Honestly, it feels like I'm the only one losing by putting real effort into reviews.
The reviewers on my own paper didn't even bother to reply or seriously engage with the rebuttal. Instead, they appeared to copy and paste LLM-generated output with little thought.
In a system like this, what's the point of being the one who spends hours writing thoughtful, constructive reviews?
The overall decline in review quality may partly be due to the reviewer shortage. But I also wonder how many people, like me, started out trying to do a good job and eventually became low-effort reviewers after realizing that nobody else seemed to care.
Of course, I'll keep doing my best. But it's getting harder to stay motivated.
What are your thoughts on how good reviewers gradually turn into bad ones? Have you ever felt the same way?
the system rewards speed over depth so people just optimize for that, its hard to keep grinding when you see copy-paste reviews on your own work and nobody even reads your rebuttal
I think the current conference review system is gradually turning even the remaining good reviewers into bad ones, creating a vicious cycle.
Three things make me give up on reviewing: Terrible author behavior during rebuttal. Arguing against a wall of text 10 times my review and obviously ChatGPT generated makes me want to drop out of the process. Absent AC/SAC support to push back against combatative authors. Increasingly just putting penalties and threats on reviewers (rejecting our papers if our coauthors post a bad review?), forbidding AI use for reviews when papers and rebuttal replies are obviously fully automated, and no conference side or institutional incentives.