brycewang-stanford VLDB Author Response
Use this when PVLDB reviews arrive — typically around the 15th of the month after your deadline — and the verdict is revise. PVLDB has no rebuttal phase before decisions: the reviews and the outcome land together, so the author-response genre at this venue is the revision package. You get exactly one revision, and up to three months to deliver it.
Read the verdict as a contract
A PVLDB revision request is written to be specific: reviewers state what the revision must contain. Treat that list as the acceptance test.
- Extract every required item into a numbered ledger before anyone starts editing; ambiguous requirements get a clarifying interpretation written down, not ignored.
- Separate required changes from suggested ones. Required items decide the outcome; suggestions earn goodwill when cheap.
- Estimate honestly whether the heaviest requirement — usually a new experiment or a stronger baseline — fits inside three months on your hardware. If it cannot, decide now between a scoped-down response and a withdrawal, because a failed revision consumes the only attempt.
Budgeting the three months
| Weeks | Activity |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ledger built, requirements interpreted, infeasible items escalated |
| 2-7 | New runs, added baselines, corrected analyses |
| 8-9 | Text integration; every change traceable to a ledger item |
| 10-11 | Change document drafted; internal re-review against the ledger |
| 12 | Buffer for rerun failures; submit early, not at the wire |
The same reviewers return. They remember what they asked for, and they check the ledger items first — new prose that dodges a required experiment is the canonical failed revision.
Writing the change document
- Open with a one-paragraph summary of what changed and where.
- Then answer requirement by requirement: quote the reviewer's ask, state what was done, and point to the exact section, figure, or table in the revised PDF.
- Where results moved against you, say so plainly and interpret the movement. Reviewers at a systems venue respect a measured regression explained; they punish one discovered.
- Do not smuggle in an expanded contribution. The revision is re-reviewed against the original claims plus the required changes — a rewritten paper restarts skepticism instead of resolving it.
Response skeleton
Summary of revision (5-8 lines)
R1.1 [quoted requirement]
Done: <change made>
Where: <section / figure / table>
Note: <result movement, if any>
R2.3 [quoted requirement]
Done / Partially done because <honest constraint>
Where: ...
Judgment calls
- A requirement you believe is mistaken still gets an experiment or a careful argument with evidence — never a bare disagreement.
- If two reviewers conflict, satisfy both where possible; otherwise state the conflict explicitly and justify the path chosen.
- Nothing stops you asking the assigned meta-level contact (where the volume provides one) about genuinely uninterpretable requirements early — 待核实 the current escalation channel on the live guidelines.
Output format
[Verdict] revise (one-shot) / clarification needed
[Requirement ledger] <numbered items, required vs. suggested>
[Feasibility] fits window / at risk (item, reason) / infeasible
[Heaviest item] <experiment or analysis, est. weeks>
[Change-document status] <drafted sections / gaps>
[Submit-by] <own target, ahead of the 3-month limit>