For those readers of the blog who have not submitted papers to machine learning (or related) conferences, the conference review process is a bit like a mini-version of a journal review. You (as the author) get the reviews back and have to write a response and then the reviewers discuss the paper and (possibly, but in my experience rarely) revise their reviews. However, they generally are supposed to take into account the response in the discussion. In some cases people even adjust their scores; when I’ve been a reviewer I often adjust my scores, especially if the author response addresses my questions.

This morning I had the singular experience of having a paper rejected from ICML 2014 in which all of the reviewers specifically marked that they did not read and consider the response. Based on the initial scores the paper was borderline, so the rejection is not surprising. However, we really did try to address their criticisms in our rebuttal. In particular, some misunderstood what our claims were. Had they bothered to read our response (and proposed edits), perhaps they would have realized this.

Highly selective (computer science) conferences often tout their reviews as being just as good as a journal, but in both outcomes and process, it’s a pretty ludicrous claim. I know this post may sound like sour grapes, but it’s not about the outcome, it’s about the process. Why bother with the facade of inviting authors to rebut if the reviewers are unwilling to read the response?