[Hotstorage-chairs] HotStorage paper similarity

[Young-ri Choi]

Dear Keith,


Thank you for raising this. I think your characterization is largely accurate.

I also briefly looked at several of the papers, and my impression is similar. They appear to follow a very similar paper template. In some pairs (e.g., #49 and #102), the similarity in the overall template is particularly strong, while others (e.g., #197 and #209) also share very similar figures, tables, and overall presentation. Although the papers clearly reuse the same template and writing pattern, they address different technical topics and propose different artifacts (contracts, certificates, ledgers, etc.).

I do share the concern that this type of submission places a significant burden on reviewers while contributing limited novelty per submission. We will definitely discuss this with the Steering Committee as we consider future submission policies.

Thanks again for taking the time to look into this and for bringing it to our attention. We really appreciate your thoughtful observations.

Best wishes.
Young-ri



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보낸 사람: Keith Smith via Hotstorage-chairs <hotstorage-chairs at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu> 대신 Hotstorage-chairs <hotstorage-chairs-bounces at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu>
보낸 날짜: 2026년 7월 7일 화요일 오후 7:39:30
받는 사람: Bryan S. Kim
참조: chairs26 at hotstorage.org
제목: Re: [Hotstorage-chairs] HotStorage paper similarity

Thanks Bryan,

>  if the papers' contents significantly overlap, there is an ethical case to be made about duplicate submission.

To be clear -- I don't think the papers' content does not overlap in that manner. The papers are each about a different topic but they use similar approaches and feel like they were written using the same template.

One paper proposes that authors of KV store papers should measure and report how much performance variance occurs if they change the data layout (such as row store vs column store). Another paper proposes that authors should instead report how much variance stems from the choice of compiler or the implementation of key storage primitives such as compression, hashing, etc.

All the papers frame this additional information as a concrete artifact authors should provide -- a "contract" or "certificate". All of the papers have a brief motivation, an explanation of the contract/certificate, an incredibly brief section titled "Evidence" that provides some numbers but no explanation of where they came from, and then 3 pages of analysis explaining the supposed benefit of the approach. They all have appendixes with (IMO) little useful information.

None of the papers I reviewed were any good, although that is obviously just one reviewer's opinion.

I'm obviously annoyed because all the papers make more work for the reviewers, but it is also frustrating because it seems like a poor use of time. Even with AI, producing these papers took some thought and work. Perhaps if the authors had focused that effort on a single paper/topic they would have produced something more interesting.

Keith

On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 1:09 PM Bryan S. Kim <bkim01 at syr.edu<mailto:bkim01 at syr.edu>> wrote:
Dear Keith,

Thank you for bringing this up, and we appreciate you going the extra mile to look through even the papers not assigned to you.

Your suspicion about authorship is correct - they are all from the same authors. I cannot definitively say about AI usage, but if the papers' contents significantly overlap, there is an ethical case to be made about duplicate submission. The current CFP has some language about simultaneous submission to multiple venues (HS + other venue), but does not cover this specific case (similar papers to a single venue).

Young-ri and I discussed this, and we will keep the papers submitted by these authors in mind. Should more than one of them be leaning toward acceptance (based on the assigned reviews), we will discuss this during the PC meeting over Zoom with all (if not most) of the involved reviewers for these papers.

We will definitely keep the Steering Committee in the loop about this. You are right: the current ACM policy places the burden on the reviewers, and we, as members of the research community, need to be concerned about AI abuse cases that would otherwise degrade the quality of published research and waste reviewers' effort.

Thank you again. Reviewers like you are what make our research community shine.
-Bryan


________________________________
From: Hotstorage-chairs <hotstorage-chairs-bounces at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu<mailto:hotstorage-chairs-bounces at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu>> on behalf of Keith Smith via Hotstorage-chairs <hotstorage-chairs at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu<mailto:hotstorage-chairs at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu>>
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2026 18:57
To: chairs26 at hotstorage.org<mailto:chairs26 at hotstorage.org> <chairs26 at hotstorage.org<mailto:chairs26 at hotstorage.org>>
Subject: [Hotstorage-chairs] HotStorage paper similarity

Hi Young-ri, Bryan

I just wanted to raise a potential concern about some of the submissions in case you haven't noticed or nobody else has brought it up.

The last three papers that I reviewed -- papers 102<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fhotstorage26.hotcrp.com%2fpaper%2f102&c=E,1,e6XcSBUh2lXx0YK7xzYXWOf5jvnoLgv4_enf1qUUTnniRhGQ48NSr0r5yfxM6O7E92fXfAVI6GhvbrVPFycvBV49giJV0ogqlvwPsW76ud38CEtdsaD4wBM,&typo=1>, 197<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fhotstorage26.hotcrp.com%2fpaper%2f197&c=E,1,Ice3HQzEKOXOs_zEWcFWtqHCHMuIioeUVlpu6ITJkG9FHXYx8nUZkmQG-G5PB3oCBsBr0NNmWByOASD_YYrKGmV80Eizri1W2jcG14hMH_e7auWH4HuAu0ZBitA,&typo=1>, and 209<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fhotstorage26.hotcrp.com%2fpaper%2f209&c=E,1,WlCyBqG6PmeFVNBh0hyrclBwnqxS7WDazVALqvL4Vco-mzOUe5dqrF60_dOim79QvLMT2U7e_bIJ3LYIwrWzQczfEdDe4_ZpYgvuJ0QZ0HQkdA,,&typo=1> -- were strikingly similar. They all describe a similar concept applied to different areas. The papers have similar structure, similar language, and similar flaws. In addition to the papers I've reviewed, at least 4 other papers (based on a quick scan) seem to match the pattern (22<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fhotstorage26.hotcrp.com%2fpaper%2f22&c=E,1,ZpulObutuYh9lsWZPK4XfQDFOMLzsAWwCyhYwYmy9C2wVrugWOphjMZ57zzbSuOf5bYPT-SPyf7spCImuCljctoPCdHj3OVbeEFGbfF9pDNc_tu7Ww,,&typo=1>, 40<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fhotstorage26.hotcrp.com%2fpaper%2f40&c=E,1,wpe7fuwwN_cWaUpFpaJBIXSEk-VO0dfnI-KwyIQiImJ_SkGS5RWy8IyILGHxSSJhIoCuaLIjVeIElhGr5JVNDB4DYnpYgOwT2w8C56twfns8zGAvrFg,&typo=1>, 49<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fhotstorage26.hotcrp.com%2fpaper%2f49&c=E,1,MWzCQxvJqcp6tRrlhdcU7rX1k2O5kSqQbb6gymqkIt8oBDXHyAmQcEyz5ImRzD3e7z_vRf5wvycXXFrL9OkgCqh_GBTAm12KbYWlP3xXCMX1Q3M,&typo=1>, and 117<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fhotstorage26.hotcrp.com%2fpaper%2f117&c=E,1,ihjEoPGpc6SBxfHMXwy7W8dc1iiRj7zCpz62M9Qjddh5T43kgSpiPLYQ8B5MqQi3hRxboYEuF5SHvUi-LLIWYx8M14MO9aZQPUdlSbPyzZywznKnqubcjnoAS0Li&typo=1>). I can explain the similarities if you want.

Given the strong similarities I suspect they are all by the same author(s). In this day and age, it seems likely they were largely AI generated, but that's hard to tell, and anyway the ACM author guidelines<https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship> explicitly say authors can use AI to generate the text of their paper without disclosing that.

So I don't have reason to believe that the author(s) here have violated the rules. And I'm not asking you all to do something about it (unless something here strikes you as illegitimate).

Still I wanted to point this out, in case you haven't noticed this. And I would suggest that the Steering Committee might want to consider changes to the submission guidelines for future years. In particular, I'm concerned that it is too easy for authors to spam a workshop like HotStorage with AI generated submissions, since the ACM allows the undisclosed use of AI in writing papers, and a position paper does not need to have original research content (where AI use would have to be disclosed).

Keith
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