pods-topic-selection
Use when deciding whether a data-management project belongs at ACM PODS (the database-theory symposium) or should be routed to SIGMOD/VLDB/ICDE (systems), ICDT (its sister theory venue), LICS/ICALP/STOC (pure theory), or a journal (TODS/LMCS/JACM), by contribution shape, the result-swap test, and the PODS-vs-ICDT community fit.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill pods-topic-selection --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# PODS Topic Selection Decide the venue before drafting. **PODS** — the ACM SIGMOD/SIGACT Symposium on **Principles of Database Systems** — is the theoretical-foundations symposium held jointly with SIGMOD each year. Its papers are **theorems about data management**: models, query languages, complexity bounds, dichotomies, logic, and provably optimal algorithms. A technically strong paper whose real contribution is a faster system, a benchmark win, or an engineering artifact is respected and then rejected as out of scope — that paper is SIGMOD/VLDB/ICDE. PODS reviewers read for a **provable, foundational** statement about a cleanly defined model. ## The routing question that matters most The decisive question is rarely "is this about databases?" but **"is the contribution a theorem or a system?"** If the headline is a bound, a dichotomy, a semantics, an expressiveness result, or an algorithm with a *matching lower bound*, it is PODS-shaped. If the headline is throughput, latency, or accuracy on real workloads — even with clever theory inside — its home is a systems-DB flagship. PODS and SIGMOD share a week and a hallway but not a bar for acceptance. ## Sibling-venue routing table |
- The routing question that matters most
- Sibling-venue routing table
- Contribution shapes PODS rewards
- The result-swap and re-label tests
- Maturity, without the ladder cliché
- Cheap reconnaissance before committing
- Decision procedure
What does the pods-topic-selection skill do?
Use when deciding whether a data-management project belongs at ACM PODS (the database-theory symposium) or should be routed to SIGMOD/VLDB/ICDE (systems), ICDT (its sister theory venue), LICS/ICALP/STOC (pure theory), or a journal (TODS/LMCS/JACM), by contribution shape, the result-swap test, and the PODS-vs-ICDT community fit.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill pods-topic-selection --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.