I have tweaked it just a tad, and am happy with the results. The main tweak is that the key sentence re: Review A now says “That is no reason not to champion & accept it.” I definitely want something stronger than what was there before, but will not insist that it be exactly what I just replaced it with.

Going for changing C to A and skipping B?

Yes.

I think starting a review with “Wow” (and meaning it in a positive way) is coherent with an A.

I disagree, I think we should not ask A to champion

More generally, I don’t think something stronger is needed

I agree that review A is bad but I don’t think a stronger statement helps us

It’s tricky. Some people need a more solid “wake up” call to do the right thing, while others get offended. The tone of the review made me think this was someone in the first camp.

And I must admit that I’m still smarting from a paper with reviews (accept, weak accept, accept) and result: reject, because the conference got too popular, and so that wasn’t strong enough. Will only a single champion be enough for us to get in to ICFP?

Which conference was that?

I don’t know if our paper will get in, but it would definitely get in if it had those scores instead

FDG - Foundations of Digital Games.

We’ve resubmitted to CHIPlay. Have not posted to arxiv because both venues take their double-blind very seriously.

@samth By “those scores” do you mean ABB or AAB?

I mean AAB

But you’re arguing that we ‘only’ try for ABB from the current ABC. Is that enough?

I think describing author responses in terms of what score we hope to get the reviewer to give is not a helpful way to think about the process

Our one and only aim is to get the paper finally accepted, no?

Why even bother writing a response if we’re not aiming to change minds to get there?

Yes, that’s the aim

I would say we should respond to the claims reviewers make that give reasons to reject the paper, and provide support for the reviewers that support our paper, and cast doubt on the reviews that do not support our paper

In tactful, respectful, but nevertheless firm manner.

Our champion must see how ridiculous reviewer A’s position is.

Perhaps reviewer A should realize how ridiculous they make themselves sound! They are not anonymous to the rest of the PC, and have a reputation to uphold.

How about “That is no reason not to accept it, even champion it.” Or “That is no reason not to accept it. In fact, it can be a reason to champion it.”

Or “That is no reason not to accept it. It can even be a reason to champion it.”

I like that second one.

Which second one? (I made 3 suggestions)

Oops, sorry!

Either of “In fact, …” of “It can even …” are fine with me. Probably slight preference for the last (i.e. 3rd by proper counting).

Ok

Submitted.

From: François Pottier <francois.pottier@inria.fr>

If additional reviews come in during the author response period, you should notify the authors; they will see the new reviews in HotCRP and can respond to them.

If additional reviews come in after the author response period, then you should notify the authors and allow them to respond (by email) to these new reviews.