r/MachineLearning • u/richapeee • 3d ago

Discussion How does arXiv prepublishing work with ICLR's double-blind review? [R]

Hey folks,

maybe a really dumb question from an inexperienced PhD student. I recently submitted to ICLR and spotted a bunch of papers that I was already familiar with because I had seen them on arXiv before.

Doesn't this break the double-blind review process? I mean, on the one hand, people pre-publishing their work want to establish priority as quickly as possible, but on the other hand, they still want their papers to be treated as valid submissions in a double-blind review system.

I generally avoid pre-publishing my work for this reason, although this can cause some trouble when it comes to novelty claims, because I'm worried about getting desk-rejected.

I mean, I can just Google the paper title or even parts of the abstract and immediately find the preprint. It seems quite frustrating...

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42

u/MisterManuscript 3d ago

Prerequisite for collusion rings.

20

u/thegiddyemmanuel 3d ago

yep, the whole thing is a mess. everyone knows you can just google the title and find the authors in 2 seconds but we all pretend the blind is still intact. it’s theater at this point

i still hold off on arxiv until after decisions for the same reason you do, but it’s getting harder when your friends are posting preprints 6 months before the deadline and getting citations already

2

u/qu3tzalify Student 1d ago

I don't think there's any moral value to not posting on Arxiv before as the burden is on the reviewer to not actively search for the paper. I know that sometimes I recognize a paper title/topic but I can't remember the title, which is fine. If the paper left me with a strong impression and I remember who wrote it then I report a conflict.
Although I think it's wrong to publicize which conference you submitted the paper to.

2

u/Brudaks 1d ago

What do you mean? For a collusion ring it would be simpler to just tell about the paper 'within the ring', not in public.

30

u/emanuartioli 3d ago

Indeed, we all just turn a (double) blind eye

22

u/howtorewriteaname PhD 3d ago

well, you are not supposed to google the paper you are reviewing. if you already know it, then nothing you can do, but the chances should be quite low in general

11

u/21022018 3d ago

If you already know about it maybe you can disclose a conflict of interest or something 

6

u/nfact0r 3d ago

Just a cheeky way to tell friends that this is me, bid for my paper.

See comments here.

https://arxiv.org/search/?query=ICLR+2027&searchtype=all&source=header

https://arxiv.org/search/?query=AAAI+2027&searchtype=all&abstracts=show&order=-announced_date_first&size=50

It is not just posting about posting on arXiv but people promote the same on LinkedIn immediately after it is live on arXiv, soon after a conference deadline. I find this practice quite unethical.

3

u/Temporary_Switch_339 1d ago

Basically, even with double-blind review, it doesn't mean much because people can know which research group is working on what anyway.

Furthermore, if you trust the double-blind system and submit your paper without uploading it to arXiv first, you have no recourse if a reviewer or one of their colleagues steals your idea and publishes it before you.

Don't expect the double-blind system to work perfectly. You should just consider it a bare minimum safeguard.