Removing some citations between initial and final submission of paper Is it considered bad practice or unethical to remove some references/citations between the initial paper submission and the final one? I submitted an 8-page conference paper, it got peer-reviewed, it got accepted, and now I have to submit the final 6-page version. In order to cut down on length, I'm thinking of removing some less important/relevant references that I included in the initial submission.

Are there any general "rules" against that? It's an IEEE paper btw.
You are of course entitled to add or remove parts of your paper to adhere to length and content guidelines of a conference or journal. If such changes lead to a change in the references being cited, then that is reasonable. Of course, it is also reasonable for the journal or conference to determine if the changes that you've made affect the overall quality of the paper. So it cuts both ways.