| 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>
