Hi, not entirely sure this is the best place to ask, but I’m sure many of you are writing something for NeurIPS ATM.

Earlier this year, I wrote a paper, which I posted on ArXiv, which was then rejected from ICML in a close call. Ever since, I have addressed the concerns issued by the reviewers, and in the process, came up with something fundamentally better, but obviously within the exact same topic. I want to submit the new version for double-blind peer review and am asking for insights from the community!

Should I cite the pre-print? The pre-print was never peer reviewed and all results in the new version are better.

Can I simply reuse large portions of the pre-print (i.e. word for word)? Much of the old paper (e.g. introduction, related work) could be reused without any changes and be just as correct. However, I am afraid that a reviewer will stumble upon the preprint and either accuse me of plagiarizing (from myself, I guess), or infer that this might be a violation of double-blind review.

Happy to hear your thoughts!