podc-author-response

name	podc-author-response
description	Use when writing an ACM PODC rebuttal/author response, if the cycle runs one — covering how to correct a proof misreading, supply a missing lemma or bound within the anonymity envelope, prioritize soundness questions over taste, and behave correctly given that PODC has no revision round to fall back on.

PODC Author Response

Write the response only if the cycle has one — and confirm first. PODC does not always run an author-response/rebuttal phase, and whether the 2026 cycle does is 待核实; check the call before planning around one. If there is no rebuttal, all of this energy belongs before the deadline in the submission itself (podc-experiments, podc-reproducibility). If there is a rebuttal, it is short, high-stakes, and about the proof, not about persuasion.

First: is there a rebuttal at all?

• Confirm on the current call / HotCRP whether a response phase exists and its length limit.
• If none: there is no second chance this cycle — the decision is on the submission as written. Skip to the "no-rebuttal" note below.
• If one exists: it is typically a brief, one-round text response to the reviews, still under lightweight double-blind (do not de-anonymize in the response).

What a PODC rebuttal can and cannot do

A rebuttal moves a borderline proofs paper when it:

• Corrects a factual misreading of the proof — "Reviewer 2 reads Lemma 3 as assuming synchrony; it assumes only eventual delivery, as stated in the model box (§2)." This is the highest-value move: a reviewer who misread the argument may become an advocate once corrected.
• Supplies a missing step a reviewer flagged — a short proof of a lemma, a clarification of a case the reviewer thought was open, or a pointer to where in the full version it already appears.
• States a bound or assumption precisely — resolving an apparent gap that was really a notation ambiguity.

A rebuttal does not move a paper when it:

• Argues taste or significance — "we believe this is important" changes no mind; the committee weighs significance among themselves.
• Adds a new result — you cannot repair a fundamentally incomplete paper in a rebuttal; there is no revision round to carry new material into the final version safely.
• Contests a real proof gap — if the gap is genuine, no wording fixes it; concede and plan for a later venue.

Prioritize by axis

Answer each reviewer on the axis they actually raised (podc-review-process):

[Correctness question]  answer first and concretely: point to the model box, or give the short proof
[Model/assumption doubt] clarify exactly which assumption is used and where it is declared
[Novelty/delta doubt]    cite the precise prior bound and restate your delta in model+cost terms
[Significance opinion]   acknowledge briefly; do not spend the word budget litigating taste

Spend the limited length on the soundness and model questions that can actually flip a vote, not on the subjective ones that cannot.

Stay inside the anonymity envelope

• The response is still double-blind: do not reveal author names, affiliations, prior-work authorship ("in our earlier paper"), or grant/institution identifiers.
• If you must reference your own prior work to answer a question, keep it third-person, as in the submission (podc-related-work).
• Do not link to a de-anonymizing arXiv page or repository in the response.

Tone and structure

• Open with the single most consequential correction, not with thanks-boilerplate.
• Be specific and verifiable: section/lemma numbers, one-line proofs, exact bounds. A reviewer will re-check what you claim.
• Concede cleanly where a reviewer is right; a targeted concession plus a fix elsewhere reads as competence, not weakness.
• Stay brief. Respect the length limit; a focused response on the two pivotal points beats a point-by-point wall that buries them.

If there is no rebuttal (the common case)

• The decision is final on the submitted paper; there is no mechanism to add the missing lemma now.
• Channel the lesson into the resubmission: close the flagged gap, prove the matching lower bound, or reroute to DISC / a focused venue / a journal (podc-topic-selection).
• Post the corrected full version to arXiv so the community sees the complete, fixed argument.

Common failures

• Planning a rebuttal that does not exist this cycle — confirm first.
• Arguing significance instead of answering the correctness question.
• Promising a fix as if there were a revision round to deliver it in.
• De-anonymizing in the response text or a linked page.
• Ignoring the reviewer's actual axis and answering a different objection.

Output format

[Rebuttal exists?] yes (length limit: <n>) / no — confirmed on the call
[Pivotal points] the 1-2 corrections that can actually flip a vote
[Per-review answers] review point -> axis -> concrete, verifiable response (or clean concession)
[Anonymity] response free of author identity and de-anonymizing links?
[If no rebuttal] resubmission/reroute plan; corrected arXiv full version posted?