ML Conference Reviewers Ignore Rebuttals and Change Scores Anyway
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)
“Has anyone else received an AAAI-27 desk rejection related to modifications to the title or abstract between the abstract-registration deadline and the full-paper deadline? What I’m trying to understand is how the modification rule is being applied in practice. The AAAI-27 modification guidelines say that…”
“Previous post : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/s/yV38yvoM5C UPDATE (a few days on): Thanks to everyone who replied to the original post - it genuinely helped. A lot has developed since, and it's gotten more complicated, so here's where things stand. I raised the issue with the full author group and asked for a correction (a corrigendum) to add me and fix the contributor roles - no blame, no retraction, just the record corrected. Since then: I learned it was the first author's P”
“I recently read a post on LinkedIn where the author was describing how unhappy they were to find a journal article they reviewed had been published, despite their feeling the manuscript required extensive revisions. They were asking what sort of recourse they had. Most seem to suggest a LTE may be the best course of action. I've reviewed manuscripts that I've suggested major revisions and was asked to review the revisions. Is that not commonplace? I suppose the editors always have the fi”
“I have submitted a paper to acml 2026 journal track, the official date of release of review is 27 August, but I have not heard anything from them, if anyone received the review then let me know I will write to program chairs. Thanks submitted by /u/Jealous_Key_4030 [link] [comments]”
“It’s frustrating how the reviewers sometimes want us to add a lot more things to the paper in question so it can be published. It’s like, mate, I thought about that but I didn’t do it because I don’t want to write a fucking book. Sometimes the reviewers inputs annoy me because I’ve written things in that way because that’s how I want the paper to be. I really don’t like super big papers because then they get overwhelming so I try to keep it simple. Things that they ask to add in this paper could”
“Hey, I know it's been a while but how did it go for you? Were you able to find a nice job? I am in a similar position, tho I am submitting papers at a few top conferences and hoping to get something. But I am worried because my work is definitely very similar in the sense it's mostly incremental/versions of other approaches applied to a specific biomedical task.”
“Hi all, I noticed during the proofing stage that some of the descriptive statistics in my accepted manuscript were off by about 5–10%. I went back to the raw data and corrected them. The corrections do not affect the direction of the findings or the subsequent inferential analyses. I also rechecked the statistical tests, and the p-values and conclusions remain unchanged. Is this considered a significant mistake at the proof stage? Could a journal potentially withdraw acceptance over corrections”
“Why 3? Did you configure them as adversaries (reviewing each others comments), different skill or focus levels (junior vs senior, or architect vs security), different models (GPT, Claude, Kimi etc)? (not an attack, just wondering what value it adds over just running 1 review with instructions)”
“Expecting a rejection from NeurIPS given our scores of 5/2/2. Trying to decide between ARR vs. TMLR, but thinking NAACL findings are more likely than main conference. Would you rather have TMLR or *ACL findings on your publication list? Genuinely curious to hear what people have to say. submitted by /u/Pure-Ad9079 [link] [comments]”
“The visa situation is quite unfortunate. Indeed it’s a bit hard for me to answer, but my team seems to historically hire MS students with exceptional publication records even though they prefer PhD. So I think it’s possible. Realistically looking at your profile, so long as you’re good at interviewing I’d honestly say you should get at least one or two offers.”
“Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut and have everyone think you are dumb vs opening it and proving them right”
“I’m currently rewriting my research summary to add new work and was wondering for people’s opinions on how the point of view should be oriented. I know I should highlight exactly what I did and problems I solved, but what kind of voicing do you use? An example: “ It was surmised * that the inclusion of blah blah would accelerate the rate of…” or * “ I hypothesized ** that the inclusion of blah blah would accelerate the rate of..” I know that using first person is a no-go for actual papers but a”
Had a similar thing happen with a junior last year. What fixed it going forward wasn't a lecture, it was giving a format up front: "one page, three sections, findings/risks/questions." Vague asks…
“quantum computing papers have some of the wildest titles in all of CS, its hard to tell sometimes”
“My manuscript got rejected first for a silly mistake on my part, and I've been working towards that journal for a long time. I was wondering if it's seen as an inconvenience for the editors to read the same manuscript 15 days later. Is this something I should do, or find a different journal? submitted by /u/Spiritual_Poem4172 [link] [comments]”
“Hi, I submitted a revised version of my manuscript (major revision) 9 weeks ago. It was under review by the reviewers for 6-7 weeks and then awaiting decision for 8 days. Is it a bad sign? does it mean my manuscript will undergo another round of revision? 🥲🥲since if it is a direct acceptance, it will take less longer. The journal used ScholarOne. Please advise. thanks submitted by /u/Short_Cream8920 [link] [comments]”
“Got an invite to review an article which uses my published articles language and argument. Abstract has the same language too as my published work. Wondering what to do as I’m so confused haha and the journal editors of this highly rated journal have asked me to review it. Like what about a basic filter to check that this is a rip off? Am I overthinking this. What am I supposed to do? submitted by /u/jadednalive [link] [comments]”
“It's mostly unrelated to this sub. My 2 cents would be not to waste your time with LLM as a Judge. To build any level of confidence in its judgements you need a robust eval suite for it that tests that it gives the output you want in given scenarios. That takes time, and even then I don't wholly trust it.”
“Smallest thing that holds up is a reviewer name and a date, not a status. Status on its own rots, and it rots in a specific way. "Reviewed" is a claim about one version of a page, but the property sits on the page, so the moment anyone edits it the badge is lying and nobody can tell. Notion hands you the fix nearly for free. Add a Last edited time property, add a date property for when it was last checked, then a formula comparing the two. Page edited after the review date, it flags it”
“I'm in academia and we all hear the stories of papers that got rejected by the reviewers eventually becoming the most cited work elsewhere”
“As the title says, we haven't seen any like ACL provided. Very salty about the decision, as AC recommended findings and the reviewers tanked our paper intentionally (we flagged them, and AC acknowledged that). Just want to see if the decision was made based on poor reviewer scores, as we don't know if we need to resubmit to an ARR cycle to cleanse or not. submitted by /u/Massive-Bobcat-5363 [link] [comments]”
“Hello, As the title says submitted by /u/obliviousphoenix2003 [link] [comments]”
“Recently, the AAAI 2027 organizers sent an email regarding collusion occurring during the review process, especially in the 2-cycles category (i.e., an author of Paper A reviews Paper B, while an author of Paper B reviews Paper A). Given the fact that most submissions come from a single country, there are higher chances that the assignment algorithm will naturally create 2-cycles among authors from that country. This, in turn, means that most authors involved in collusion could be from that coun”
“Never attended a conference before, so apologies if these are dumb questions. I’m an author of an accepted paper at COLM 2026. One of my coauthors registered during the author-only registration period, so I joined the waitlist on August 10. I later received an email saying: “Your access to reserve tickets remains active until Aug 24 7:06 p.m. EDT.” I thought I had until August 24 to register, so I didn’t register immediately. When I checked again today (8/23), registration was sold out. I also c”
“My dumbass just realized all NeurIPS workshops are non-archival. In terms of grad school applications, would there be a difference in how much they value ur paper if u get it in a proceeding submitted by /u/Wonderful_Entry9371 [link] [comments]”
“I have got two papers which got desk rejected by PC saying they are previously got reviewed in arr. But those paper never got submitted ever. Any idea what can be done? submitted by /u/malakulmout347 [link] [comments]”
“Defamation suit demanding Elsevier retract paper https://retractionwatch.com/2026/08/21/defamation-lawsuit-elsevier-retraction-gps-air/ submitted by /u/Master-Rent5050 [link] [comments]”
“I posted this 2 weeks and didn’t get any answers. Here I am again. Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you again. submitted by /u/Various-Classic-4229 [link] [comments]”
“Hi, I am almost 3 years in my postdoc, and every manuscripts n my postdocs have been rejected at least one. The common status is desk-rejected 2-3 times (3-4 months waiting and resubmitting); got to review (6-1 year) and revisions but then rejected again. In 2025 (2 years postdoc) i finally got a publication. In 2026, i now have four rejected papers; all after review. One is after revision, and rejected on the account of methodology, which i find the most disappointing after 1 year and a half. N”
“Hey everyone! I submitted my manuscript to BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making in January. In April, I received a 'Review requested'. I got FIVE reviewers and a Major revision. No worries. Modify the manuscript accordingly and resubmit at the end of April. Now, the issue is that 4 out of the 5 reviewers have turned in their report (before July). The 5th one, accepted the revision, but has not turned in the review yet. Could/Should I send an email regarding this? How would you app”
“Hey everyone! I submitted my manuscript to BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making in January. In April, I received a 'Review requested'. I got FIVE reviewers and a Major revision. No worries. Modify the manuscript accordingly and resubmit at the end of April. Now, the issue is that 4 out of the 5 reviewers have turned in their report (before July). The 5th one, accepted the revision, but has not turned in the review yet. Could/Should I send an email regarding this? How would you app”
“So I got rejected at EMNLP with scores:- Meta: 3 (very positive in the review) Reviewers: OA(conf) 3(4) 3(4) 2.5(3) Avg: 2.83(3.67) Track: multimodality Rebuttals never got any acknowledgements. Most weaknesses were already discussed in the paper. What are my options now? As it was my first paper (solo as well). - If I want to commit to NACL in December. Do i need ti submit to acl arr again or can i use the same arr review discussion? - even if i go with resubmission at arr. Do the old reviewers”
“Experienced folks!! Do u think it is worth attending the conference for findings. I do want to. But when I saw that it is not mandatory for findings, I was a bit hesitant. This is my first time having a paper accepted at an AI conference. Just wanna hear opinions/experiences Thanks in advance. submitted by /u/i_minus [link] [comments]”
“Hi everyone, I am currently writing up, in one chapter I have some fairly novel results. But the way I did it is not justified. My characterisation protocol (along with those in the literature) has problems. I’m writing the intro about all of the problems in published literature, and am now finding many good reasons showing why this characterisation approach shouldn’t be done in the first place. I want to give an honest account but it could seriously invalidate my work or the scope/underlying re”
“> The problem with that rule of thumb is that unless there's some status/reward for completing the result, it won't happen.He says it shouldn't be able to published if they can't explain it. Publishing it is the reward.”
“What kind of research are you trying to reach out about, and what's your actual goal with them? That matters for how you approach it. If you're looking to partner on something or get feedback on a product/idea, the straightforward move is to find their department website, grab their email, and send a short note explaining what you're working on and why you thought of them specifically. Keep it to three sentences, what you do, why their work is relevant, and what you're asking for”
“The instructions say Author Year format. But I was wondering if do numbered instead (no space lol), will it be straight desk rejection? Has anyone submitted with numbered format before? How did it go? submitted by /u/confirm-jannati [link] [comments]”
“Hi, if we don't have much space, are we allowed to combine presentations and publications into 1 activity? For example, if we only have 1-2 pubs and a couple presentations submitted by /u/Imaginary_Okra_1080 [link] [comments]”
“Fellow academics! I am a practitioner / academic (now called pracademic?) and was thinking of having my dissertation published. I want to write a version of it that is translational so that professionals can use the information in the field to benefit them and the folks we serve. Are the big academic presses like CUP and OUP very particular about how much the actual book differs from the dissertation? And what are your experiences with wide dissemination of university presses? This is tantamount”
“Hello, I was curious about the differences you can get from the human reviewers and the llms. Any insight is welcome, thank you! submitted by /u/obliviousphoenix2003 [link] [comments]”
“This is a great idea. I feel like this should be a standard check when submitting papers. Not sure the size of the market, but I bet big conferences would be willing to pay for this.”
“Reviews modified dates are public, and some are recent. I’m a bit confused as to how to interpret this. In other conferences, reviewers were required to provide a final justification, which would practically force them to modify their reviews during the AC discussion phase lest they get desk rejected. Here in Neurips I notice that a lot of the high-score reviews do not have a modification past the author discussion phase. I talked with a friend who is an AC today and they told me that adding a f”
Hi everyone, This might sound like a naive question, but it’s my very first time publishing a paper (I've been working on this project for a long time!), so I want to…
“For context: I am sort of close to submitting my thesis (supposed to submit in may). The planed thesis will involve 2 studies I conducted. I am working extensively on the second and last study required for my thesis, this project is also the main part of my thesis and has been going on for ~ 2 and a half years now. I've put thousands of hours into this project, with the first draft for it being ready a year ago. Importantly, the draft was not finished but it critically involded the important”
“Showing the source text side by side is essential, nobody wants to trust a black box verdict when their reputation is on the line. Maybe also highlight the exact sentence in the citing paper that triggered the check, so the connection is visible at a glance. If you can make that verification step feel effortless, researchers will actually use it instead of just trying it once. The time saving alone would sell itself, reading every reference carefully is such a grind.”
A friend and I have been working on a project for a while and wanted to see if it's actually useful to anyone outside our own heads. It's a tool that checks…
“Hey everyone, quick question for people who've been through R&R with Springer journals. I got comments from one reviewer in round 1 (June), I then submitted my revision addressing everything. Now my status shows "First reviewer(s) invited" → "Reviewer(s) accepted." Does this status wording tell me anything about whether it's the SAME reviewer being invited back to evaluate the revision, or could the editor have brought in a completely new one (maybe due to the una”
“Has anyone had this happened to them? What happened? The editor did not follow up with reason and I am honestly a bit shocked/disappointed. submitted by /u/bucket_farmer50 [link] [comments]”
“I received a novel for a rejection email. Would be useful if the feedback was actually relevant to my experience. submitted by /u/variable_star_ [link] [comments]”
“There's no way to make an EAOS score automatically. If we had that, that's the whole fix. Just reject answers with low ethics numbers.”
“Currently applying for grad school programs (computational neuro/bio). I have a paper that's been accepted by a NeurIPS workshop and another that has been accepted by a poli-sci conference. The problem is that I literally don't have the money to fly to Prague for a couple days, pay the registration fees for the conferences, room and board, etc. I've tried applying for grants and similar other sources of funding, but I have not been successful on that front. Would I still be able to t”
“The paper is not open access (OA), but I am really interested in disseminating my results to the general public. Trust in public institutions is at an all time low, and I want to work on fixing this over the course of my career. Can I include the published figures/tables/text in my social media video if the paper is not OA? If not, could I recreate the figures/tables/text in a different format to present in my video? What if the paper was OA? Could I directly take the tables and text from my pub”
“It seems that lately this is an increasing concern, at least in my field (Medicine). For example, I had an objectively solid/novel paper under review for almost 4 months at a journal with 12IF, only to be returned with short reviewer feedback (1 reviewer fully positive, 1 reviewer critical with major comments but not negative) and the decision was reject? No explanation, no editor comments, nothing. Just reject after two sub-par reviewer reports that took 4 months at a high impact journal. And I”
“So, we submitted a paper to a journal, and in the first peer review decision received a "major revision", we added some more results, performed some more ablations, cleaned our content, and catered to almost each point of all 3 reviewers. We submitted the revised manuscript on 14th July, and today received the decision for the second peer review, which is again "major review", but the more interesting thing is that reviewer 3 has not asked for anything, reviewer 2 has asked f”