TMLR tightens desk rejects amid submission deluge; ablations called a p-hacking recipe

p_nawrot · x · 2026-09-19

TMLR is tightening desk-rejection policies after a deluge of submissions strained reviewer capacity. Co-EiC Nihar Shah even asked authors of 10 papers slated for desk rejection questions about their own submissions. Researcher giffmana quipped that many papers' ablation sections can be reread as recipes for p-hacking — systematically surfacing only the settings that flatter the headline metric.

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