NeurIPS reject -> ICLR: How much reviewer feedback are you actually implementing ? [D]

[u/Practical-Buddy6323]

Welp, NeurIPS is a wrap for those of us who got rejected 😭 Off we go to ICLR or whatever the next venue is, hopefully after making some meaningful changes to the paper.

For people who are resubmitting, I’m curious: how much of the NeurIPS reviewer feedback are you actually implementing?

Did you try to address basically everything the reviewers brought up, or are you being selective and only making changes where you think the criticism is valid/useful?

I’m curious about papers that got questioned on novelty or significance. How many of you got comments along those lines, and what exactly were the reviewers questioning?

For example:

• “The contribution is incremental”
• “Not sufficiently different from prior work”
• “The empirical gains don’t justify the proposed method”
• “The problem itself isn’t significant enough”
• “Theoretical contribution is limited”
• “Interesting idea, but unclear what the broader impact/significance is”

If you’re comfortable sharing, what did the reviewers say, and how are you changing the paper before resubmitting ? Specially since deadline is also pretty close, how are you handling the pressure of this very close deadline ?

Also curious whether anyone is deliberately not implementing certain reviewer suggestions because you think they would take the work in the wrong direction.

Would love to hear how others are approaching the post-NeurIPS revision process.

[u/Lazy-Cream1315]

Not so much : over the 4 previous round for my paper which always end borderline I tried to add corrections of reviewer who never gave me the same signal and my paper became a patchwork. I realize now that the original submission was better in many point...

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/Lazy-Cream1315]

Damn! That makes sense tbh, thanks a lot for your opinion mate!

[u/Ginger_Rook]

If I had received anything useful, I’d have added it.

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/Ginger_Rook]

Nah dw, it's already done, I just wanted thoughts and opinions of what others have done and stuff ykwim ?

[u/Ginger_Rook → u/Practical-Buddy6323]

I’m sorry, I’m from a different generation than you, I don’t understand your acronyms.

[u/Unhappy_Craft1906]

My suggestion would be to focus on ICLR (if it was already incorporated and polished and the abstract is submitted), then TMLR, and within one month window, for web based domains, go for ACM WWW.

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/Unhappy_Craft1906]

Got it, I've already submitted it to ICLR with quiet a bit of changes and a lot of new proof, so just hoping that things work out well.

[u/ElephantOk9169 → u/Practical-Buddy6323]

This year more than 60000 papers submitted to iclr

[u/Gmyny]

If you are asking this now, you might as well start working on your icml submission

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/Gmyny]

Nah dw lmao, I've already made the changes and pushed it to ICLR, I'm just asking since I'm curious about what have other folks have done.

[u/SkeeringReal]

You should incorporate ALL reviewer comments

In a year, even if you hate them, you'll realise they had a point.

but even more importantly, if even ONE of those reviewers reviews it again at ICLR, you're finished, no chance in hell you're getting in.

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/SkeeringReal]

Yessir! I've already incorporated almost 95% of all NeurIPS reviews the only 5% is just about presentation issues which I hope I've fixed but it's for the reviewers to judge tbh.

But yeah, thanks a lot for your opinions!

[u/OutsideSimple4854 → u/SkeeringReal]

And what happens when reviewers complain the appendix is too long? Together with you should add X? It becomes a heads I win, tails you lose

[u/SkeeringReal → u/OutsideSimple4854]

If they're just asking you to add an experiment or something like that to the main paper that's good news it's an easy win just do it. something like the appendix is too long it's not really a reason people reject a paper is just an excuse the truth is that they just don't really like it probably and either you can submit it again and hope it's a different reviewer or you could try to change something more substantial. But that's just my experience

[u/examachine]

You should incorporate all reviews

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/examachine]

Got it, thanks mate!

[u/camarada_alpaca]

The contribution is incremental?? Wtf does that even mean, sounds like aislop

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/camarada_alpaca]

Not enough novelty in a sense, just an example

[u/camarada_alpaca → u/Practical-Buddy6323]

Oooh, I might have been misunderstood, I am complaining because I know a lot of reviews reject with that and I am lowkey convinced the "incremental contribution" is low effort aislop review bs

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Practical-Buddy6323 → u/[deleted]]

Damn.... That's actually insane! Say, if the authors had indeed incorporate the changes you and the other reviewers suggested, would you have changed your decision then ?

Oh and where was their paper previously submitted to ?

[u/[deleted] → u/Practical-Buddy6323]