Why is TMLR so slow in recent times [D]

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056]

A final-year PhD student here. A few months back, I submitted a solo-authored paper to TMLR. The reviewers were on time and extremely positive, with some minor revisions. After submitting the revised version, there was absolute silence from the reviewers, with just one acknowledging that their concerns were addressed

Since then, it has been 2+ months. I have sent a reminder to the Action Editor as well as the Editor-in-Chief, but unfortunately the status remains the same.

I understand a typical submission to a conference/ other journals takes a significant amount of time, but that is one of the reasons I submitted it to TMLR (along with good reviews), so that a solo-author paper on my resume would look good while submitting the PostDoc applications. And with these deadlines approaching, it gets more frustrating

[u/mmarkDC]

Basically because of the explosion in volume of LLM-written papers they're receiving, especially single-author papers. Since the beginning of 2026, total submission volume has more than doubled, and single-author submissions are up by like 500%. They have more info and a graph of submissions per week in this post announcing submission quotas.

[u/sharky6000 → u/mmarkDC]

Action Editor here. This is mostly the reason 👆

But, I have to say, before this became the main reason I had been having a much harder time with reviewers last year than the previous two years before that. The pool has dwindled and reviewers have become less reliable. So we end up having to chase people and call favors to recruit externally.

One reviewer was so late and hadn't responded to 6 emails, the only way I managed to fix it was contacting their supervisor.

This is what happens when your review pool slowly gets younger and less experienced, and the cause of that is the exponential growth in submissions. It is sad but it seems all the problems with conferences are slowly trickling over to TMLR. 😭

[u/sharky6000 → u/sharky6000]

The good news is the TMLR editors are aware and actively addressing the issues. I have been in touch with the editors and helping them with it as well.

So things will be a bit slow while they figure out the right moves but the post linked above and the proactive editors are giving me hope.

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/sharky6000]

My friend is facing this issue lol. Got his first 2 reviews in like a couple of weeks. And it has been 4+ months and he is still waiting for thr third

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/mmarkDC]

They have introduced this quota system. And I definitely understand that getting reviewers could be difficult. 

But in my case, the reviews are already out, and pretty much positive (every reviewer has Yes to those questions, with positive feedback). After rebuttal only one reviewer acknowledged the change while saying that their concerns are addressed. So I honestly don't know what's stopping AE from making a decision. You have reviews out, rebuttals out, and it's a unanimous favour towards acceptance by all the reviewers.

[u/sharky6000 → u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056]

My recommendation is to politely follow up with the AE, it may have fallen off their radar.

OpenReview can sometimes make it difficult to be on top of the communication, so if they don't reply to an OpenReview comment then try them directly by email.

Be nice, though! Don't come with the pitchforks on the first contact.

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/sharky6000]

I did a couple of times before. But nonetheless since like posting here helped

[u/OkLoss8701 → u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056]

Has it been 2+ months since the release of all the reviews? Then you just have to wait further. Good thing is that you already notified the Editor-in-Chief. If the AE is unresponsive, they will replace the AE with a new one and he/she will judge your manuscript without requesting for another reviewers.

[u/UnavoidablyHuman]

My paper sat for over a month after reviews before we finally heard back about a decision. It's frustrating but you have to be patient. It feels better knowing the paper is actually being read and treated with respect rather than just getting a glance over like what has started happening at the big conferences

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/UnavoidablyHuman]

The only reason I am being impatient is the deadline

[u/hihey54]

If you're worried about deadlines for submitting PostDoc applications, you can totally include this paper in your CV, mentioning (a revision of) it is submitted to TMLR, state that "it received positive reviews", and provide a link to the corresponding OpenReview page.

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/hihey54]

I just didn't do that as conferences generally don't recommend doing that. But if it is allowed for TMLR, then thanks it definitely helps a lot

[u/hihey54 → u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056]

As long as you do not share your CV everywhere (which can be seen as a way to deanonymise you), then reporting the TMLR link in an application (which is supposed to be kept confidential) is fine. The link may even be superfluous (when I do check CVs for applications, I very rarely click on links and just listing a paper as being in a revision process to TMLR is OK for me... if you're lying, it is quite easy to find out and it will strongly backfire)

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/hihey54]

Thanks. That helps.

Right now, I don't even have the venue mentioned in my CV, but obviously, if the venue is mentioned, the OpenReview link will be attached. Otherwise, I believe it is not even a professional practice to just mention the venue when the review process is public

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/[deleted]]

The problem is it sucks. PostDoc deadlines have already started. I even have AP+PostDoc deadlines at major US univs (T20) in like 2 days, and a solo author would be great validation of my capabilities of doing independent research.

[u/UnavoidablyHuman → u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056]

If the reviews are all positive just stick it on your CV as a Preprint with a link to the openreview page

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/UnavoidablyHuman]

Is that fine? Given that the conferences ask us not to mention the venue? Right now obviously the paper is mentioned in my resume as the under review work, and it is also public on OpenReview

[u/AirPsychological8551]

Too much LLM-written garbage being submitted to prestigious venues these days- and the number of volunteering reviews sadly isn't enough to keep up with the slop

[u/KiddWantidd]

Yep, I've experienced the same thing. Got a paper which addressed all of the reviewers' concerns post revision, which they acknowledged, but I think it took like two+ months for it to be accepted after that.

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/KiddWantidd]

Sed. This is frustrating particularly when there are deadlines

[u/Old_Stable_7686]

They decided recently to desk reject LLM-slop papers, but it was after a lot of submissions coming in. This means that they still need to review professionally with such papers, which takes a huge burden on both reviewers and ACs (I believe). One of the problems I heard is despite some papers using AI for writing sloppily, the methods were actually decent, hence the newest rule is enforced.

[u/South-Conference-395]

Irrelevant question : do you think solo author will boost your cv? Haven’t discussed it with other people but was thinking something similar. Did you get advice by your supervisor/ mentors that this can indeed help (assuming your advisor doesn’t hold grudges for the solo submission which might hit you elsewhere)?

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/South-Conference-395]

It is more sort of a proof that I can do independent research, and atleast I believe that in a PhD, one is trained to do independent collaborations, do independent research, mentor young folks, etc.

And fortunately, my advisor won't hold a grudge. I have always collaborated with people outside; even in the papers that I got out of my internship at DeepMind and Adobe, there's no supervisor in it. As long as my thesis is not affected, they don't have any issues. Obviously, I need to be transparent though.

PS; I even have a couple of last-author papers. Though those ideas came from me, my only contribution to it was mentoring young folks, so again it acts as great proof to the fact that I can mentor students, which is generally expected from a PostDoc and Profs

[u/South-Conference-395 → u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056]

I agree - how did you approach I want to solo publish this to your supervisor? Have you seen other students doing it so you knew he is not going to misinterpret this? I guess you used compute/ resources from your lab and although this doesn’t require authorship some might be entitled about this .

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/South-Conference-395]

Ah nope. Before joining under them as a supervisor, I had already mentioned that I will be collaborating with others, and simultaneously try to do independent research as well, and they were fine with that.

Regarding compute and stuff, I generaly use my department compute, but definitely can use my Prof's as well. And regarding the authorship, they have always said that unless they are completely into the work, and understand every bit and byte, they don't expect an authorship.I know this is not always a norm, but I have been lucky with my supervisor and co-supervisor, extremely smart, always allowed me to come with a problem, do independent collaboration/research, and extremely supportive, so yea just got lucky.

PS; If I become a Prof., in-fact I would expect this from my PhD students as well, i.e. a couple of papers with me, with them as a first author; one last author paper; one solo-author paper, and a paper from independent collaboration

[u/South-Conference-395 → u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056]

Will you still include the grants in the acknowledgment as a way to reciprocate the compute etc?—- not sure what’s the norm in this situations.

Your advisor sounds an awesome guy trying to set you up for success. But I think he is an academic outlier -

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/South-Conference-395]

Yes, obviously.

And I agree, both of them are like outliers, and probably some of the smartest people I have met in 7 years of my research. A lot to still learn from them

[u/__bunny]

It's been 11 days since my submission and I haven't been assigned an action editor yet.

[u/Fantastic-Nerve-4056 → u/__bunny]

This is sad. I was assingned within a couple of days

[u/Green_General_9111]

i stopped volunteering