Researchers, Unfair & Inconsistent Peer Review
Researchers submitting to machine learning conferences (like ICML) are experiencing significant frustration with the peer review process. This includes inconsistent reviewer feedback, arbitrary score changes, ignoring rebuttals, and even encountering reviewers who use unprofessional and potentially fabricated arguments. The process is creating undue stress and delays for researchers.
SOURCES (60)
“Just interviewed Andy Pimentel (chairs the Parallel Computing Systems group at the University of Amsterdam), and we coincidentally ended up on what AI is doing to peer review in computer science. In short, AI has obviously made producing papers the easiest it's ever been, and…”
“Title sums it up really. I just want to know if It is considered as an award, and if it's not I can pivot a little. submitted by /u/Spiritual_Poem4172 [link] [comments]”
“Hi everyone, I am about to start my final year after September. I'd like some honest perspective on my research experience. My interest is in Bayesian statistics. Because of my university's curriculum, the earliest I could take a Bayesian course was in my 3rd year semester 1. In semester 2, I found a professor who is willing to take me. However I need a research proposal first. Moreover, with all the tests and courseworks, my progress was minimal, mostly just reading the papers and submi”
“Hello yall, So, I am applying currently and have research updates that I have 2 publications in review (1 mid author and 1 senior author), 3 mid author accepted posters (2 regional and 1 national), and have 3 posters in review (2 national as 1st and 2nd author and 1 regional as 2nd author). My questions are: Can I send updates letter now despite being early in the cycle? Can I send all of this at once? I would appreciate any help! Please don't take this as me bragging I just want to portray”
“Exactly. That’s the test I’m switching to now. The waitlist measured curiosity. The founding review will measure whether the problem is painful enough for someone to pay $49 for the result today. The application is free only so I can confirm the project fits before taking payment. The metric I care about now is accepted → paid, not emails. Have you made this shift with one of your own products?”
“Hi. I am a student, and recently got my paper accepted in poster mode of presentation. The paper will be published in its full length on IEEE Xplore. Now, the travel grants are open for this conference, so I need the advice of how efficiently to apply. My profile is: 1. I am a member so I am eligible for the grant 2. From a low income, bad economy developing country 3. First Author 4. All authors including faculty cannot secure grant, because due to the ongoing US-Iran war, my country has banned”
“This is what i have been getting since i have applied in hackathons. What do i need to do while submitting an application? And what criteria do they choose for rejection? submitted by /u/Sure_End_4993 [link] [comments]”
“Does anyone have accepted short-paper at ACL/EMNLP/EACL 2025/26? Could you share your track and overall assessment? I'm just trying to get a sense of things, as it seems short papers have a lower acceptance rate than long ones. submitted by /u/No_Cardiologist7609 [link] [comments]”
“Rebuttal access opened to reviewers on July 11 (19:05 UTC), so any later modification means final score updated (even if it's hidden from us now). It shows like this over each review: Official Review by Reviewer KBVi 22 Jun 2026, 18:17 IST (modified: 17 Jul 2026, 17:39 IST) How many of your reviews are showing a modified time past July 11 (19:05 UTC)? submitted by /u/Forsaken_Cold6708 [link] [comments]”
“Just found out from Prism's Discord that compiling is returning someone else's paper. There's a Twitter post too. https://x.com/JustanOthRando/status/2078169169267482778?s=20 I commend their prompt response, though. They took the website down within 10 minutes of the first time the bug was flagged. Just worried if my paper maybe somewhere out there. https://preview.redd.it/csr59ogtwtdh1.png?width=876&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a7d431a98005a7fb0910e7e8f5ed79077bb70b9 su”
Here's a quick thing you can try on your own LLM judge in about a minute. Take a judge prompt you already use, the kind that says "score this answer 1 to…
“I submitted my TACL paper approx on June 1th and was scheduled for July 1st cycle, when and how do you guys think we'll be getting our reviews given the July cycle for the paper which I've submitted at TACL ? And how long does the entire process take for those who have submitted to TACL ? Also, I do want to ask, how good is TACL as a journal and how respectable or how is a TACL publication viewed ? submitted by /u/Practical-Buddy6323 [link] [comments]”
“Applying to CS PhD programs (systems) this cycle. I have 4 papers: 2 are currently under review, and 2 were rejected from top venues in my field. My professors/recommenders told me to list the 2 rejected papers with the venue and outcome, e.g., “rejected from [top venue], in revision for resubmission.” Their reasoning: adcoms like seeing that you’re already engaging with the top venues in your field, that rejection is completely normal (even for faculty), and that learning from reviews is litera”
“My paper got accepted. I have also joined conferences before. I am about to register but I read in reddit that some people think its predatory submitted by /u/ExtensionLife7182 [link] [comments]”
“hey, first time going through this process, the deadline is by today AoE so i'm kinda worried, i just can't seem to find it next to the "official comment" button on my submission, what am i doing wrong? anyone who's having the same issue? https://preview.redd.it/lywderhn4rdh1.png?width=1980&format=png&auto=webp&s=9674e608dce438035bc037c1df904d53758db8f1 submitted by /u/DLLDoesShit [link] [comments]”
“curious if any academics (post-doc, pre-doc) have tried to submit a review without their PI. my area is biology but insights from all areas will be helpful. I am exploring this possibility because I have some strong disagreements with my PI on the interpretation of our recent paper. This idea which I based my interpretation on has been supported by another group who has recently published a study in a very good journal, but my boss is very stubborn and resist this idea. They went to the same con”
“As the title reads. I have last year's prompts, but if anyone has gotten them and is willing to post them or PM them to me that would be greatly appreciated. submitted by /u/Informal-Layer-5430 [link] [comments]”
“I will be writing my first paper soon. Until now I've felt very confident about my research, breezing through thesis writing. However, heard a lot of horrible stories about reviews on papers making people almost quit the process. Is this actually the case or is it just luck? I also have a non academic job waiting for me at the end of the paper writing process. I'm afraid I'll be doing revisions while employed. How do I manage my stress about this? or should I just go for it and hope”
“I negotiated with them, and was given 2 months post thesis writing to finish 2 papers and just have them in review! Thank you to everyone who helped me, I am very very grateful. Current situation: I've been given 2 months, to write 2 papers and have them in review. What are the easiest paper formats to write and get accepted? I know review articles are one of them. My own study has: 3 surveys (quant and qual)(quant is quite weak and small/qual is quite robust) (stand alone data) 1 participat”
“i’ve been looking for ways to share sensitive draft research and early-stage papers with a small group of collaborators without the risk of them being screenshotted or forwarded to unintended recipients. it’s usually not a malicious intent issue, but rather just colleagues being a bit too casual with sharing drafts before they're ready for broader circulation. i've been testing Maipdf to see if using a "view-only" web-wrapper adds enough friction to discourage that kind of casu”
“If you're writing a thesis or dissertation proposal right now and your committee keeps sending it back with vague comments like "this needs more rigor" or "the methods don't quite fit," I want to share something that took me way too long to figure out. The problem usually isn't that your methods are bad. It's that your research question, your theoretical framing, and your methods aren't speaking the same language. Committees can feel the mismatch even when”
“Hello everyone, I am applying for the fall 2027 cycle and I wanted a bit of advice. I wrote a research paper for my quantitative research class where I interviewed 10 participants, but this paper is not so great because the data I collected was not great either (it also doesn’t showcase my interests to the extent that I'd hoped). So now I want to write a whole new paper but the data I will use will be secondary. I want to know if this is a bad idea. I spoke to one of my professors and she th”
“hi everyone! would it be appropriate to upload a PDF containing links that verify some of my activities? for example, I'm listing a first-author research publication in a Scopus-indexed journal as an activity, would it be okay to include the paper's DOI so admissions officers can access it if they're interested? could I also include links to websites I've founded, news articles featuring my work, etc? or is this generally discouraged and something AOs are unlikely to look at? ”
“That's pretty much it. [edit: publicly available datasets!] My project is taking forever. While I am waiting for mice to grow: thoughts on trying to publish a paper using already generated single cell data sets? Is this something people commonly do? My submitted by /u/AdorableFile8721 [link] [comments]”
“I had friends who submitted papers on very common topics, there papers got accepted. Mine was more unique than them. But why did my paper got rejected ?? I'm in the CS field btw submitted by /u/realizerealeyesreel [link] [comments]”
“Fingers crossed I can make it to 60k and actually get it published! submitted by /u/Secret_Garden06 [link] [comments]”
“Based in an economics department but actual work is in Mathematical Statistics and ML. So had my 1st year PhD conference where us 1st years shared our research work. Each student has two panelists who are supposed to ask questions and decide if the student can progress to year 2. Here’s where things get a bit interesting. I presented my work that day and both my panelists attended the meeting online but didn’t ask a single question. Even among the profs who attended, only one asked questions and”
“See title. I was pretty upset as a June 2nd submitter to have to wait till last week to get verified. I really hope I don't get screwed with my secondaries and submitting them "late". If I get them all in by July 22nd, would that be considered "early" or atleast "on time" for most schools? submitted by /u/CableEnvironmental85 [link] [comments]”
“My paper was accepted at ICCCNT 2025, where it was originally supposed to be published in IEEE Xplore. After a long delay, the organizers informed us that IEEE publication won't happen and are now offering publication in the EasyChair Proceedings Series. They mention the proceedings will be submitted for Scopus indexing, but also state that indexing is not guaranteed . How much academic value does an EasyChair Proceedings Series publication hold compared to IEEE Xplore? Would you accept this”
“Based on your experience, what change would make conferences more valuable for attendees? submitted by /u/Embarrassed_Bat_2415 [link] [comments]”
“I received reviews for my paper, one reviewer's language reads weird, asks me to add things unrelated to my thesis, inquires further info on things that I direct the reader in the footnotes but most of all asks me to add a scholar who despite all my attempts do not exist on the internet or so obscure that I cannot find them. Am I dealing with AI here or going crazy after reading too many undergrad papers written by AI? How to ask this delicately to the editor? submitted by /u/hun”
“I met the institution which told me that they couldn’t understand my proposal. Turns out it is no fit and they couldn’t send an email saying that, I had to chase them to meet them and get this reply. Infuriating is an understatement.”
“My team (multiple coauthors, I am the PI) are undergoing extremely unpleasant and concerning review process at an Q1 Elsevier journal. First round reviewer reports were explicitly AI generated. In the following round, it is more of the hallucinated nonsense. For one review, AI residue includes literal copy pasted promps in original language (Asian language), which the editor forwarded to us w/o any oversight. We complained to editor, but they are arrogant and ignorant, dowplayed it and now burde”
“Has anyone been asked to draft their own letter??? I thought it has to be from the referee and not sure if allowed. also....is 4 pages even a realistic expectation from any refereee? submitted by /u/Divine-order111 [link] [comments]”
“Can someone here help with research papers download? I don't have institutional access for few of the research papers I need for my research. I have emailed the authors but no response. I don't know what else I can do. submitted by /u/Icy-Lime-4950 [link] [comments]”
“I'm looking for some outside perspective on an authorship situation for a review paper. There are two main contributors. We come from different sides of the department and bring complementary expertise, so we've each been responsible for different aspects of the review. I would estimate that the written contribution is roughly 60/40, with the other author writing about 60% and me about 40%. Beyond writing, I created the graphical abstract, prepared multiple tables, developed the initial”
“I'm looking for some outside perspective on an authorship situation for a review paper. There are two main contributors. We come from different sides of the department and bring complementary expertise, so we've each been responsible for different aspects of the review. I would estimate that the written contribution is roughly 60/40, with the other author writing about 60% and me about 40%. Beyond writing, I created the graphical abstract, prepared multiple tables, developed the initial”
“Has anyone got an email confirming they have passed the first screening round? submitted by /u/UceyJuicy17 [link] [comments]”
“I submitted my first journal 2 weeks ago and got received the first decision, on the springer nature portal it said that an invitation was sent to 10 people, 7 of which accepted, and today i got some comments from only 3 reviewers, my question is will the other 4 people provide feedback and comments in the upcoming edits and reports or will it only be the 3 reviewers? submitted by /u/Unicorndiarhhea [link] [comments]”
“My TMLR paper was assigned to reviewers on April 23 , and as of July 13 I've received 2 reviews , but the third is still pending. The discussion phase hasn't opened yet, so I can't respond to the existing reviews. Is this normal for TMLR, or is it reasonable to send the Action Editor a polite status email? asking for the 3rd review, apprecite the suggestions submitted by /u/Ok_Ant_4311 [link] [comments]”
“The Editor has sent me a request through the platform the first time, then sent me another email after I didn't accept initially asking for my expertise. It turned out the authors worked on something that heavily relied on an idea I have presented two years ago. So I accepted & review the paper & sent out my comments. I was reviewer #2. I asked for minor revisions, & so did the 2 other reviewers. I kind of regret publishing that idea in a Q2 journal, I should have rather went for”
“Hi everyone! Our research team is currently working on a scoping review paper, and we are looking for recommendations for undergraduate journals to publish our science research. Since our team has invested a significant amount of time and effort into this project, we want to make sure we submit to a legitimate, well-regarded journal. We are specifically looking for prestigious or well-known publications that accept scoping reviews/literature syntheses and have a wide reach beyond just a single u”
“when a school asks to input peer reviewed publications, is it acceptable to include published and manuscripts under review at specific journals? submitted by /u/Radiant-Plankton2319 [link] [comments]”
“Hi everyone, I’m currently conducting a systematic review with a Professor and we’re hoping to publish it eventually. I recently had to update my search as it has been around 8 months since we started the project (we have already screened quite a number of articles from the initial search). While rerunning my search strategy in PubMed, I noticed that the number of results was much higher compared to my original search. After looking into it, I realised that my teammate and I may have accidentall”
“I have a crossover interaction that I want to display on a poster and am wondering what people usually do? I don't that much coding experience so R studio wouldn't be a good option for me. What is generally recommended? Thank you. submitted by /u/Warm_Sympathy6088 [link] [comments]”
“I have submitted my manuscript to Oxford Journal of student Scholarship about 2 weeks ago. However I did not receive any email that my paper has passed an initial review. So is it normal that this journal doesn't tell status of initial check however tells status about has your paper passed formal review. submitted by /u/Competitive-Theme274 [link] [comments]”
“So after finishing my masters degree in computer science my supervisor strongly recommended that I submit my thesis in the form of a paper on a known IEEE journal. I was hesitant and honestly awaiting an instant rejection, since it was my first ever work in that regard and certainly not publication-worthy IMO. I got en email some weeks ago from the assigned reviewers, who genuinely found the work interesting and greatly appreciated how well written it was, citing the open sourcing of the code an”
“Hey guys, I received mediocre scores for my EMNLP paper during the May ACL ARR cycle: 2.5/3, 3/4, 2.5/4. The paper is in the Interpretability track. The reviewers had no larger issue with the methodology or the paper in general, but it seemed like they didn't fully get the so what of my paper. I've tried to clarify everything in my rebuttal, but I don't assume that the reviewers will engage in the discussion. With the current scores, I won't make it to the conference and likely n”
“I'm currently in a PhD NLP position working on building sentiment analysis for social scientists. At the beginning of my PhD, i worked on a paper I think is a great idea. The first two versions of the paper were crap because my writing style was weird. Nowadays, I decide to put the paper in ARR. (A system for conference acceptance for NLP papers) I submitted 4 times to this system (rating on 5) - July : 3,3,3.5 -> decision 3 (can't accept because I've suddenly death in my family)”
“Even after getting ARR reviews and a meta review, how is the acceptance decided at the *ACL venues, because I have seen meta review 3.5 getting to findings and 3 getting to main or even getting rejected. Then what is the purpose of the overall score and recommendation? What do the conferences see when deciding? Do they only care about the metareview and their comments, or the whole set of reviews as well as along with the track in which the paper was submitted. Anyone knowing the process please”
“I got this today. This was after a few promising back and forth emails and a long face to face. Just thought I'd share. Rejection sucks. Keep writing. submitted by /u/ready_writer_one [link] [comments]”
“I've had this feeling for a while when reading the citation pages of ML papers and had to continuously scroll down for like 2+ pages because a citation with hundreds of authors, such as the Llama herd of model paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21783 (no endorsement of this paper btw) or the Gemini paper with 3000 authors https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06261 Now Chinese papers are catching up to this trend and let me remind you they have like 20-40 times the ML researchers compared to the US alon”
“I mean, ecstatic it wasn’t rejected. But ALSO curious what my chances are that it will be published? Not sure how excited I should get. Thanks so much for your input ❤️ submitted by /u/Art-and-Research [link] [comments]”
“I am currently working across multiple research communities, and I've noticed that the ML community is struggling with a massive volume of submissions, which is affecting review quality (as we are seeing in the recent ARR cycles). I am wondering what the reasoning is for not limiting the number of submissions per author? This practice has been successfully used in other research areas for years, such as Security (e.g., CCS) or Computer Architecture (e.g., DAC), to help keep workloads managea”