deadline-ready advice — ACM MM rewrites these each edition.

Submission audit

• Confirm the target is the ACM MM main conference (or a specific track), not a co-located workshop, ACM MM Asia, MMSys, or ICMR.
• Choose the thematic area deliberately: it routes the paper to a reviewer pool, and a mismatched area is a quiet source of off-topic reviews.
• Apply the current ACM sigconf template with no margin, font, or spacing edits. ACM MM 2026 used a 6–8 page body; references may spill onto up to two additional pages that contain only references.
• Enforce double-blind anonymity across the paper, appendix, supplement, code, media assets, filenames, PDF metadata, and repository links — unless submitting to the named single-blind tracks (Reproducibility, Open Source Software, Dataset), where the artifact's identity is expected.
• Register the abstract before the abstract deadline; the paper and the supplement have their own later deadlines (in 2026: abstract Mar 25, paper Apr 1, supplement Apr 8, AoE).
• Check concurrent-submission rules and prior-publication status; do not keep the same work under review at another archival venue when ACM MM forbids it.

Blocking risks

• Late abstract registration or paper upload.
• Overlength body or a tampered sigconf template.
• Identity leak in the PDF, media metadata, demo watermark, or repository link (on a double-blind track).
• Wrong track blinding — anonymizing a Dataset/Open-Source submission, or de-anonymizing a main-track one.
• Non-rendering or proprietary-format supplementary media.
• Dual submission to another archival venue.

Desk-reject and triage table

Trigger	Severity at ACM MM	Repair window
Overlength body (past 8 pages)	Desk reject	None after the deadline
Non-references content on the overflow pages	Desk reject or chair flag	Before the deadline only
Author identity in a double-blind PDF/media	Desk reject	None
Wrong thematic area	Off-topic reviews, not a desk reject	Fixable before the paper deadline
Supplement that will not play for a reviewer	Lost evidence	Fixable before the supplement deadline
Missing OpenReview coauthor profiles	Submission blocked	Before the deadline

Last-week sequence for a cross-modal paper

1. Freeze the thematic-area choice and confirm the paper's claims match that area's scope.
2. Re-render every figure and media clip from scripts so body, supplement, and PDF agree.
3. Anonymize media: strip author names from filenames, EXIF/metadata, and any on-screen watermark, and route dataset/demo links through an anonymous mirror.
4. Confirm the OpenReview abstract matches the PDF abstract word for word.
5. Verify the body fits 8 pages with the overflow pages holding references only.

OpenReview mechanics that trip people up

ACM MM runs on OpenReview, but the failure modes are administrative, not intellectual:

• Every coauthor needs a complete OpenReview profile with a real institutional history, or the submission is blocked or the conflict graph is wrong.
• The abstract is registered before the paper — a separate, earlier deadline. Missing it forecloses the paper deadline entirely.
• Declare conflicts honestly; an undeclared conflict discovered later can sink a paper.
• The thematic area is set at submission and is hard to change afterward; it selects your reviewers, so treat it as a first-class decision, not a dropdown afterthought.

Track and blinding double-check

The most ACM MM-specific desk-reject cause is submitting to the wrong track's blinding regime.

If you are submitting to...	Blinding	So the PDF must...
Main track / Brave New Ideas	Double-blind	Hide all author identity, in text, media, and links
Reproducibility track	Single-blind	Name the artifact and its authors as expected
Open Source Software Competition	Single-blind	Present the real project and repository
Dataset track	Single-blind	Identify the dataset and its providers

Anonymizing a single-blind submission (or de-anonymizing a double-blind one) both signal that the authors did not read the track call — fix it before upload, not after.

Format anchors

• ACM MM's two-column sigconf layout compresses hard: wide multimodal figures, algorithm blocks, and qualitative media grids overflow the 8-page body, so budget page space as a design decision early, not on deadline night.
• The page counts, deadlines, and track blinding cited here describe the 2026 cycle; treat every number as provisional and recheck the current CFP and track calls before relying on it.

Output format

[ACM MM readiness] Ready / Needs fixes / Not ready
[Track + thematic area] <main/BNI/dataset/... + area>
[Blocking checks] <OpenReview/page/anonymity/media/dual-submission>
[Cross-modal evidence risk] <one issue>
[Desk-reject risk] <one issue>
[Fix order] <ordered fixes before submission>