/atc-related-work

name: atc-related-work
description: Use when writing or auditing the related-work and positioning of an ATC (ACM SIGOPS Annual Technical Conference, formerly USENIX ATC) systems paper — covering the systems literature lanes, positioning against OSDI/SOSP/NSDI/EuroSys/FAST, writing delta-first comparisons, and keeping self-citation double-blind.

ATC Related Work

Position the paper in the systems literature, not against a strawman. ATC's broad scope means your reviewers span subareas, and a related-work section that a storage reviewer and a networking reviewer both find fair is a signal the paper is well situated. Because review is **double-blind**, positioning and self-citation must be handled carefully.

Cover the lanes a systems reviewer expects

For most ATC papers, at least these lanes should be visible:

• **The direct predecessors** — the systems and techniques you build on or replace, with the

specific mechanism you change.

• **The alternative approaches** — other ways the community has attacked this problem, and why yours

differs (not just "we are better," but *how* the design differs and what that buys).

• **The adjacent subareas** — where an idea from storage, networking, virtualization, or scheduling

informs your design; ATC reviewers respect cross-pollination when it is credited.

• **The measurement/experience literature** — prior studies of the phenomenon you address, so your

motivation rests on evidence, not assertion.

Delta-first positioning

Write each comparison **delta-first**: state what the prior system does, then the *specific* difference and its consequence.

• Weak: "Unlike X, our system is more efficient."
• Strong: "X admits objects on first reference, spending write budget before reuse is known; our

policy defers admission to a probation window, so writes concentrate on reused objects — the difference we measure in §4."

A delta a reviewer can check against your evaluation is worth more than a paragraph of adjectives. Every claimed delta should map to an experiment (see `atc-experiments`).

Sibling-venue awareness

ATC sits among specialized and flagship systems venues, and reviewers will expect you to engage the right literature regardless of where it appeared:

• **OSDI / SOSP:** the flagship line for your subarea — cite the landmark systems even though ATC is

broader; ignoring them reads as unfamiliarity.

• **NSDI:** for anything touching the network stack, dataplanes, or protocols.
• **FAST:** for storage and file-system work.
• **EuroSys:** the other broad SIGOPS-family systems venue — closely related programs.
• **Workshops (HotOS/HotStorage):** where the idea may have first appeared as a position.

Do not misattribute a landmark to ATC because it is famous — many canonical systems papers are OSDI/SOSP/NSDI (see `resources/exemplars/library.md` for the guardrail list). Cite each to its real venue.

Double-blind self-citation

• Cite your own prior systems and papers **in the third person** — "System X [12] admits on first

reference" — never "our prior system."

• Do **not** write "reference removed for blind review"; keep the citation, anonymized in phrasing.
• Watch for **implicit** de-anonymization: an unusual system name, a niche testbed, or a dataset only

your group has can identify you as surely as a name. Neutralize the phrasing or note it generically.

• If a comparison genuinely requires your non-anonymous artifact, mirror it behind a blind service

(see `atc-submission`).

Common failure modes

• **Adjacent-work blind spot** — missing a sibling-venue line a subarea reviewer will know cold.
• **Comparison without a measurable delta** — claims of superiority not tied to an experiment.
• **Strawman baselines in prose** — describing prior work as weaker than it is; reviewers who know

it will distrust the rest.

• **Self-citation leak** — first-person references or an identifying system name breaking anonymity.
• **Venue misattribution** — crediting a flagship result to ATC (or vice versa).

Output format

[Lane coverage] predecessors / alternatives / adjacent subareas / measurement literature: gaps?
[Delta check] each key comparison stated delta-first and mapped to an experiment? yes/no
[Sibling-venue] OSDI/SOSP/NSDI/EuroSys/FAST lines engaged where relevant? misattributions?
[Anonymity] self-citations third-person? identifying names/testbeds neutralized? "removed for review" absent?
[Fix queue] <ordered edits, most reviewer-visible first>