The academic paper review process is flawed, leading to poor quality reviews, arbitrary rejections, and delays in graduation for researchers

Signals over time

3 observed signals across 1 sources, tracked for 0 days. Confidence: medium.

What people are saying Observed

• “Yes, ICLR submissions have gone 11k to 20k to 60k in 2025, 26, 27. Most reviewers hate reviewing, don't get rewarded for it, the papers they reward are usually bad (as acceptance rate is around 20-25%), so they are forced to do it via reciprocal reviewing rules where submitter must also review, but they review with AI, the area chairs write their meta review with AI, they (area chairs) can arbitrarily reject a paper even with "accept" reviews, delaying people's graduation by half a year or more. Also, meanwhile much of the research in eg AI ML application areas where you tweak the architecture and beat a benchmark (vast majority of the tens of thousands of submissions) can now be done better with AI. Yes there are elite academics who do deep foundational thoughtful stuff but the system is totally subverted because most participants don't give a shit and don't feel any long term allegiance to the "research community". They take what they can, and are out very soon. Of course this means the signal and prestige of papers on your CV will tank. And having too many may have the opposite effect l already today.”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “Yes, ICLR submissions have gone 11k to 20k to 60k in 2025, 26, 27. Most reviewers hate reviewing, don't get rewarded for it, the papers they reward are usually bad (as acceptance rate is around 20-25%), so they are forced to do it via reciprocal reviewing rules where submitter must also review, but they review with AI, the area chairs write their meta review with AI, they (area chairs) can arbitrarily reject a paper even with "accept" reviews, delaying people's graduation by half a year or more. Also, meanwhile much of the research in eg AI ML application areas where you tweak the architecture and beat a benchmark (vast majority of the tens of thousands of submissions) can now be done better with AI. Yes there are elite academics who do deep foundational thoughtful stuff but the system is totally subverted because most participants don't give a shit and don't feel any long term allegiance to the "research community". They take what they can, and are out very soon. Of course this means the signal and prestige of papers on your CV will tank. And having too many may have the opposite effect l already today.”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “Yes, ICLR submissions have gone 11k to 20k to 60k in 2025, 26, 27. Most reviewers hate reviewing, don't get rewarded for it, the papers they reward are usually bad (as acceptance rate is around 20-25%), so they are forced to do it via reciprocal reviewing rules where submitter must also review, but they review with AI, the area chairs write their meta review with AI, they (area chairs) can arbitrarily reject a paper even with "accept" reviews, delaying people's graduation by half a year or more. Also, meanwhile much of the research in eg AI ML application areas where you tweak the architecture and beat a benchmark (vast majority of the tens of thousands of submissions) can now be done better with AI. Yes there are elite academics who do deep foundational thoughtful stuff but the system is totally subverted because most participants don't give a shit and don't feel any long term allegiance to the "research community". They take what they can, and are out very soon. Of course this means the signal and prestige of papers on your CV will tank. And having too many may have the opposite effect l already today.”

  Hacker News · frustration