I think what a lot of senior people posting meta about NeurIPS acceptance/rejection/excitement might be forgetting is that it was a lot easier (and dare I say more fun) to get speculative/exploratory (or just any) work published circa 2010-2014 than now. (1/4)

And it’s easier to be philosophical about rejection when you’ve published enough to bet hour career underway. This is a privilege the current crop of PhD students, junior faculty, etc, do not have. (2/4)

So as reviewer, AC and behind, remember that not all work needs to blow your mind. Not all work needs to be perfect. It just needs to advance the field somehow and there’s a need for diversity in how that is realised. (3/4)

At the end of the day, let’s face it, we’re crap at predicting the future impact of a paper. Today’s exciting paper might be tomorrow’s “well that turned out to be hyped-up BS”. We shouldn’t gatekeep, and be happy to mix some exciting stuff with some bread-and-butter. (4/4)

I should be clear that I’m not passive-aggressively subtweeting @togelius here, although I am not sure I agree much with his thread on this issue, which is in part what prompted this thread.