What does notification date mean (CS conference)? I have submitted a paper to a CS conference that takes place in the end of May. According to their website, notification date is in the beginning of March.


Does this mean I won't know if my paper has been accepted or rejected till the notification date?
Will I be contacted by reviewers before that date to improve my paper, or will this only occur if my paper has been accepted, after the notification date?
If I am contacted by reviewers before notification date, does this imply my paper has been accepted, or is it possible to go through revisions only to discover my paper has been rejected in the end?
Yes, exactly.
No, as this would reveal the reviewers' identifies. Normally, you will receive the reviews with the notification or shortly afterwards from the program committee chairs.
Most conferences do not actually have proper revision cycles. Either your paper is accepted or not. If it is accepted, then you get the chance to take the reviewer comments into account by submitting a new final version. There is no formal review of the final version of the paper.


There are conferences that have some minor deviations from the plain process:


Some conferences have a rebuttal period in which the authors can see the reviews and respond. This gives the authors the chance to answer to questions or point out errors in reviews. This will be taken into account for the acceptance/rejectance discussions.
Some conferences have a shepharding process, in which promising by not yet good-enough papers get a second chance to be brought into acceptable shape, with the shorter second reviewing round.
Some conferences have a two stage process, where after the first stage, papers are only conditionally accepted, and the authors need to make a second revision, which is also subject to review.