STOC Camera-Ready

Anchor cycle: STOC 2026 required camera-ready copies by March 31, 2026 (AoE) for the conference in Salt Lake City, June 22–26, 2026, with proceedings in the ACM Digital Library (58th proceedings: dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3798129; checked 2026-07-08). Two deliverables leave your hands in this phase, and they are not the same document.

Deliverable A: the proceedings version

• Reformat from the loose 11-point submission format into the ACM proceedings template the acceptance email specifies; exact class file, page allowance, and the production vendor's upload flow are per-cycle instructions (待核实 from the acceptance packet, not from this file).
• De-anonymize deliberately: author block with canonical name spellings and ORCID, restored acknowledgements and grant numbers, self-citations back in first person where that reads naturally.
• Complete the ACM rights form before final upload; the copyright block the form generates must be pasted into the paper, and the title/author list in the form must match the PDF character for character.
• Expect the proceedings version to remain an extended abstract: theorem statements, overview, and selected proofs. It is the citable record, not the complete mathematical record.

Deliverable B: the public full version

The STOC 2026 CFP stated the expectation that authors of accepted papers make their full papers, with proofs, publicly available on arXiv, ECCC, or a similar preprint service by the camera-ready deadline. Treat this as a hard milestone with its own checklist:

• The full version must contain every proof the extended abstract defers, under the same theorem numbering or with an explicit correspondence table.
• Title should match the proceedings title (a "(full version)" annotation is fine); the abstract page should cite the proceedings version once the DOI exists.
• ECCC suits complexity papers seeking community review; arXiv cs.DS/cs.CC etc. is the default. Cross-listing is common and harmless.

# Package the full version for arXiv from a clean checkout
latexmk -pdf full-version.tex                 # confirm it compiles cold
tar czf stoc-full.tar.gz full-version.tex \
    macros.tex refs.bib sections/ figures/    # sources, not the PDF
# then on arXiv: submit, check the auto-compiled PDF page by page,
# and verify theorem numbering against the proceedings version.

Keeping the two versions coherent

The failure mode this table exists to prevent: a proceedings version whose Theorem 3 is the full version's Theorem 5, silently — every later citation and every reader cross-checking proofs pays for it.

Conference obligations

• STOC 2026 ran inside a five/six-day TheoryFest program (talks, workshops, posters, invited events; the extra Saturday hosted a "Can AI do Theory?" workshop). Expect a short talk slot; theory talks succeed on one theorem, one proof idea, one picture — rehearse to the slot length announced with the program.
• Registration and physical-presentation requirements for accepted papers were not verifiable from the CFP excerpts at check time: 待核实 in the acceptance email before booking decisions.
• Award eligibility is automatic: the PC may designate up to four STOC Best Papers, and the Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award applies when all authors were full-time students at submission (sigact.org/prizes).

Sequence from acceptance email to conference

1. Read the acceptance packet the same day; extract the production vendor's instructions, the exact template, and every form deadline into a checklist.
2. Triage the corrections file (stoc-workflow): reviewer-caught issues and post-submission bug fixes go into both versions now, cosmetic improvements into the full version only.
3. Rebuild the paper in the ACM template early — two-column ACM format holds far less than the loose submission format, and the compression decisions (which proofs stay in the proceedings version) take real editorial time.
4. Freeze theorem numbering across both documents before either is finalized.
5. Submit the ACM rights form, paste the generated block, upload, and then post the full version — in that order, so the arXiv abstract can cite the final title.
6. Book the talk rehearsal after the program schedule lands.

Post-publication hygiene

• Update the arXiv/ECCC record with the DOI once the ACM DL entry is live.
• If a journal version follows (JACM, SICOMP, TheoretiCS and TALG are the usual homes), note that SIGACT's prior-publication policy runs one way: the journal version extending a STOC extended abstract is standard practice, expected by editors, and should say "a preliminary version appeared in STOC 2026."
• Archive the exact submitted, accepted, and camera-ready sources; Test of Time and prize committees read the proceedings version decades later.

Failure modes seen at this stage

• The proceedings version compiled from stale submitted sources while all fixes went to the full version — the published record now carries known bugs (stoc-reproducibility's drift vignette, realized in production).
• Rights-form metadata typed from memory, so the DL entry spells an author differently from every other paper they have written.
• The arXiv posting deferred "until after the conference," quietly breaking the CFP's camera-ready expectation and leaving five months where the community cites a proofless extended abstract.
• A talk built as a proof walkthrough; twenty minutes of lemma dependencies loses even the specialists. One theorem, one idea, one picture.

Output format

[Camera-ready state] not started / ACM version in progress / full version live / both done
[Version-coherence check] <numbering, statements, proof coverage>
[Rights/forms] <ACM form status, copyright block pasted?>
[Full-version location] arXiv/ECCC id or 待核实
[Talk prep] <slot length, one-theorem story chosen?>