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My theoretical computer-science paper that I submitted to an Australian (i.e., located in Australia this year) B-level (according to http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks) DBLP-listed computer-science conference was accepted 4 weeks later, but the reviews are short:

1. 5 sentences (accept)




2. 2 sentences (accept)




3. 3 sentences (reject)




4. 3 introductory sentences + 3 sentences noting weak points + 3 sentences noting strong points (borderline)

All four reviews are superficial. They partially contradict each other. The buzzwords and phrases that occur there are: well organized, good presentation, minor format errors, sound results, no theorem proofs, highly relevant, well written, convincing, weak motivation, no empirical study, no clear justification of the contribution, only theoretical analysis, no explanation of contribution, no clear structure, results useful for practicioners and theoreticians.

There is nothing beyond these high-level claims in the reviews: no page numbers, no section numbers, no quotations, no citations, no related work, no examples/counterexamples. None of the reviews substantiates any of its claims.

It's the first time I get this kind of reviews. Usually, they are much longer and mostly deep.

My questions are:

• What is the likely cause of such short and useless reviews?




• Is the conference really serious? (The paper submission site stayed open long after the formal submission deadline.)




• Are my concerns groundless? Is what happened normal for B-level Australian conferences?




• Is there any way to extract more information, say, by writing the PC chair(s)? If so, how do I formulate the message, or even what do I ask? Or is it better to keep silent and be satisfied with acceptance?

The proceedings will be handled by IEEE Conference Publishing Services.

I know that the exact answers might be hard to tell, so I'd be happy with answers based on well-informed guesses.

The basic idea is simple: reviewers have no incentive to write good reviews apart from their desire to see the conference succeed. Seeing an abundance of short, superficial reviews with a high acceptance rate indicates a low quality conference.

An alternative explanation might be that this is a non-archival conference, often referred to as a workshop. In that case reviewers mostly care about the general problem the paper presents and whether it sounds interesting/relevant. Program chairs are usually those who go through the papers to see what fits (and there’s a small number of submissions).

If it’s not a workshop, the program committee/organizers aren’t well-respected researchers, and they charge you a lot of money in registration fees, I’d consider retracting.

My field is statistics and I know that in computer science conference publications have a different (higher) standing than in statistics, so what I write may only be marginally relevant. However, I would distinguish between the high level conferences with top-level high impact publications and high rejection rates, and conferences that are in the first place there in order to foster exchange and scientific discussion, where results are also published but not aiming at particularly high impact. In statistics this is the norm rather than the exception. It doesn't mean at all that the conference is "not serious" - it may still be a fine conference. However it won't give your paper a high impact. If that's not what you're after (and I have no idea whether your paper is of a standard that would allow you to aim high), you could well be fine with that conference (of course I can't know for sure not knowing the conference). I don't believe, by the way, that any conference will have negative impact on your CV. Zero is the worst that can happen, unless you boast about that conference as if it was the pinnacle of anyone's career.

As for explanations, it may be that they use a small pool of reviewers whom they send several papers with very tight deadlines. Then that's what you get. Not top level practice but not necessarily a sign for a crappy conference either.

The fact that the conference is on an international rotation makes it at least decent. The issue here is the quality of the feedback and the frustration that the feedback has not provided more direction in your work. Unfortunately this happens. It could be the reviewer of your particular section. It could be that the conference organisers discouraged or made decent feedback difficult (as others have remarked here).

Maybe focus on getting more feedback and support at the conference itself? Write to presenters and people attending about your work. Organise a time to meet them. Attend relevant preconference workshops. These skills are important in developing collaborations and opportunities even if you are going to leave academia. Hopefully they would be happy to help and give your issues some thoughts and suggestions.

Slamming the conference and conference organisers is poor form. It could be that the conference is run by and managed by emeritus professors and this is their retirement gig. It could be that it is not as rigorous as other places. But you have to make do with the situation as it is rather than what you would like it to be. Plan to exit and platform out of your toxic environment as quickly as you can.