We recently got reviews back for our PLDI submission. Four reviewers. Scores: A, B, C, D. One reviewer per possible grade.
The funniest part? Two of these reviewers both declared themselves experts in the subject area. One said “Good paper, I will champion it.” The other said “Serious problems, I will argue to reject this paper.”
Same paper. Same claimed expertise. Opposite verdicts.
But my favorite detail is this. The strongest rejecter opened their review with:
“Hello authors, and thank you for this fascinating contribution to PLDI!”
And then proceeded to argue hard against it. And left us zero questions to respond to in the rebuttal. Not one. They didn’t want to hear from us at all.
This is academia in a nutshell — highly opinionated, deeply entrenched, and structurally resistant to new ideas. A novel interdisciplinary paper walks into the room and the response is a coin flip dressed up as expertise.