focs-camera-ready

FOCS Camera-Ready

Acceptance at FOCS creates two publication duties with different owners of

truth: a proceedings version, produced to IEEE specifications and published

via IEEE Xplore and the IEEE Computer Society Digital Library, and a public

full version with complete proofs that the CFP expects on arXiv, ECCC, or an

equivalent open host by the camera-ready deadline (2026 CFP, checked

2026-07-08; the 2026 camera-ready date and format instructions were not

public at check time — the acceptance packet is the controlling source,

待核实). This skill sequences both.

The two deliverables

| | Proceedings version | Public full version |

|---|---|---|

| Publisher | IEEE (Xplore + CS Digital Library) | You (arXiv / ECCC) |

| Role | Citable record of the FOCS acceptance | Record of correctness — the document experts actually read |

| Length | Per acceptance packet (待核实) | Unlimited; all proofs |

| Rights | IEEE copyright/publication form (electronic; exact form 待核实) | You retain arXiv license choice |

| Deadline | Camera-ready date (待核实) | CFP expectation: same date |

| Failure cost | Paper dropped from proceedings | Community reads a proofless announcement; reputational, and real |

Treat the full version as the primary deliverable and the proceedings file as

its formatted excerpt — that ordering produces consistent documents; the

reverse ordering produces a proofless PDF and an orphaned preprint.

De-anonymization, done completely

Reversing double-blind is more than restoring the author block:

• Author names, affiliations, emails, ORCIDs in the packet's required format

and order (author-order changes after acceptance need chair approval).

• Acknowledgements and grant numbers restored — check funder mandates now,

since some require specific contract-number phrasing and open-access

handling of the accepted version.

• Self-citations rewritten out of the third person where it now reads

absurdly ("Chen et al. [7] — the present authors — showed…" becomes "In

earlier work [7] we showed…").

• The "full version" pointer made concrete: replace "the full version" with

the actual arXiv/ECCC identifier on the first page.

Consistency audit before the deadline

The one camera-ready failure that follows a theory paper forever is

divergence between the proceedings version and the full version. Run the

statement-freeze check across the two sources one last time:

# same extractor as focs-reproducibility; both sources, post-edits
./extract_statements.sh proceedings-src/ fullversion-src/
# hashes must match: no theorem statement may differ between the
# document people cite and the document people check
# then verify the cross-pointers resolve:
grep -o 'arXiv:[0-9v.]*' proceedings-src/*.tex   # correct ID, correct version

If reviewer comments prompted real changes (a repaired lemma, a weakened

claim), apply them to both documents and record them in the full version's

changelog ("v3, camera-ready: Lemma 6.2 hypothesis corrected following

committee comments"). Improvements beyond reviewer comments are safe when

they strengthen exposition; new results belong in the journal version, not

in a camera-ready that no longer matches what was refereed.

The November talk and the awards file

• Talk: every accepted FOCS paper gets a program slot in New York

(November 8–11, 2026); whether the 2026 program runs single-track or

parallel sessions was unannounced at check time (待核实). Build the talk

from the ten-page window's narrative — problem, obstacle, one real idea —

not from the section structure; twenty minutes fits one idea.

• Registration and attendance duties for accepted papers (who must

register, in-person requirements): 待核实 in the acceptance packet; budget

as if required.

• Awards: the PC designates Best Paper and the Machtey Award for best

student paper from the accepted pool — recent Machtey citations (2024: the

Ising-perceptron capacity paper; papers with all-student author teams) show

the profile. If your author team's student status matters, confirm the

packet's eligibility declaration is filled accurately; misdeclared status

is unfixable after the program is printed.

Working with IEEE production

Expect the production pipeline of an IEEE Computer Society proceedings —

specific class files, a compliance-checking step, and an electronic

copyright form — with the 2026 specifics (template, page allowance, upload

system) defined only by the acceptance packet (待核实). Two habits that

prevent the classic failures: run the packet's compliance checks on day one

rather than deadline day, because font-embedding and figure-format errors

take iterations to clear; and keep the proceedings source a *generated

projection* of your canonical source (a documented set of cut points and

\iffull switches), never a hand-forked copy — hand forks are how the

proceedings version acquires the typo the full version already fixed.

Endgame sequence

1. Acceptance week: read the packet twice; diary the camera-ready date;

file the IEEE form early (copyright questions take days, not hours).

1. Week 1: apply reviewer-prompted fixes to the canonical source; regenerate

both documents from it.

1. Week 2: de-anonymization pass; funder-compliance check; consistency audit

above; co-author sign-off on the exact PDFs.

1. Submission: upload proceedings files; post/refresh the full version so

the identifier printed in the proceedings resolves today, not at the

conference.

1. Before travel: talk rehearsed against a mixed-TCS audience; slides carry

the arXiv/ECCC ID on the final frame.