SIG Creation Guidelines

GUIDELINES FOR ACL SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS (SIGS)

1. The function of a SIG is to encourage interest and activity in specific areas within the ACL's field, including linking with related areas by such means as workshops, newsletters, etc.

2. Proposals for a SIG shall be approved by the ACL Executive. (A note on the proposing procedure appears below.)

3. A SIG shall have a statement of purpose and constitution approved by the Executive, and be designated as an ACL SIG.

4. A SIG shall have at least two elected offices, Chair and Secretary, and hold elections for these positions at least every three years. The initial SIG organizer(s) may serve as the de facto officers for the first year, while a nomination/election process is being established; official elections must be held within the first year after approval of the SIG. These two officers must be members of the ACL. The election procedure must be specified in the constitution. A SIG shall have a Liaison Representative (who may be an officer) responsible for communication with members and with the Executive. The SIG may request help from the ACL in running their election. To this end, they should send the following information to ACL's Information Officer: (a) the voter rolls (names & emails); (b) the ballot details (position names, bios, photos & statements for the candidates); (c) the dates for election start and end

5. A SIG must provide a written report to the Executive each year before the ACL Annual Meeting.

6. A SIG must have at least twenty-five members. It shall maintain a list of its members and supply this to the Executive along with its annual report.

7. The Executive may close a SIG on such grounds as: failure to meet required procedures, inactivity over a period of years, or divergence from the interests of the ACL. If a SIG appears to fail to meet the criteria for continuation, the ACL Exec officer in charge of SIGs will write to the existing SIG Chair and Secretary to seek clarification on SIG activities. In the event of a non-response, the ACL will reach out to the SIG's members, if a membership list is available to the ACL. If those attempts of contact are unsuccessful, the decision to discontinue a SIG will be made by the ACL Executive committee at its next meeting.

8. A SIG's statement of purpose, current officer information, and annual report shall be published by the ACL. In addition, SIG leaders must create a webpage with the statement of purpose, constitution, and current officer information (including e-mail addresses, appropriately spam-protected) prominently displayed, either directly or through a single-level link, on the first page.

9. A SIG may hold workshops in conjunction with ACL meetings, under the normal arrangements for workshops associated with such meetings (independent of other workshops it may hold).

10. A SIG may have access to the ACL membership list, and SIG announcements may be included in normal ACL publicity.

11. A SIG must request Executive approval for any activities jointly sponsored with any other non-ACL organizations.

12. The ACL will not provide any automatic financial support for a SIG beyond that implicitly covered by the means already mentioned, such as publicity. A SIG must cover its own running costs, and any significant proposed expenditures must be approved by the Executive. A SIG may request support for a Workshop according to the normal ACL workshop guidelines, but funding for such a workshop is not guaranteed. A SIG is not required to have subscriptions from its members. Any proposal to support a SIG via member subscriptions must be explicitly approved by the Executive.

13. Formal approval must be obtained for ALL workshops held as an official workshop of an ACL-affiliated meeting, including SIG-related workshops. To obtain formal approval, proposals for such meetings must be submitted by the official deadline---generally April 1st---specified in the single ACL Call for Workshop Proposals (which applies simultaneously to all ACL Chapter Meetings) of the year PRIOR to the year for which the workshop is requested.

14. To enable appropriate planning and load balancing across all ACL's conferences, pre-approval must be requested for larger SIG-related workshops (those with a demonstrated track record 100 or more participants) in order to be held with an ACL affiliated meeting. Such pre-approval requests must be emailed to the ACL Exec Committee by February 1st of the year PRIOR to the year for which the workshop is requested (see email address at http://www.aclweb.org/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3). Pre-approval requests must include a preference ranking for the location of a requested workshop (ACL, EACL, NAACL HLT, ACL-IJCNLP, etc.); the requests will be reviewed by both the ACL Exec and the workshop chairs of all ACL-related meetings, to ensure that space and funding constraints are taken into consideration at all ACL-related meetings. Although first-choice locations cannot be guaranteed, every effort will be made to take such preferences into account.

15. The SIG chair may request, on behalf of the SIG membership, to close the SIG. The decision must be based on a vote from the membership on this matter.

Proposing a new SIG

Proposal procedure: a group interested in becoming a SIG should submit a written proposal to the Secretary for consideration by the Executive. The proposal should satisfy relevant guidelines above and should also explicitly state why it would be desirable for there to be such a SIG for the ACL, list initial interested people, and identify a liaison representative. For reference, see the model constitution.

ACL Executive, January 1994

updated Eduard Hovy, 2000

updated Shiqi Zhao, 2017

updated Vera Demberg, 2023