--- name: colt-camera-ready description: Use when converting an accepted COLT (Conference on Learning Theory) paper into its PMLR proceedings version, covering de-anonymization, acknowledgements and funding restoration, appendix consolidation into the archival PDF, PMLR volume metadata and BibTeX hygiene, rebuttal-promised edits, and presentation logistics. --- # COLT Camera Ready Use this after a COLT acceptance. COLT proceedings are published electronically in the Proceedings of Machine Learning Research (PMLR) — verified against the COLT 2026 CFP and PMLR volume pages on 2026-07-08. The camera-ready instructions arrive with the acceptance notification; they, not this file, control exact dates and forms. ## Recent volume anchors (verified 2026-07-08) | Edition | PMLR volume | Location | Volume editors | |---|---|---|---| | COLT 2024 (37th) | v247 | Edmonton, Canada | Shipra Agrawal, Aaron Roth | | COLT 2025 (38th) | v291 | Lyon, France | Nika Haghtalab, Ankur Moitra | | COLT 2026 (39th) | announced with acceptance (待核实) | San Diego, USA | current program chairs | Volume editors are the program chairs of that edition; the pairing rotates every year. The COLT 2026 volume number and camera-ready deadline were not yet published at the access date — take both from your acceptance email. ## De-anonymization pass - Remove the template's `anon` option so the author block renders; verify the running head and PDF metadata now carry real names. - Restore acknowledgements, funding lines, and any statements the anonymous version cut. These lines add length — recheck where the body boundary falls if the current instructions still enforce a body limit at camera-ready (待核实 per cycle). - Rewrite defensive third-person self-citations ("the authors of [12] showed") back into honest first person where it reads better. - Swap anonymized or omitted repository links for stable public URLs, and test each from a logged-out browser. ## Consolidating the archival PDF At COLT the appendix ships inside the same archival PDF, so the proceedings version is the *complete* record — there is no separately hosted supplement to lean on later. - Fold every rebuttal-promised edit into the text now: theorem statements that must carry an explicit constant, assumptions promoted from appendix to body, corrected displays. Keep a private ledger mapping each reviewer request to the diff that answers it, because chairs occasionally spot-check. - Do not renumber theorems, lemmas, or assumptions relative to the reviewed version unless forced; the review record and any citing preprints refer to the old numbers. - Reconcile the arXiv version: theory readers will diff arXiv against PMLR, so either update arXiv to match or note the differences in the arXiv comments field. - Run a final pass on cross-references — `\ref` breakage introduced by de-anonymization edits is the most common camera-ready defect in proof-heavy papers. ## PMLR metadata and citation hygiene Title, author order, and abstract you enter in the proceedings forms become the citable record. The PMLR page for your paper generates the canonical citation; make your own BibTeX consistent with it: ```bibtex @inproceedings{yourkey2026tight, title = {Tight Rates for a Learning Problem}, author = {Lastname, First and Coauthor, Second}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference on Learning Theory}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, volume = {TBD}, % assigned volume number, e.g. v291 was COLT 2025 pages = {1--30}, % assigned by the volume year = {2026}, publisher = {PMLR} } ``` - Check every accent and math symbol in the title as it will render on the PMLR page. - Author order must match the submission unless the chairs approved a change. - PMLR is open access with no author-side publication fee; COLT's cost model is conference registration, not an APC. ## Presentation and registration obligations - Expect that an accepted COLT paper must be presented at the conference by an author; the exact registration requirement, talk versus poster format, and any remote option for the 2026 edition were not verifiable at the access date (待核实) — the acceptance email and the registration page at learningtheory.org control. - COLT is single-track: your talk or poster is seen by the whole community, so slide preparation deserves more lead time than at parallel-session venues. - Budget for registration early; COLT 2026 ran June 29 to July 3 in San Diego, and conference-hotel capacity at smaller venues fills quickly. ## Preparing the talk alongside the PDF Camera-ready season doubles as talk season, and at a single-track venue the talk is part of the paper's public record: - Build the talk from the informal theorem statements and the technique paragraph, not from the formal setup — the room already speaks the field's vocabulary but has not seen your notation. - One slide of "what was known" with exact prior rates mirrors the paper's known-vs-new ledger and is the single highest-value slide at COLT. - Rehearse the proof-idea slide until it survives without the appendix: the aim is that a listener could set a student to re-derive the result. - If the edition uses posters for some papers, the poster's spine is the same three objects: model, theorem, technique — resist the empirical-venue urge to fill space with plots you do not have. - Announce the open questions from the paper's discussion section; COLT audiences treat posed problems as gifts, and follow-up work cites the talk's source paper. ## Common camera-ready defects at COLT | Defect | Why it happens | Catch it by | |---|---|---| | Body overflow after author block returns | Anonymous version used the freed lines | Recompiling with authors before editing anything | | Theorem numbering drift vs. reviewed version | Appendix restructuring | Diffing the numbered-statement list | | arXiv/PMLR content divergence | Only one copy updated | A scheduled same-day update of both | | Broken `\ref` after merging rebuttal edits | Labels deleted with old text | `grep`-style check for "??" in the compiled log | | Metadata mismatch (title case, accents) | Forms filled from memory | Copy-pasting from the final PDF | ## Output format ```text [Camera-ready status] Ready / Needs fixes / Blocked [Reviewer-promise ledger] diff location> [De-anonymization checks] [Numbering stability] preserved / documented changes [Logistics] ```