ACL Announces New Review Policies Including Mandatory Reviewer Acquisition

ACL has announced a Sustainable Reviewing policy to address the surge in paper submissions. The core of this policy is to allow submissions only up to the available reviewing capacity.

Key Changes

• Mandatory Reviewer Acquisition: Every submitted paper must secure a qualified reviewer or chair, which is treated as a "cost." Submissions without reviewing personnel become eligible for a lottery for the remaining capacity.
• Mentoring System: A mentoring system will be established for authors who are not yet qualified to review.
• Non-Author Recommendations: If none of the authors are qualified, a non-author recommender can be designated, but they must vouch for the paper's content.
• Submission Limits: The submission cap is set at 20 papers per author in total, and 5 papers per cycle for the first author (including co-first authors).

Abuse Prevention and Sanctions

To prevent system abuse, penalties or bans will be imposed on accounts that systematically submit or vouch for low-quality papers.