Unbalanced deadlines undermine fair review and erode author

Unbalanced deadlines undermine fair review and erode author trust.

In the discussion surrounding ICML 2026, a critical oversight has emerged regarding the decision to extend the deadline for reviewer final justifications while restricting author communication with area chairs (ACs).

April 13, 20263 min readMachine Learning

The decision to extend the deadline for reviewers to post final justifications while keeping authors from contacting their assigned chairs was a misstep, and it undermines the entire review process. This is not a minor procedural tweak; it is a structural flaw that rewards late-stage maneuvering and punishes authors who have already played by the rules. When a reviewer uses this extended window to raise concerns about experimental reliability or comparison fairness that were never mentioned in the initial review or the rebuttal response, the system is not fostering deeper engagement. It is enabling a moving target.

For authors, this creates a chilling practical reality: your paper can be accepted on the merits of the review process, only to be sunk by a final justification that introduces new, unvetted objections. The reviewer in question here is not clarifying a misunderstanding. They are retroactively redefining the terms of evaluation. That is not rigorous scholarship; it is a power play dressed as diligence. And because authors are barred from contacting their assigned chairs, there is no avenue to challenge the new claims, no way to correct a mischaracterization, and no one to hold the reviewer accountable for consistency. The imbalance is stark: reviewers get extra time to move the goalposts, while authors are left to watch from the sidelines.

This matters beyond any single submission. Trust is the currency of peer review, and trust erodes when the rules change midstream without recourse. Authors prepare their strongest work, respond to feedback with care, and then discover that the final justification phase is not about summarizing or confirming; it is a second chance for a reluctant reviewer to manufacture doubt. The fact that this reviewer already signaled a weak accept suggests the extended deadline did not improve the quality of their input. It simply gave them room to rationalize a position they had already taken. That is not a bug in the system; it is a symptom of a process that values finality over fairness.

The fix is not complicated. If reviewers are granted additional time to post final justifications, authors must be granted the same courtesy to respond, or the assigned chairs must be available to mediate in real time. Alternatively, the final justification should be restricted to addressing points already raised during the review and rebuttal phases, not introducing new critiques. The goal of peer review is to reach a fair and informed decision, not to test whether authors can outlast a shifting deadline. Until that balance is restored, every submission carries an unspoken risk: the review you receive may not be the one that decides your paper. That is a risk no researcher should have to take.

From Machine Learning

Just as the title says, I believe the decision to extend the deadline for reviewers to post their final justifications while not allowing authors to contact their ACs was a big misstep. I have a reviewer who, in their final justification is questioning the reliability of experimental setup and evaluation, as was as the fairness of comparison, issues that were never brought up during the initial review or their response to our rebuttal. It seems as though they were looking for reasons to justify not wanting to move their score from weak accept. It now feels like, despite having otherwise…

Navigating the New Push for Consensus in AI Paper Reviews

I heard there is more pressure on the ACs to get final justifications and encourage reviewers to converge to a consensus. Is that true? Full disclosure, I am asking because I am bummed at how quiet the activity on my paper has been. I reviewed 6 papers, where 1 withdrew toward the end of the reviewer-author discussion period. Of the remaining 5, many have an average of 3 or lower, but still ACs have responded on every paper but one (with 2,3,3). They pushed the reviewers to do a final justification, so almost every single final justification is filled out, just one is missing on one of the papers. Meanwhile, I have a 3344....which probably won't get in, but shows some disagreement at least....and there is no movement on my reviewers for writing their final justification. 2 reviewers (3, 4) haven't posted a final justification at all. I wonder if my AC is not bothering to push for discussion. submitted by /u/WhiteBear2018 [link] [comments]

When Academic Review Incentives Mismatch Research Progress

My 4444 (4443 pre-rebuttal) got rejected (as expected). Just copying a reply I wrote a couple of days ago before decisions were out: There seems to be a misalignment in the incentives of this year’s ICML reviews. The rebuttal phase is pushing hard to encourage reviewers to reconsider their scores, which has a good motivation. But in practice, it creates a distorted dynamic. ACs are seeking homogeneous ratings among reviewers. As a reviewer, I feel the pressure to increase my score to avoid prolonged back-and-forth discussions. I would assume there may be many reviewers who are not engaged but raise their scores just to end the discussion. At the same time, reviewers who are initially positive often seem reluctant to update their scores, even after their concerns are addressed. I came across a review that said: “Thank you for the rebuttal. The paper is valuable. The rebuttal addressed all my concerns.” (rephrased to avoid directly locating the paper) Yet the score remained at 4. It now makes me nervous (NOW I KNOW I WAS RIGHT!) since scores are inflated while the conference has a limited capacity. In a few days, we may see MANY uniformly positively rated papers rejected, just like last NeurIPS. I would prefer to roll back to how peer review originally was: reviewers provide honest and independent evaluations; AC assess their quality and consistency; and borderline cases are resolved through AC discussion. The current mechanism feels unnecessarily complex and makes the already bad situation worse. submitted by /u/AffectionateLife5693 [link] [comments]

When Peer Review Fails, Trust in AI Research Falters

As a fellow ML researcher, I feel disheartened and discouraged after seeing the experiences of people who submitted their work to ICML 2026. Given the sheer number of papers submitted to A* AI/ML conferences, the current review system does not seem to work well. For example, in some cases, papers are rejected despite the authors addressing all reviewers’ concerns, leading to substantial increases in scores. What could be a better way forward to ensure a fair review process? submitted by /u/msgs008 [link] [comments]