icdt-author-response

name	icdt-author-response
description	Use when responding to ICDT (International Conference on Database Theory) referees — principally the first-cycle Revise-and-resubmit round, where you return a corrected paper that closes each identified proof gap, plus any short author-comment phase, keeping the response anonymous and mapping every referee point to a concrete change in the revised PDF.

ICDT Author Response

Write the response for a venue where the referees checked your proofs. ICDT's central author-interaction mechanism is the Cycle-1 Revise-and-resubmit: not a short rebuttal that argues taste, but a returned paper in which each gap the referees named has been closed and the change documented. The second read is done by the same referees; a point raised and not addressed is what turns a revision into a reject.

Confirm the exact interaction model for the live cycle: ICDT's primary lever is the revision; whether a separate short rebuttal/author-comment phase runs in a given edition is 待核实 — read the current call. The advice below applies to the revision and, where one exists, to a brief comment phase.

Triage the referee points first

Sort every point by kind, because the fix differs:

Point kind	Example	Response
Correctness gap	"The proof of Lemma 4 omits the cyclic case"	Fix it in the paper; show the added case; this is top priority
Missing bound	"Only the upper bound is proved"	Prove the matching lower bound or scope the claim honestly
Model ambiguity	"Is this data or combined complexity?"	Pin the model in the body; correct any statement that was ambiguous
Positioning	"How does this differ from [PODS year]?"	Add the precise delta to related work (icdt-related-work)
Clarity	"Definition 2 is hard to parse"	Rewrite; a confused referee re-reads the revision
Genuine misreading	The referee misunderstood a quantifier	Correct it and fix the prose that allowed the misreading

Correctness first, then bounds, then model, then clarity and positioning.

Write the revision, not a debate

• Close the gap in the paper, then point to where: "Lemma 4 now covers the cyclic case (Appendix A, para 3)." The change lives in the PDF; the response is a map to it.
• Prefer a fix over an argument. "We prove the missing lower bound in the new Section 5" beats "we believe the lower bound is not essential."
• Where you decline a request, say why, technically. "A matching lower bound would require resolving [open problem]; we instead scope the claim to [restricted class] (Theorem 3)." An explicit, reasoned decline is respected; a silent omission is not.
• Never argue taste. "We think the model is natural" moves nothing; a referee who found a gap wants it closed, not defended.

Anonymity in the response (since 2024)

The regular track is anonymous through review, so the revised paper and any response text must not de-anonymize you:

• No author names, no "our prior work," no acknowledgments reintroduced in the revision.
• Do not add an arXiv/full-version link that names you into the revised PDF.
• Keep self-citations third-person in the revised text (see icdt-related-work).

A point-by-point skeleton for the revision letter

Summary: what changed at the top level (e.g., "added the matching lower bound; fixed the cyclic
         case in Lemma 4; clarified the complexity measure throughout").

R1.1 [correctness] "Lemma 4 omits the cyclic case."
     -> Fixed. The cyclic case is now handled in Lemma 4, with the argument in Appendix A.
R1.2 [bound] "Only an upper bound is shown."
     -> Added. Theorem 5 now proves a matching lower bound by reduction from <problem>.
R2.1 [model] "Data or combined complexity?"
     -> Clarified. The bound is combined complexity; stated explicitly in Section 3 and the abstract.
R2.2 [positioning] "Relation to [X, PODS year]?"
     -> Added to Related Work: their result is the special case of bounded arity; ours removes it.

The cross-cycle rule (do not misuse the response)

If your paper was rejected in Cycle 1 (not invited to revise), a response cannot resurrect it, and you may not resubmit to Cycle 2 unless the referees explicitly invited it. Reroute instead (icdt-topic-selection). The response letter belongs to the revision path, not the reject path.

Output format

[Interaction type] Cycle-1 revision / short comment phase / na (rejected)
[Point triage] correctness / bound / model / positioning / clarity, each -> concrete change
[Changes made] <list of paper edits with locations>
[Declines] <each declined request + technical reason>
[Anonymity] revised PDF and letter non-identifying? yes/no