2017 ACL 2017:AC, first reminder to reviewers

Sent to Track Chairs.

Subject: [ACL 2017] First reminder about review deadline should go out today

Dear [reviewerFirstName] [reviewerLastName]:

We are pleased to see the progress on the reviews!  Given that reviews
are also often completed and uploaded close to the deadline (like submissions), we
believe we are currently in good shape.  Fingers crossed!

What happens now?
1. It's now time to send out the first reminder to your reviewers that
the initial reviews will be due on the 27th.  We've prepared a
template in START, that you can use to send out this reminder.  Go to
the mail tool in START to select the template marked "ACL 2017 (Ready!) - Tracks - 1st Reminder" and send it to your reviewers (you can use the "Start the Review Process" link from the Track Management Console -- it is just a link to the mailer anyways).  
  * When preparing your email, please proof it before sending.  You may find that you want to edit the template to show all AC names and CC: all ACs and correct the name of the track.  
  * Please ensure that only one email gets sent out per reviewer, so your meta AC will coordinate the task.
  * You're welcomed to send another followup second reminder gently
nudging reviewers even closer to the deadline (say on the day of, or
T-1 day).  We'll leave this to your area to decide whether it is
needed.

2. We are currently soliciting your help in writing guest content and
comments for the blog, both selectively for certain topics, as well as
in this email as an open call among ACs.  We just published a post
about ACL reviewing and its relationship with arXiv and other
pre-print services, so there's a good opportunity to comment.   We're
also organizing a post about writing good reviews or avoiding writing
poor ones.  If you think you could write up 1-2 paragraphs by
Wednesday (we know it's short -- but the contributed text is
shorter!), we'll put your contributions in as a parallel post to the
earlier one on last minute writing advice
https://chairs-blog.acl2017.org/2017/02/02/last-minute-writing-advice/ .
If you are able to do this, please send a short mail to Min now so that Min can expect to assemble your draft on Wednesday.  Please include a link to an appropriate picture (otherwise, Min will try to source from your webpages).

What happens next?
- From February 27th to March 13th, there will be a longer dialogue
period between peer reviewers, and you, the area chairs, on the
submissions.  You'll also have to chase late reviewers for their
reviews.  We'll be writing more about this upcoming period soon!