CSPaper: peer review sidekick

We have identified the root cause and implemented several fixes. But we can not release this fix until Aug 25th due to a code refactoring mission in progress.

lol a few days ago, AAAI just casually dropped the first-round “reviewer gift pack” and it was wild… people opened their dashboard and saw 8 papers at once. hit refresh? suddenly 11. felt like a surprise loot box nobody wanted then on the same day, the system started pulling them back, like “oops, jk.” now it seems to be 3 reviewers per paper… but yeah, still mostly reviewing direct competitors so not exactly a win. and if you only got 1 paper in round one, chances are you’ll be drafted again in round two. mental prep advised the backdrop: 22k+ submissions this year. absolutely bonkers. the random assignment thing made a lot of us worried about another “Who is Adam” moment. the new reciprocal review rules might help a bit, but it still feels messy funny part tho… some folks i know haven’t been assigned a single paper yet, while others are buried alive. truly RNG (Random Number Generator) reviewer roulette at its finest. so yeah, any other reviewers got their “big pack” yanked overnight? would you rather deal with the madness of 8–11 papers, or this slow-burn redistribution? curious how y’all are coping.

It is said that there are over 22,000 valid submissions entering review phase.

Some guide sent today to reviewers (PC member) Dear XXXX, As a member of the Program Committee, you play a critical role in the success of the AAAI-26 conference . Now that we’ve released Phase 1 paper assignments, we rely on reviewers like you to carefully read papers and provide an informed review of the strengths and weaknesses of the papers. Such reviews are then used to decide which papers will pass into Phase 2 of the review process. Reviews for Phase 1 are due on Monday, September 1 (anywhere on earth). If you anticipate any problems meeting this deadline, please notify the SPC for this paper by creating an “official comment” and set “readers” to the SPC in OpenReview ASAP. You can find more detailed information about the entire review process in the Instructions For AAAI 2026 Reviewers. The AAAI-26 paper matching process takes into account many inputs, including paper keywords, your OpenReview profile, your DBLP record, your paper bids, etc. In some cases, the papers you are matched with may not be a perfect fit for your expertise. Because AAAI-26 is a very large conference that encompasses many types of AI, please do your best. If you wish to pull in an additional colleague to help you review the paper, please check with your SPC first (see instructions above on how to create an official comment). If you do use a subreviewer, please remember that you are responsible for all content in the review, and you should still take part in the Phase 2 discussion (if the paper proceeds to Phase 2). For those of you who have not reviewed for AAAI recently, or just want some additional reviewing tips, please check out the “Guidelines On Writing Helpful Reviews” (also included in the Instructions For AAAI 2026 Reviewers). As we go through the paper review process, please ensure you are familiar with AAAI-26’s ethics policies listed in the Ethical Guidelines for AAAI-26 Reviewers. If you have any concerns regarding ethics, such as authors or reviewers breaking anonymity, reviewers using LLMs, inappropriate pressure to change ratings, etc., you may report them to our ethics chairs through this Google Form. Potential ethics violations will be investigated, now or in the future, by the AAAI-26 Ethics Chairs and/or the AAAI standing Ethics Committee. The chairs or committee will impose penalties, depending on the severity of the infraction. We must emphasize that there is no time limit on when ethics violations can be investigated and sanctions imposed. Thank you again for all your work in making AAAI-26 a success! (If you have any questions or suggestions, please continue to contact us via workflowchairs26@aaai.zendesk.com.) Sincerely, The AAAI-26 Program Chairs