Summary:

I am one of the Editors-in-Chief of the Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR). I reached out to authors of 10 paper submissions to TMLR, originally slated for desk rejection, asking for a meeting to discuss their paper. The author-attendees of the meetings included undergraduate students, master’s students, PhD students, faculty, and independent researchers. Most, but not all, of these papers were solo authored.

Of the ten submissions:

• Authors of one paper withdrew their submission.
• Authors of one paper said they were unavailable due to other commitments.
• Authors of one paper scheduled a meeting but did not show up.
• Authors of three papers were unable to answer basic questions about the paper.
• Authors of three papers answered questions about high-level ideas in the paper but had difficulty when asked further questions on technical details.
• Authors of one paper answered all of my questions (although I identified a major flaw in that paper).

As a referee, I often complain about the crap sent my way for review. This testimony illustrates the shit editors increasingly have to deal with. I was recently contacted again to act as a guest editor. I struggle to see any reason to accept and I'm less and less likely to even consider it.

I'm afraid to see statistics on the country of origin of the authors behind this type of papers. It's increasingly hard to compete in academia if you're not from a tier 0 country.