--- name: soda-author-response description: Use when drafting the SODA (ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms) rebuttal — the roughly three-day window between review release in early September and the response deadline, triaging referee misreadings versus real gaps, and writing terse theorem-anchored replies inside HotCRP without breaking lightweight double-blind rules. --- # SODA Author Response SODA runs a short rebuttal, and short is the operative word. For the 2027 cycle, initial reviews reach authors by **September 1, 2026** and responses are due **September 4, 2026** (checked 2026-07-08 via the SIAM SODA27 submission page, read through search rendering). SODA 2026's rebuttal phase opened September 8, 2025, in a record-submission year — the window is a house institution now, not an experiment, but its exact dates, length caps, and mechanics are reset per cycle (caps for 2027: 待核实 on the HotCRP response form when it opens). ## What three days buys — and what it cannot A SODA response is not a negotiation channel. It exists so the PC can distinguish "the referee missed Lemma 4.2" from "Lemma 4.2 is actually broken" before the October decision meeting. Budget accordingly: | Review problem | Response leverage | Play | |---|---|---| | Referee misread a definition or bound | High | Quote the exact line and page; one sentence of correction | | Referee missed a proof in the back matter | High | Point to the section; the full version was submitted, so it is on record | | "Improvement too incremental" | Low-medium | One paragraph: name the barrier the prior bound sat at and who tried | | "Why not compare to [paper]?" | Medium | State the relationship in two sentences; concede if the comparison is due | | Genuine bug found by the referee | Honest disclosure only | Say whether it is patchable; a false "easily fixed" burns the community's memory | | Taste objection ("not exciting") | Near zero | Skip it; spend words where facts decide | ## Preparation happens in August Three days is enough to assemble a response only if the material already exists. Between the July submission and September 1: - Keep a **claims ledger**: every theorem, its exact statement, and the page where each ingredient is proved. Misreading corrections then take minutes, not hours. - Pre-draft the two paragraphs you can predict: the significance defense (which prior bound, which barrier) and the closest-related-paper comparison. - Ensure all coauthors are reachable in the September 1-4 window across time zones. A rebuttal blocked on a sleeping coauthor is a self-inflicted loss. ## Writing discipline - **Numbered points, referee by referee.** PC members skim; a wall of prose loses the one correction that mattered. - **Anchor every reply to a line in the submitted PDF.** "See Section 5.3, Lemma 5.7, page 31" is the strongest sentence a theory rebuttal can contain. - **No new theorems.** A result proved after the deadline is not part of the submission; at most, note that a referee's suggested extension appears to follow and will be included in the full version. - **Stay anonymous.** The lightweight double-blind rules still apply: no names, no "in our previous paper," no links to identifiable repositories. - **Concede cleanly.** One honest "the referee is right; the fix is X and costs a constant factor" earns more trust than three defensive paragraphs. ## Response skeleton ```text We thank the referees. We address the substantive points. Reviewer A A1 (main theorem "only" improves the exponent): The previous bound of O(n^{3/2}) [Ref 12] stood since 2015 and was stated as an open problem in [Ref 3]. Our O(n^{4/3}) crosses the barrier identified in [Ref 12, §6]. A2 (correctness of Lemma 4.2): The referee reads d as the maximum degree; it is the average degree (defined p.7, l.4). The claimed counterexample has average degree 3 and satisfies the lemma. Reviewer B B1 (missing comparison to [X]): [X] solves the unweighted case; our Section 2.1 reduction does not preserve weights. We will state this explicitly in Section 1. B2 (typo in recurrence, p.19): Correct; the exponent should read k-1. The solution of the recurrence and all downstream bounds are unchanged. ``` ## The 72-hour schedule that actually works Multi-author rebuttals fail on coordination, not content. A schedule that has survived real September windows: | Hour (from review release) | Action | Owner | |---|---|---| | 0-4 | Full read; classify each point F/L/S/C (`soda-review-process`) | Lead author | | 4-12 | Claims-ledger lookups for every F and C point | Whole group, split by section | | 12-24 | First draft, worst review first | Lead author | | 24-36 | Technical check of every page/lemma reference against the submitted PDF | The coauthor who did blind proof-checking | | 36-48 | Tone pass: cut defensiveness, cut anything answering an S point at length | Most senior author | | 48-60 | Freeze; sleep on it | — | | 60-70 | Final read against the length cap and anonymity rules; submit | Lead author | | 70-72 | Buffer for HotCRP form surprises | Lead author | Two structural rules: the person who verifies references must not be the person who wrote the draft, and the submission happens hours before the deadline, not minutes — the response form's mechanics (length caps, formatting) are 待核实 until the form opens, and surprises cost exactly the buffer you kept. ## After the response There is no discussion phase with referees. Decisions and final-version instructions arrive from the PC in October (2027 cycle). If the outcome is rejection, fold the reviews into the resubmission plan — the natural next deadlines from a September/October SODA rejection are ITCS (if the contribution is conceptual), STOC in early November if the fixes are fast, or ESA/ICALP in the new year (`soda-workflow` has the calendar). ## Output format ```text [Response plan] [Evidence anchors] [Risk flags] [Coauthor sign-off] ```